Walked into a job site yesterday and saw my foreman measuring twice but cutting blind - drove me insane

Used to just grab my tape and go, but after a framing job in Denver where I was off by 3/8 on 12 studs, now I mark, check, mark again, cut, and check one more time before setting anything - has anyone else had a rookie mistake that completely changed your measuring routine?

3 comments

3 Comments

jessica7078d ago

Oh man, that double check habit saves so much headache! I started doing the mark-check-cut-check thing after I messed up a whole countertop slab - measuring once cost me like 4 hours of rework. Now I even say the numbers out loud to myself, feels silly but works.

king.val8d ago

Whoa, I gotta disagree with you on this one @jessica707. All that double checking and saying numbers out loud just slows you down and kills your flow. I used to do the whole measure-twice thing but honestly it just made me second guess myself more, not less. I had a buddy who was so paranoid about cutting a 2x4 wrong that he measured it seven times and still ended up cutting it short by an inch, you know? Sometimes you just gotta trust your eye and commit, even if you mess up once in a while (that's what wood filler is for, right?).

the_anthony7d ago

And that buddy of yours reminds me of my uncle who once spent an entire weekend measuring a deck frame and still built it six inches too narrow. He spent so much time worrying about the individual boards that he lost track of the whole picture, you know? Wood filler does bail us out a lot but I swear half the time it just makes me feel better about a mistake I could've avoided with one more look.