Vent: My buddy in Phoenix told me his apprentice tried to use a stud finder on a concrete wall

He said the kid spent twenty minutes waving it around before asking why it kept beeping at random spots. Turns out he thought it could find the rebar. I had to laugh, but it made me think about how we all start somewhere with weird ideas. What's the funniest wrong tool story you've heard from a new helper?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_michael2mo ago

That apprentice story is a classic (and @rileyjones, your laminate story is pretty good too). I read a forum post once where a new guy tried to use a pipe wrench to tighten a hexagonal bolt on some machinery, just cranking away. He didn't know about socket sets yet and figured a wrench was a wrench. It rounded the thing off completely. Those early mix-ups are how you learn, even if they're a bit painful to watch.

rileyjones2mo ago

Oh man, that reminds me of my first week... I tried to cut laminate with a wood handsaw because I thought the power saw looked scary. Made a mess of dust and jagged edges. We've all been there with some goofy idea about how stuff works.

johnh821mo ago

And that rounded bolt story hits close to home because I watched a guy try to loosen a rusted nut with a pair of channel locks once. He kept complaining it was slipping off and he couldn't get any leverage. I told him to grab the proper socket and he looked at me like I was speaking a different language. He'd been using that same crescent wrench on everything for two weeks, just ruining heads left and right. You see stuff like that and you realize how much common sense in a trade is really just learned through messing things up first.