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Hot take: the old boilermaker who told me to quit chasing threads by hand was right, and it took a blown tube sheet to prove it
Back in 2019 I was on a heat exchanger job in Toledo and this old timer named Ray watched me fight a stuck stud for 20 minutes with a hand tap. He said quit messing with it and just drill it out and go oversize. I figured he was just tired and wanted to go home. Two days later I snapped the tap off flush in the tube sheet and we lost most of a shift getting it out. Ray never said a word, just handed me a drill. Now I keep a tap extractor in my bag and I still don't use it much. Any of you got a rule you ignored until it bit you?
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river_reed14d ago
Learned this same lesson with my truck. Kept babying a stripped lug nut instead of just cutting it off. Spent two hours cussing in the driveway. My neighbor came over with a grinder and had it off in five minutes. It's the same thing everywhere, we hang onto the slow way because it feels safer or cheaper. Then it costs us double. Ray knew that.
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