PSA: double check your blueprint scale before you cut

I was at my desk in Austin last Tuesday laying out a set of structural drawings for a new office build. Didn't notice the sheet was scaled at 1/4" instead of 1/8" until I already had 40 feet of conduit run on the model. Had to redo the whole thing from scratch, wasted a solid 4 hours. Has anyone else had a scale mix-up mess up their whole day?

4 comments

4 Comments

wade_kelly771d ago

Funny you mention that, reminds me of a buddy who was framing a deck last summer. He pulled out what he thought was a 10 foot level but it was actually a 12 footer from a different job site. Didn't realize until he had the whole ledger board up and the bubble was way off. Ended up having to shim everything and it looked terrible. Scale issues are a nightmare but sometimes you just gotta laugh about it after the fact.

tessaperry1d ago

Oh man that's brutal.

iris_schmidt1d ago

Wait, wait - you ran 40 feet of conduit before you checked the scale? Thats not a small oops, thats a full-blown disaster of a morning. I would've been staring at that computer screen for a solid ten minutes just trying to will it back to the right size before accepting the grind of redoing it.

mark_chen621d ago

Man I did something similar back when I was helping a friend hang drywall. Grabbed my 6 foot level without looking and it was actually a 4 footer from a different bag. Spent an hour getting the first sheet perfect only to realize the bubble was lying to me. Had to tear it all down and start over with the right tool. At least the conduit thing sounds like it was just a digital mistake, I had mud all over me and a sore back to go with my shame.