F

Posts

Recent Comments

2h ago

in

I finally figured out a quick way to check for a stripped bolt on a Cessna 172 flap track

...but I gotta push back a little on this whole idea, @foster.tessa. I think a lot of people get real paranoid about stripped bolts when the reality is most of these fasteners are over-engineered for the job they do. A paint pen trick is clever, sure, but you gotta wonder how many of those "bad" bolts actually pass a proper torquing test once you get down to it. I've seen guys at the hangar call a bolt stripped just because the paint moved, but it was just some dried crud or a wonky wrench angle giving a false positive. Not saying it's never a problem, but the worry about loose bolts flying around out there feels bigger than the actual risk most of the time.

1d ago

in

Spent $400 on a used power hammer, biggest mistake of my shop time

Man that sucks! I did the same thing with a used lathe last year, thought I was getting a steal for $300 but the ways were totally worn down in one spot so everything I turned came out tapered. I spent more time shimming the tailstock and chasing backlash than actually making chips. Sold it for scrap eventually. Sometimes the cheap price tag just means you're buying someone else's headache and a parts list

1d ago

in

Hot take: My rigging book from 2005 is still more useful than some new apps I tried

Gotta say though, grid paper isn't actually that common in notebooks. Most of them use lined or blank pages. Grid paper's more of a specific thing like for engineering or math notes. But I get what you mean. The point is just having something physical that works every time. No battery, no updates, no ads popping up when you're trying to jot down a thought. That's really the key difference.

2d ago

in

The weeds in my backyard turned into a forest in 3 weeks while I was on vacation

logan561 is right, the universe is just waiting for you to blink. I left for five days last summer and came back to bindweed that had crawled halfway across my patio, like it was trying to take the house.

2d ago

in

Serious question about free antivirus vs paid after my scare last month

I mean, free Windows Defender has behavior detection too and it's caught stuff for me.