@jake_mason30 you're right about that. When I was learning to work on old farm tractors, the same thing applied. You had to know how each part worked because you couldn't just order a new module online. I still remember my uncle listening to an engine idle and saying "number three cylinder is a little weak" and being right. That kind of skill comes from years of paying attention, not from watching a YouTube video.

Man that's rough, I feel for the guy. Thermal paste all over the socket pins is a nightmare to clean up. People really gotta stick with the pea method, it works fine.

The blade being on backwards is why it was cutting square. Forward blades actually cut wider on one side. So technically you had it right before you fixed it.

80% of my first year of binding was basically me slapping PVA on everything like a maniac and wondering why my spines looked like wrinkled laundry. I used to think Frank was some old coot until I tried watering down the PVA for lining paper and suddenly my books didn't look like they survived a flood. Now I keep a little squeeze bottle with 60/40 water to glue mixed up, specifically for spine linings and mull, and it's like night and day. I'm convinced the bookbinding YouTube guys are just trying to sell us glue stock or something.

Totally agree! I had almost the exact same thing happen with a couple of tooling leather suppliers last year. The big box store hide had so many belly cracks and soft spots I ended up tossing half of it.