Hey, was wondering what things people have fucked up in an attempt to make myself feel better about mine mistakes.
I’ll start the motivation behind this thread, I tried electrocuting myself wrongly wiring up an electric water heater/boiler switch to the LR4 I’m building.
Machine is fine, my fingers are crispy and I can’t wait to start cutting the torsion table tomorrow 
sharing right and wrong wiring.
Ouch! I rarely take pictures of my mistakes so everyone thinks I am always perfect, 
Ryan, you wouldn’t know as much as you do if you did things perfectly.
I tried wiring a kettle heating element to my stainless keg still and stupidly did so in such a way that the entire thing became live. Luckily the variable voltage controller was set low to like 50V or something when I got the through body notification. Still haven’t told the wife about that one.
Sorry, but my first ex-wife is fairly private, and I’ve been smart/healthy enough to not look her up in well over two decades… And her lucky contestant number three(?) took care of the related oopsies surrounding my name on birth certificates that it should not have been. Otherwise, I’d have to go with my own semi-feral (yet declawed) she-beast that I took as an act of mercy during divorce #2…
And, of course, last Halloween, when I terrified my kids with this selfie:
For context, I have had facial hair since the very late 1900’s, and they have never seen my chin or upper lip. The real oopsie was seeing my brother in the mirror until my beard grew back in. 
I mean, holy 
I still can’t process that. But, hope you’re doing well!
I’ve turned a few wires into space heaters by having something accidentally shorted in a project.
Most of mine were early on in the quadcopter days. I miss wired an “all in one” and fried every servo cable going to every speed controller by sending full flight battery lipo power down them instead of the regulated power.
I learned to test with almost dead batteries that day.
I once hit dog crap with a weed wacker.
I have 2 Pyrenees. No comment.
On his YouTube channel, Wesley Treat has an illuminated countdown (up?) timer on his workshop wall that counts the days (or hours?) since the last “Dumb”.
I think if I had that, I’d be spending more time hitting the bell than actually working.
By way of example, today my tablesaw would not tilt beyond 47° which is 2° less than I needed.
I pulled it out so I could get to the trunnion to see what was going on, and in doing so noticed that the back panel had dropped out of place (I’d forgotten to move it before tilting the blade) but also there was a lot more sawdust in the machine than there should be.
There was almost no vacuum in the extraction system to the saw, and stupidly I dumped a few handfulls of dust down, blocking it entirely, so I went outside and checked the extractor filters (which were fine), and he fans (all good) came back inside and noticed that two other blast gates were open on the other lines.
Closed them, cleared the blockage got my compressor line and cleaned all the dust out of the trunnion gears and sure enough, squeaked the last 2° out of the tilt mechanism.
Then I vacuumed up most of the mess I’d made, and went to push the saw back into its normal position.
That was when I remembered - I’d moved it back a few inches further than normal about a year ago, and the motor when tilted clashes with the workbench top that serves as an outfeed table.
I guess I could call it a lost hour or two, but no one got hurt, no MDF was damaged and the saw has had its annual clean.
air compressor is great for clearing out a table saw’s clogged dust.
Turn the dust collector on (check blast gates), point the nozzle inside the table saw through the opening next to the blade. Give it a few quick bursts in each corner.
Be careful doing this… Too big a blast of air shoots dust back into your face.
I try to do this at the end of each day if I’ve been using the table saw. In reality, it only happens if ‘A’ the air compressor hose is already pulled across the shop because I was using the brad nailer and ‘2’ if the dust collector is still running for some reason. Or ‘III’ if the dust chute out of the table saw is clogged.
I only use air as a last resort - I try to keep airborne dust down to an absolute minimum, both from a health and cleanliness perspective, but also because my “shed” is an internal garage with direct connections to the house.
I do run the exhaust fans for a few hours after these episodes, just to make sure the shed is negatively pressurised!
Ok, this looks like a place I belong. Just last night was changing the oil in my car and found a spot that appeared to be leaking. So i took it apart and the piece that came out was all nasty dirty. I took a rag to it to clean off the crusty oil and proceeded to break the end off with very little effort. Of course it was 5 minutes from closing time so no way to get a new one last night. It turns out it’s a Pcv valve. Now i get to ride my bike to work today and pick up a new one.
