Shoutout to the guy at the 2018 JLC Live show who called me out on my framing layout

I was at a demo booth in Providence, showing off how I'd always laid out a basic wall, using a 16 inch on center pattern for everything. This older carpenter, who'd been quiet the whole time, just pointed at my chalk lines and said, 'You're making more work for yourself. You know you can shift that first stud to avoid a window header joint, right?' He spent maybe five minutes sketching it on a scrap of plywood. I went home and tried it on the next job, a garage addition in Medfield. It saved me about two hours of fiddling and cutting on that one wall alone. Now I always look for those little layout tweaks first. Anyone else pick up a small trick like that from a random chat at a trade show?

3 comments

3 Comments

valthomas24d ago

Love those moments. Feels like your brain just clicks into a better gear. Best part of the shows is the quiet guy who actually knows his stuff. That one tip probably paid for your ticket a hundred times over. Makes you wonder how many other little efficiencies we're all missing.

luna61714d ago

Spot the quiet guy leaning against the back wall. He's the one who solved a three year problem for us by mentioning a specific grease. That tip saved my team about a week of labor every month. It's never the loudest person in the room.

fisher.casey24d ago

A hundred times over? You're telling me a single tip from a trade show is worth fifty grand if the ticket was five hundred. That math is terrifying. Makes me wonder what I've missed by skipping the coffee refill to beat traffic. The quiet guy probably saved them a full time salary with one sentence about gasket alignment or something.