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Fess up to your latest bonehead mistake


dwasifar

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I'll start.

 

The other day I was replacing lights in the basement.  The old lights were shop lights plugged into ceiling mounted outlets.  The new lights are hardwired fixtures.  What I was doing was mounting each new fixture, then turning off the juice, removing the outlet and metal cover assembly, and hardwiring the new fixture to the metal box.

 

I was on my seventh fixture of seven.  I mounted the new fixture, unscrewed the outlet cover from the box, and cut the wires to the outlet with my lineman pliers.

 

BANGflash!  And everything went dark.  I forgot the "turn off the juice" step.  Dead short of the two wires through the pliers' jaw.  Got it right the first six times, slipped up on the seventh.  :huh:

 

Fortunately I have a long habit of handling any wire or device as if it's live whether it is or not, so I never touched the outlet contacts while I was taking down this inadvertently live outlet.  So it was nothing more than a momentary surprise, an interesting new mark on my old pliers, and a rueful walk to the breaker panel.  Could have been a lot worse.

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The other day my boss called me and wanted me to check out his well at one of his properties, get over there figure out it is the booster pump get one ordered comes in install it worked well for awhile then would only come on intermintintly thought the pump switch was going out so I got a new one and installed it still same problem, couldn't figure it out ended up calling a well guy cost him $500 to find out a hose bib was on. In my defense though I don't know shit about Well's

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This wasn't my most recent mistake but one time I took the recip saw and cut right through one floor joist in a house remodel. The foreman used his foot and taped on the joist like he was pointing to it when he was explaining what I was supposed to do and I cut. It was a misunderstanding on my part.

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5 hours ago, Jronman said:

This wasn't my most recent mistake but one time I took the recip saw and cut right through one floor joist in a house remodel. The foreman used his foot and taped on the joist like he was pointing to it when he was explaining what I was supposed to do and I cut. It was a misunderstanding on my part.

 

What'd you do?  Just sister it up and move along?

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I was cutting the inner walls with a circ saw at about 1 meter from the floor. Somehow the depth adjustment came loose and I cut into the main electrical feed for the house. Didnt even realise for 2 days, because 2 of the phases coming in were still working. 

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Well, I built an Adirondack chair semi-recently based on slightly modified plans I've used before.  Finished it and realized I'd installed the arms wrong (the attached part is on the outside of the arm instead of the inside).  It doesn't really affect the use (okay, a wider person may feel a little more cramped), but it looks funny sitting next to my older one.

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Couple years ago I got into a habit of putting framing nails through various fleshy parts... 2 fingers, wrist, thigh.... you'd think after the first or second....... or third time I'd get a clue.  

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On 5/21/2018 at 9:46 PM, Cr8ondt said:

Couple years ago I got into a habit of putting framing nails through various fleshy parts... 2 fingers, wrist, thigh.... you'd think after the first or second....... or third time I'd get a clue.  

Good reason not to wire the trigger down when in bump fire mode?

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I didn't drain my chainsaw last season and it was dead as a door nail when I just tried to use it. The dealer wanted a fortune to clean it so I took the carb apart, flushed it with Gumout emptied the tank and replaced with premix and it ran like a top....for five minutes and quit again. There must have been more gunk in the fuel line. Ready for second attempt. I will stick to the premix in the can, from now on, if I ever get it running. It is no alcohol gas with 2 cycle oil and their version of Stabil. That stuff will not gum up and ruin parts.

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