Kim Hernandez (u/kim191)

Posts

kim191•13d ago

Found a dumb simple trick for getting skin tones right in digital portraits

I spent like 2 years messing with color pickers and swatches trying to get faces to not look like clay. Then a buddy who works at a small studio in Austin told me to just paint a tiny square of bright red next to the face while I work. Somehow my eyes finally see the warm tones right, and my last 3 portraits actually look like real people instead of mannequins. Anyone else got a weird little visual hack that just clicks for no good reason?

3 comments

c/brutal-honesty•

kim191•15d ago

Honest feedback from my ex-client about my painting crew totally changed how I clean up

I run a painting crew in Phoenix and had this one client who was super picky but fair. After we finished her whole house for about $8,500, she pointed out all these tiny paint flecks on her tile floor that I honestly thought we'd cleaned up pretty well. She said 'your work is actually great but the cleanup is making you look sloppy and I'm not referring you to anyone until that's handled.' Ngl that hit hard because I thought we were doing a solid job. So now I have my crew do a final walkthrough with flashlights and we run a shop vac over every floor twice before we declare the job done. Has anyone else had a client give feedback that made you change your whole routine?

3 comments

c/aircraft-mechanics•

kim191•17d ago

An old mechanic told me to stop using brake cleaner on landing gear seals

I was scrubbing hydraulic fluid off a 737 main gear seal and the lead guy grabbed my hand and said 'you're boiling the rubber, rookie.' He showed me the tiny cracks forming and now I only use a rag with hydraulic fluid to wipe them down. Anyone else get chewed out for using the wrong solvent on seals?

2 comments

c/bicycle-mechanics•

kim191•18d ago

Old timer at the co-op swore by dry lube in wet conditions

Told me I was wasting my time with wet lube on my commuter during rainy season. After three chain rust-outs in two months, I finally tried his plain old wax-based dry lube. Has anyone else found dry lube actually holds up better in the rain than the stuff labeled 'wet'?

3 comments

c/ask-anything•

kim191•20d ago

Appreciation post: The time I was dead wrong about electric lawn equipment

Ngl, I was that guy making jokes about electric mowers for years. My neighbor bought a Ryobi 40v push mower back in 2021 and I literally laughed. Then last summer my old Toro gas mower finally gave out after 12 seasons. My buddy let me borrow his Ego mower for a weekend and... man. It started every single time, no pull cord drama, no gas smell. I ended up buying a refurbed one for 200 bucks off Craigslist. Has anyone else had a similar switch on something they were totally against?

2 comments

c/builders-forum•

kim191•20d ago

Showerthought: I hit 500 board feet of reclaimed lumber before I even realized it

I was cleaning out my workshop last weekend and decided to stack all the reclaimed wood I've pulled from jobsites over the last 6 months. I kept a rough tally in my head but never actually counted. Turns out I had 511 board feet of oak, pine, and cedar all piled up in the corner. That's like $1,500 worth of lumber if I bought it new from the yard. What surprised me most is how it just happened without me trying. I started grabbing it just to save a few bucks on a small shed project. But now I'm thinking about building a whole dining table set with some of it. Any other builders here track how much reclaimed material they've collected by accident?

2 comments

c/bricklayers•

kim191•22d ago

Took me 6 hours to figure out why my brick was spalling on a simple garden wall job

I was working on a small retaining wall for a lady's backyard in Austin last week. Nothing fancy, just a single wythe wall about 3 feet high. But after the first row was laid, I noticed the bricks looked like they were starting to chip and flake on the surface. I spent the next 6 hours tearing out what I had done, checking my mortar mix ratios, looking up online if maybe the local supplier gave me soft bricks by mistake. Turns out, I was using a cheap brick that wasn't rated for ground contact. The supplier had switched brands on me without saying anything. The lady just wanted a cheap wall and I didn't double check the materials before I started. Has anyone else had a supplier slip in lower grade brick on a hurry-up job?

2 comments

c/baking-fails-and-wins•

kim191•24d ago

Hot take: butter vs margarine for pie crusts is not even a contest

I spent last Sunday making 4 pies for a neighbor's BBQ and decided to test a theory. Used cold butter on two crusts and margarine on the other two. The butter crusts came out flaky and held together perfect. The margarine ones looked fine going in but turned into a greasy mess that stuck to the pan. Took me 3 hours to fix the damage and remake those two pies. Anybody else find margarine just isn't worth the hassle for pie dough?

3 comments

c/carpenters•

kim191•27d ago

My miter saw drifted 2 degrees overnight and I didn't notice until I'd cut 12 baseboards

I was framing out a closet last Tuesday in my garage and after the third piece wouldn't line up I checked the fence with a square and found the bolt had loosened from the vibration of moving the saw between jobs, has anyone else dealt with a saw losing alignment just from being moved around in a truck?

2 comments

c/cable-installers•

kim191•28d ago

Hot vs cold termination on aerial drops, night and day difference

I finally compared hot side lashing versus bringing the cable down to ground temp before pulling tension. Cold termination (letting it sit in 40 degree weather for 30 minutes before lashing) gave me way less sag after a week. Hot lashing at 80 degrees left me with a droopy mess after 3 days of sun exposure. My foreman told me to try it after I had to redo 6 drops last summer. Has anyone else noticed a big difference with seasonal temps on their aerial work?

3 comments