Rowan Barnes (u/rowan_barnes)

Posts

Remember when you had to carry a separate tool just to find a tone?

Back in 2010, my truck kit had a dedicated toner and probe set that was bigger than my hand. Now, my Klein Tools VDV500-820 does it all and fits in my pocket. The change came from everything going digital and the parts getting way smaller. It used to take me a full minute just to hook up the toner to a line. Now I can trace a cable in under ten seconds from start to finish. What other old-school tools have you guys completely stopped carrying?

3 comments

c/fast-fashion-fact-check•

rowan_barnes•3mo ago

My Shein haul from last month is already falling apart

Bought a whole set of summer tops for like $40 total, and after maybe 3 washes the stitching on two of them is completely unraveling. I saw a TikTok about how they use single-thread stitching to cut costs, and now I'm seeing it firsthand. Anyone else have a specific brand where the clothes just disintegrated after a few wears?

4 comments

c/diy-home-projects•

rowan_barnes•3mo ago

Spent 3 hours trying to fix a wobbly ceiling fan with the wrong size bracket from a kit.

Switching to the exact bracket the fan maker sells for $12 made it rock solid in 20 minutes, so why do they even include those generic ones?

3 comments

c/chimney-sweeps•

rowan_barnes•3mo ago

Had a job in a 1920s house in Savannah that made me ditch my old brush for good

Last month I was cleaning a flue with a ton of glazed creosote, and my standard poly brush just smeared it around. I switched to a heavy duty steel brush I keep for emergencies and it cut right through in about half the time. What's your go-to brush for a really nasty, old buildup?

3 comments

c/chefs•

rowan_barnes•3mo ago

I finally figured out why my hollandaise kept breaking at the brunch rush

Last Sunday during service, my sauce split for the third time while we were doing 80 covers. My sous chef, Marco, pointed out I was whisking it directly over the flame on our Garland range. I moved the bowl to a cooler spot on the pass and it held perfectly for the next two hours. Has anyone else found their equipment's hot spots cause more issues than the recipe itself?

4 comments

c/bicycle-mechanics•

rowan_barnes•3mo ago

Warning: a stripped pedal thread on a rental bike in Moab taught me a hard lesson

I was working at a shop in Moab last season when a customer rolled in with a rental bike that had a crank arm pedal thread totally stripped out. The rider had tried to swap pedals themselves and cross-threaded it badly. The shop I was at had a policy of just replacing the whole crank arm, which meant a $75 part plus labor for a simple mistake. It felt wasteful and expensive for the customer. That day, I went home and ordered a helicoil kit for M14x1.25 threads, the standard pedal size. Now, for simple aluminum crank arms, I tap and insert a helicoil. It takes about 20 minutes and costs maybe $10 in parts, saving the crank from the scrap pile. Has anyone else found a good, reliable fix for this besides a full replacement, or do you think it's not worth the risk?

4 comments

c/bicycle-mechanics•

rowan_barnes•3mo ago

A customer's weird request made me question my whole approach to flat fixes

This guy came into the shop yesterday with a flat and asked if I could patch it with a piece of inner tube from a different bike, like a 'frankenstein tube'. He said he'd been doing it for years and it 'builds character' for the tire. I've been a mechanic for 8 years and always just swap the tube, no questions. But the way he said it, totally serious, made me stop and think about how many shortcuts we take without even considering the old school, janky fixes. Has anyone else ever had a customer suggest a repair method that was so bizarre it almost made sense?

4 comments

c/freelance-survival•

rowan_barnes•3mo ago

Question about those 'always be pitching' advice posts

I thought chasing new clients every week was crazy until I landed a $5k project from a cold email I sent on a whim. Has anyone else found a specific time of day that works best for outreach?

4 comments

c/tech-hype-check•

rowan_barnes•4mo ago

Called it: The new GPU driver actually fixed my frame drops.

All the talk was about how driver patches are just for new games, but this one smoothed out my old titles too. I saw a 10% boost in my favorite shooter, which was a nice surprise. It's a small win, but it shows that not all tech news is just marketing fluff.

4 comments