Oh CR4P Moments in Retrospect?

At times I would have moments where I'm in a deep sleep and I would have a flash dream of a problem of a project at work that I overlooked that would snap me awake............

Would not be able to get back to sleep, and the next day...........any of the 7 days the would fall in the next day, I would go in to correct it. If it was a big problem hopefully I'd have the weekend to correct it.

Other than that, if it was a problem at home, most cases it was because I read the assembly instructions wrong...........,

You actually sleep during a big project? I don't.

Yes, I actually do............ has something with my primitive side. I also didn't say it was a restful sleep.

But after 25+ years of it, I have learn and I sleep alot better and more often.

This happend to a bow I made recenty after about 50 shots.
I managed to shorten it by 2" and re splice it, adding a V thin patch back and belly to add extra support/stiffness/tension resistance.
I was distraught as I'd gone out of my way to get it finished so this guy could have it as a Christmas present from his wife.
It was a relief he didn't have it fold up in his hand on Christmas day

Here it is after the repair. You can just about make out the back patch peeking out from beath the grip, but being made from the same wood it doesn't look out of place.

Whew, what a relief...
Del

"Oh the Humanity", is not a good felling, but the fix is........ good save.

but you could have used this on another post if you had used duct tape.

are you sawing the blank or splitting it. split a good blank "straigth grained" with a froe . let it dry and use a draw knife and spoke shave to rough it out. steam blank and put it jig. finish the bow after the blank dries.

1. I told Mrs. North that I would show her how I liked my cutlery washed. No need to wait for the retrospective part. I got my CR4P immediately.

2. I was reconfiguring the drains under my kitchen double sink. Of course, I discovered a better way to do things immediately after gluing all the bits together. Only through brute strength [and a large pipe wrench] was I able to break them apart before the glue had permanently set.

3. Rebuilding my back fence this past summer, I had to replace the hinge post. I had the old post out and the hole dug exactly over the center. Dropped the new post in and lined it up to the existing fence. Somehow, the new post was 2" closer to the lane [not in the center of the hole]. I thought that was kind of funny but convinced myself that all my lines and plumbing didn't lie. I set the post in and replaced all the paving stones. Built the gate and attached it to the new post. Installed the latch. That was when I saw that the gate was not parallel to the fence. I don't know what happened. My son was helping, so I suspect he had something to do with it. Mrs. North, the dear, and my son have been busting my b4lls ever since. And rightly so. I was just going to leave it, figuring I'd get used to it. Dammit, I can't leave it like that. I'll be rebuilding that section in the spring. Hopefully I won't need to build a new gate.

Your statement of

"Somehow, the new post was 2" closer to the lane [not in the center of the hole]."

I had a neighbor that had erected a Pole Shed. And his requirement was that one door had to be 12' wide so he can drive one of his implements through, it was the reason why he built it.

he was very disappointed when his required 12' wide door was only 11'-6" wide for that very same reason. When he told me, that even made me feel bad, now he has a door that he can't use. Fortunately he has a 16' door (15'-6" opening) on the side of the building.

For me, as with your neighbor, I'm sure it was not a lack of planning or not being careful enough. I encountered something that didn't fit my plan and refused to waver from my belief that my measurements were right. I should have stopped and rejigged as soon as I saw the post was not where it should have been. I believe that failure is not bad, it gives an opportunity for learning. You can bet the farm I will NEVER make that mistake again.

It was my neihbors fault, it even stated on the prints that all the dimensions were centerline of the posts.

You can bet the farm I will NEVER make that mistake again.

education doesn't come cheap.

I came this close >||< to losing my job once for trusting a manufacturer's data sheet. The device used high voltage and I did my design based on the expectation that the device would perform nominally at the 'typical' high voltage. Big mistake. Luckily for me the EE I was working with had some margin in his design that allowed the device to be run at 15% above the nominal high voltage (though still within the device's specs). That saved my bacon and saved the program.

Once upon a time I spent about a full day debugging some digital circuits that were not working properly. They worked but they just didn't work correctly all the time. I finally called in the consulting engineer and he suggested I try putting in the power fuse. I had only checked power at the power supply terminals of a bench supply and not on the circuits. The digital CMOS was being powered by the analog microphone circuits. Once I added the fuse the circuit worked properly.

That was the "oh CR4P" moment when I understood why "old timers" said that you should always check your power supply at every chip's power pin.

I was helping a friend who was electrical problems on his classic '64 Rambler 990 Coupe. Seems that if he let the car sit idle for more than a few days the battery would be drained below starting voltage.

I pulled the positive lead from the battery and inserted his analog multimeter into the circuit, 550 ma was flowing. I had him pull one fuse at a time until it stopped, it was the courtesy light circuit, but none were illuminated.

I asked him about the trunk, he opened it, sure enough the light was lit, he said "...but it goes out..". I asked him if he ever knew if the light in the fridge went out when he closed it, he looked puzzled, so I rolled into the trunk and asked him to close it. Of course the light stayed on.

He said he didn't understand what happened, it was working fine until he adjusted the mounting bracket for the light, but he knew he didn't touch the switch. A quick look at the wiring diagram showed the feed was always hot to the socket, and no switch could be found.

I said, "Mike, it's a gravity switch, bend the bracket back to the way you found it and let's see what happens." Sure enough the light went out, and the look on his face was priceless!

I re-built a wood fence one the side of my house, about 50 feet long, inside the existing fence that separated my pool from my neighbor's yard.

I had six 12" dia holes, two feet deep dug.

After I had set the steel posts in place, I discovered that one of them was out of line with the 5 others, by one inch.

Then, I remembered that I was welding the mounts to the posts for the fence. A one inch spacer, welded to the two mounts on that post, solved the problem.

The fence is straight.

Dunno whether this one has aired here before.

Location: Holt Station, North Norfolk Railway [NNR] (one of the UK's fabulous volunteer-run heritage railways).

It was a cold and gloomy January Sunday afternoon when the last rail had to be cut and drilled to finish off the run-round loop at Holt, enabling the NNR to operate loco-hauled trains there for the first time and free itself from the financial constraint of only being able to use a 4-wheel railbus. Someone (right-handed) ran a tape down the rail and marked it where it needed to be cut; 42ft 6in or something like that - a non standard length to be cut from the last 45ft rail on site. In with the petrol rail saw. Vroooom! Off it went and rail cutting commenced.

The team received a message that the test loco had left Sheringham, 6¹/₂ miles away. Fine. Get the rail in, test the track with the loco, then it's Offski time.

On offering it up the 42ft 6in rail was 1ft too short....

Oh, CR4P. In measuring the rail, the right-handed person had held the body of the measuring tape in the left hand, meaning that the legend on the tape was the wrong way up when the cut mark went onto the rail. 42ft 6in had become 41ft 6in in the failing light. Understandable, forgivable, and extremely annoying.

Mad panic. There was a 22ft 6in rail handy, which matched the sleeper spacing, and another off-cut from which a 20ft closer could be cut. A solution, though not ideal.

The keys were being knocked in and two bolts from each four-bolt fishplate were being tightened frantically as the light faded, with the test loco standing a few feet from the gap to be closed awaiting a proceed signal from the Person-in-Charge.

Fifteen years later those two short bits are still there....

Just had one of those moments this afternoon.

We're expanding production of one of our facilities by 50%.

Our existing cooling towers were originally spec'ed on the light side, since I had to put up another cooling tower, I'd make it up on the new tower.

Well, I had all the heat rejection loads on all the process equipment. I also had the lbs/hr of cooling water as well as the GPM ^{(I had the GPM for presentation purposes)} . And also compared to with the existing along with expanded and total requirements. I had this in an Excel spreadsheet.

I thought, I'll review everything.......for the umpteenth time. because the quotes for the tower construction is coming in tomorrow.

After looking through it, I noticed that I did not have the GPM of the cooling water listed on one of the processes and thinking that I usually based everything off one cell. i.e. BTU/hr based off the pounds of cooling water/hr based off the GPM. Well the cell that should have had the GPM listed was open. Which meant the cooling cell was approx. 1,200,000 btu/hr short. (with a 20% safety factor).

Shear panic. one of these times I'm going to grab my chest and it'll be for real.

Called up the supplier of the cooling cell, told him the requirement I'll be needing. And his reply was that's what he quoted quoted. Right at that time, I saw on my speadsheet, I may not of added the GPM in the cell, but I added the require BTU/hr for that process. And in my panic, I did not review what was spec'd.

We had a good laugh about it.

It was spec'd correctly, even though I feel good about it, I still feel a little shook up. All this happened in about 20 minutes. The roller coaster just stopped and I'm going home.