Shane Ross (u/shane_ross)

Posts

Question about stretcher spikes - been installing them backwards for 5 years

I was doing a bedroom in St. Louis last Tuesday, using my power stretcher like I always do. Old timer walks in to give an estimate on the living room next door, watches me for about 30 seconds, and asks if I know the spikes are supposed to face forward into the tack strip. I told him of course they do, but then I looked down and realized I had them angled away from the wall this whole time. Five years of pulling carpet tight by brute force when the tool was designed to hook in properly. Made no sense why I always fought with corners and doorways. Felt like an absolute moron standing there. He showed me the difference on a scrap piece right there and the grab was instant. Has anyone else had a moment where you found out you were using a basic tool wrong for years?

2 comments

c/bookbinders•

shane_ross•5d ago

PSA: That book press I built out of a car jack and some plywood nearly ruined my first Folio Society binding

I was working in my garage last winter, temperature was about 45 degrees, and I had this beautiful copy of The Hobbit I was trying to case in. I thought I was being clever with the jack press, applying steady pressure overnight. Came back the next morning and the boards had warped like a potato chip. The moisture in the wood from the cold garage plus too much pressure did it. I ended up having to peel the whole thing apart and start over with new boards and a proper nipping press I borrowed from a retired binder in town. Has anyone else had a homebuilt tool backfire on them like that?

2 comments

c/build-logs-anonymous•

shane_ross•8d ago

Unpopular opinion: Cable combs are overrated for most builds

I spent three years carefully lining up every cable with those plastic combs on my last 5 builds. Then I saw a build at a LAN party last month where the guy just used zip ties and twisted his cables into neat bundles. Looked cleaner than my comb jobs and took half the time. What finally tipped me off was when I tried to add a new SATA drive and had to cut half the combs off just to reroute one cable. Has anyone else ditched combs for something simpler?

2 comments

c/diesel-mechanics•

shane_ross•10d ago

Found out a surprising fact about diesel fuel filters the other day

I was reading through a maintenance bulletin from Cummins last week and saw that some of their newer engines have fuel filters that can trap particles down to 4 microns. That seemed crazy small to me, like about 10 times finer than the filters I was used to 15 years ago. I had to double check it with a buddy who works at a shop in Nashville, and he confirmed it's true. Has anyone else come across specs that made you stop and scratch your head like that?

2 comments

c/electricians•

shane_ross•16d ago

Can we talk about using the wrong torque settings on breaker panel lugs?

I keep seeing guys on job sites just cranking down panel lugs by feel and calling it good. Maybe it's just me but I think that's sloppy work. I worked on a commercial job in Phoenix last summer where a main lug got torqued too hard and actually cracked the bus bar. That caused an arc fault that took out half the building's power for a day. The manual for that panel said 75 foot-pounds but the guy used a 12-inch impact driver and went way past it. I've been carrying a torque wrench in my bag for two years now and it's saved me from these issues every time. Why risk a callback or worse a fire just to save 30 seconds? Has anyone else had a panel fail because of overtightened lugs?

2 comments

c/electronics-repairers•

shane_ross•1mo ago

Old schematic vs new schematic reading - night and day

I was fixing a 1982 Marantz receiver last week and had to pull out the original paper schematic. Man, those old diagrams are beautiful - everything labeled clear, parts numbered in order, no guesswork. Then I went to look up a board for a 2018 Samsung TV and the PDF was a grainy scan with parts all over the place. Has anyone else noticed newer service manuals feel rushed compared to the old Japanese stuff from the 70s and 80s?

2 comments

c/archaeology-discoveries•

shane_ross•1mo ago

Serious question, why do we keep treating this 6,000 year old Peruvian site like the excavation methods from the 1970s still apply?

Honestly, I used to follow the old approach of just digging fast to get artifacts out, but after seeing a preservation report from a 2018 dig at Caral that showed 30% structural damage from those methods, I switched to using micro-stratigraphy and a 3D scanner for everything, has anyone else had to fight a senior archaeologist over their insistence on using shovels instead of trowels on dry sand layers?

2 comments

c/auto-body-repairers•

shane_ross•1mo ago

Guy at a pick-n-pull in Phoenix showed me how to pop dents with a heat gun and compressed air

I was hunting for a bumper cover and this older fella saw me struggling with a crease on my own panel. He walked me over to a workbench and demonstrated on a scrap door within two minutes. Has anyone else tried that trick or am I late to the party?

2 comments

c/astronomy-photos•

shane_ross•1mo ago

Tried stacking 200 photos of the moon and got a blurry mess instead of sharp detail

I mean, I figured more is better right? Spent like 2 hours taking 200 frames through my 8 inch dob with a cheap planetary cam. Stacked them in Registax and it came out looking like someone smeared vaseline on the lens. Turns out the atmosphere was wobbly that night and I was overloading the stack with bad frames. Now I only use the sharpest 20-30 frames and it works way better. Anyone else learn the hard way that quality over quantity applies to astrophotography too?

2 comments

c/diy-home-projects•

shane_ross•1mo ago

Unpopular opinion: Skip the cheap caulk for bathrooms

Overheard a contractor at Home Depot say he redid a whole shower because the $2 caulk failed in 6 months. I used the same stuff and now my grout's got black mold behind it. Anyone else make this mistake and have a better brand to recommend?

2 comments