Butchloc you will really appreciate this. At the risk of really publishing my embarrassment for the sake of some humor....About a year ago I bought a metal cutting band saw and two extra blades welded by the company I bought from. The other day, I decided I needed to change the original blade and gug out the new one and installed it. Went to cut and it would not cut. Examination revealed that it was backward! The teeth were pointing the wrong way. Took it off and reversed it. same thing. Got out the other blade and it too was wrong. Got pissed and boxed 'em both up with a nasty note telling them they welded tham backwards and got ready to ship back to them. A light came on about a half day later; They were inside out. Why didn't I realize that? earlier. Thank God I hadn't shipped 'em yet

SHeesh! Kids nowadays, your buy 'em books and send them to shcool and what do they do?

Jim,don,t feel bad got a chain saw chain on backward one time after i had it sharpened.Was giving the guy a bad time about it not cutting!!

Jim,
While I may have done something that dumb (I said, "May have".), I don't know that I would be willing to confess to it publicly. Good thing you didn't get those blades sent back.
Reminds me of a helper in the machine shop. I had given him the task of drilling some holes in some pins. After a few minutes he came up and told me the drill bit wouldn't cut. I looked at it and it did look a bit dull so I reground it for him and sent him back to work. Very shortly, he was back again. This time I went to see just where the problem was. Turned out he was running the drill in reverse.
At the same shop, we had a journeyman machinist with over 20 years experience install a new saw blade backwards and cut two pieces of shafting with it. He was bitching about what a crappy blade it was too. So you are not alone. Regards, Bill.

I confess to doing the drill bit backwards thing a couple times.

The funniest one actually was an employee who was drilling some new holes in a Winchester brass/bullets display and towards the end I came to check and there was all this smoke and about 4 black dimples on the board where he hadn't got the idea that it was in reverse.

Funny.

-Spencer

Jim Kobe.

Yes I know what you are talking about. Years ago was in an store and a customer came in complaining about the teeth of the saw blade was backward. I knew the counter person at the time, he just smiled and walked around front. Took the blade from the customer and remarked sure enogh. Then turned it inside out and flipped it away from the counter. (he turned it inside out that way) handed it back to the customer. The customer looked at it and just muttered to himself , then halfway to the door turned around and thanked the counter person while still muttering to himself going out the door.

On the other hand three years ago I got the powersaw out to go cut our Christmas tree. The bar was off so I quickly put the bar and blade back on and tried REAL hard to saw the tree down. You quessed it I had the blade on backwards.

So even the best of us mess up from time to time.

Jim Wisner
Custom Metalsmith

How old a fellow are you Jim? Sounds like a senior moment to me.

Years ago we were doing some work in a Philips Refinery. We needed to heat some stuff up, so I sent one of the new guys over to the powerhouse to get a bucket of steam. He went to the powerhouse and asked the operator. The operator asked him if he wanted high or low pressure steam. He didn't know, so he said high pressure. The operator took the bucket over to a valve and opened it up for a few seconds. He then handed it to the guy before he realized that a joke had been played on him.

there there don't feel bad - we had a box of 6 come in the other day with no teeth on them at all. How about that for quality control

Hey-chain on backwards on a chainsaw? Isn't your saw reversible?--turn it over and it cuts fine, or cut from the bottom of the log.

Reminds me of the time a gal at work asked me what was wrong with her car. I told her the muffler belt was bad and she needed to the parts store and get one.

She got to the 3rd one the first two told her they were out of them before someone told her there wasn't such a thing..

She came back kind of mad.

Jim,

If that was the stupidest thing you ever have done consider yourself far above most of us mortal human beings!

The old Sears-Roebuck store in Halifax, Nova Scotia had a framed letter on the wall of their administration office. It was from a customer who had bought a hand-operated washing machine which had to be assembled before use. Which gives you some idea of just how long the letter had been on that wall.

The gist of the letter was spent lambasting the imcompetent people who had forgotten to include one part. About just how unhappy the customer was and how much of an inconvenience this was to them. Following the signature was a a P.S. which read,"Never mind, I found the part in the bottom of the box".

I shit you not!

Humbarger, for you to digest. I am a junior senior, only 62. The thing about all this is I have been in the machine trade since my apprenticeship in 1962. We used to weld all of our own blades and never had the occasion to weld one inside out. Butchloc, for your info, the DoAll band saw we had used a blade without any teeth and we could cut a file in half with it. The speed was cranked up and worked by burning through it. It was quite impressive.

I am really glad I had not sent that box back and had some patronizing bastard in the shipping department turn them around and send them back.

Not me but I watched my boss kick a $3000.00
Rigid pipe threader over in a fit because he wasnt smart enough to change the direction of the motor.


this is harder than a drill bit in the wrong direction

I once spent over three hours stripping down foot valves and pressure testing pipework in a ships bilge system for suction leaks before I realised I had the polarity from the generator to the pump reversed and the pump was pushing instead of sucking. Somewhat embarassing!!

While inletting some birdseye revolver grips I referenced off the wrong line and much to my amazement when I mounted them I had gaps between the frame and each thumbrest each equal to half the grip strap thickness.

quote:

SHeesh! Kids nowadays, your buy 'em books and send them to shcool and what do they do?

I built houses for a quite a few years, and in the Summer often had young kids as help. I once had a young guy who had just graduated from High School working for me. This kid was nice kid, and a hard worker, but could barely read or do any math. Yet he had graduated!

He started asking me for a raise, so I started to "test" him a bit. I once asked him to cut me a piece of plywood 48" x 96", (plywood comes in sheets 4'x8'...). I bet he "worked" on that piece of plywood for 10 minutes before he finally came back scratching his head asking for help...

My second and I were laughing so hard we were in tears.

And he had graduated from school... I wonder what he's doing now?

Two stories from my days stationed on a nuclear powered submarine.

One of my junior Sailors was trying to drill a few holes in an aluminum locker with a reversible drill. It took him forever to get the first hole done, with the bit in reverse. Another Petty Officer was watching for a while, then told him it would work much better with the drill bit turning in the opposite direction. So the young pup unplugged the drill and plugged it back into the outlet with the cord reversed. After a few seconds of disbelief, the older man showed him the reverse switch on the drill. It was amazing how faster a drill works on aluminum when one is trying to drill through instead of melt through.

On another occasion, we had Midshipmen on board for their summer cruise. Each week the torpedomen cycle the torpedo tubes by shooting a slug of water (seawater from the ocean) through them instead of a torpedo. The announcement, "The ship will be shooting water slugs" was passed on the announcing circuit. One of the cooks decided to have a bit of fun and asked the middies if they wanted to help the TM's shoot the water slugs. Eager to see something new, they agreed to fill a bunch of zip lock bags full of water and bring them down to the torpedo room. As they were filling the bags, one of the senior reactor operators passed by the galley and asked them what they were doing. When they told him, he said, "Don't be stupid, use a garbage bag so you only have to make one trip."

Ranb

quote:

Originally posted by JBabcock:

quote:

SHeesh! Kids nowadays, your buy 'em books and send them to shcool and what do they do?

I built houses for a quite a few years, and in the Summer often had young kids as help. I once had a young guy who had just graduated from High School working for me. This kid was nice kid, and a hard worker, but could barely read or do any math. Yet he had graduated!

He started asking me for a raise, so I started to "test" him a bit. I once asked him to cut me a piece of plywood 48" x 96", (plywood comes in sheets 4'x8'...). I bet he "worked" on that piece of plywood for 10 minutes before he finally came back scratching his head asking for help...

My second and I were laughing so hard we were in tears.

And he had graduated from school... I wonder what he's doing now?

He's probably a congressman or senator.

A couple of younger "machinists" were watching me demagnatize a part on a demagnatizer. After finishing, I pulled the two-prong plug and turned it over before plugging it back in. When they asked why, I explained that it drained the magnatism from the unit, preventing it from getting too full.
That became standard practice for most of the younger workers in that shop.
Ya gotta have fun.....

Jim,

Don't feel bad. I recently discovered I had the cutter on my electric checkering tool on backwards. Been that way for over a year.

Cuts a whole lot better now. Go figure.