Shoutout to the guy in Bakersfield who called me out on my framing gun

I was on a job site in Bakersfield last month, framing out a new garage. This older carpenter walks over, looks at my nail gun, and asks if I ever check the depth adjustment before I start. I told him yeah, sure, I set it that morning. He just shakes his head and picks up a scrap piece of lumber, fires a nail, and it sinks a quarter inch too deep. He says, 'you're wasting time and material with that.' Took me two minutes to dial it in right, and after that my work went twice as fast. I've been framing for 6 years and never had someone call me out like that. Anyone else had a stranger on site give them a tip that actually stuck?

3 comments

3 Comments

patricia325d ago

Has this ever happened to a friend of yours? My buddy Mike had something similar happen with a miter saw. He was building cabinets and this older woman who was a finish carpenter walks past his station at the lumber yard. She stops and says "your fence is off by a hair, that's why your corners are gappy." He thought she was crazy but he checked it with a square and sure enough it was out a tiny bit. She showed him how to tap it back with a mallet and check with a speed square instead of a digital level. He said after that his miters were tight every time and he never really trusted his fence setup the same way. It's Humble when someone with more experience just walks up and tells you what you're missing without being rude about it.

leo_johnson5d ago

Man I had almost the exact same thing happen but with a circular saw. Was cutting some treated lumber for a deck and this old timer just walks up and goes 'you're burning through blades because you're pushing too fast.' I was like nah I know what I'm doing and he just points at the burn marks on the edge. He showed me how to let the saw do the work and match the speed to the blade. Saved me from replacing blades every other week. Little things like that from a stranger who's been doing it longer just hit different.

olivia_white935d ago

@leo_johnson that's a good point but burning can also come from a dull blade, not just pushing too fast.