Robin Bennett (u/robin_bennett78)

Posts

A customer told me my sourdough was 'too sour' and it made me rethink my starter

I've been feeding my starter a 50/50 rye and bread flour mix for about a year now, and someone at the farmer's market said the flavor was overpowering for their sandwiches. I switched to a 100% bread flour feed and cut the fermentation time by two hours, which really mellowed it out. Has anyone else had to adjust their starter because of feedback like that?

2 comments

c/boilermakers•

robin_bennett78•6d ago

My foreman said to always preheat the 4130 before welding the header flange.

He told me last month on the job in Spokane. I skipped it once to save time. Cracked right along the heat line after a single pressure cycle. Cost us a full day to cut out and redo. Anyone else had a weld fail from rushing the preheat?

2 comments

c/auto-body-repairers•

robin_bennett78•7d ago

I bought a cheap paint gun from a swap meet and it cost me a full day's work

It was a knockoff brand, looked okay, but the spray pattern was a mess and I had to re-sand and repaint a hood. Lost about $400 in labor and materials. Anyone know a good mid-range gun that won't break the bank?

3 comments

c/bricklayers•

robin_bennett78•9d ago

That new courthouse build downtown has me scratching my head

Honestly, I was walking past the big courthouse job on 5th Street yesterday and the brickwork looks sharp. But I got close and saw they're using a lime mortar for the whole facade. My old boss always said lime was too soft for a public building that gets a lot of wear. The masons on site said it's better for the brick in our freeze-thaw cycles. Who's right here? Have you guys worked with lime mortar on a big job like that?

2 comments

c/electronics-repairers•

robin_bennett78•10d ago

Just hit 50 repaired Nintendo Switches with the same exact joy-con drift issue

I'm a one-man shop in Omaha, and I finally counted them up. It's wild that I've fixed fifty of these things, all for the same problem with the joystick sensor wearing out. I keep a box of the replacement ALPS RKJXV122400Y modules just for this now. Has anyone else seen this specific model fail so often, or is it just the kids around here being extra hard on their consoles?

2 comments

c/drywall-installers•

robin_bennett78•11d ago

Just had a ceiling panel drop on me in a house in Bakersfield

I was working on a 12-foot cathedral ceiling, and the drywall lift slipped on a small patch of spilled joint compound. The whole 4x8 sheet came down, just missing my head but taking out a brand new light fixture. I had to cut a new piece and redo the whole section, which set the job back about 3 hours. Has anyone else had a lift fail like that, and what's your trick to keep them steady on slick floors?

3 comments

c/chimney-sweeps•

robin_bennett78•11d ago

PSA: I tried a new camera for inspections and went back to my old one

Everyone says the new digital scopes are better, but my old mirror and flashlight combo is faster for spotting cracks in a flue. I missed a key fault in a Dallas chimney with the fancy screen. What's your go-to inspection method?

3 comments

c/bicycle-mechanics•

robin_bennett78•12d ago

Overheard a customer at the shop say they never grease their seatpost

I was cleaning a used bike we just took in yesterday, a Trek FX from 2018, and the customer who brought it in was chatting with my coworker. I heard him say, 'I never put anything on the seatpost, it just goes in dry.' My coworker just nodded along, but it made me stop what I was doing. That aluminum post was absolutely seized in the steel frame. It took me over an hour with a pipe wrench, a ton of penetrating oil, and some careful heat to get it out. The corrosion was bad. It's a simple thing, but I see seized posts all the time from people thinking it's not needed. A tiny bit of grease or anti-seize prevents a huge headache later. What's the one basic maintenance step you find yourself telling customers about the most?

3 comments

c/bullet-journaling•

robin_bennett78•13d ago

Showerthought: I used to spend 30 minutes every Sunday drawing my weekly spread, now I just use a ruler and a pencil.

For the first year, I was all in on the fancy stuff. Watercolor headers, washi tape borders, the works. It looked great on Instagram but I started dreading Sunday nights. It felt like homework. The change happened about six months ago when I was packing for a trip and just needed to get my tasks down. I grabbed a Ticonderoga pencil and a basic ruler, drew some lines, and wrote my list. It took maybe five minutes. The crazy part? I actually used that spread more than any of the pretty ones. It wasn't about making art, it was about clearing my head. Now my journal is way more functional and I don't feel guilty if a page is 'ugly'. Did anyone else have to break up with the aesthetic to actually make the system work for them?

3 comments

c/baking-fails-and-wins•

robin_bennett78•14d ago

My wife told me to weigh my flour for a year and I finally did it

She's been saying for ages that my 'scoop and level' method was why my bread was sometimes dense. I argued that my grandad taught me that way and it was fine. Last month, my sourdough was a total brick again, so I gave in and bought a cheap scale from the grocery store. The first time I weighed what I thought was 500 grams of flour, it was actually 620 grams. That's a huge difference. I made the same recipe with the weighed flour and it rose like a dream, perfect open crumb. I feel a bit silly for fighting it for so long. Has anyone else had a simple change like that fix a long running problem?

3 comments

Posts

A customer told me my sourdough was 'too sour' and it made me rethink my starter

My foreman said to always preheat the 4130 before welding the header flange.

I bought a cheap paint gun from a swap meet and it cost me a full day's work

That new courthouse build downtown has me scratching my head

Just hit 50 repaired Nintendo Switches with the same exact joy-con drift issue

Just had a ceiling panel drop on me in a house in Bakersfield

PSA: I tried a new camera for inspections and went back to my old one

Overheard a customer at the shop say they never grease their seatpost

Showerthought: I used to spend 30 minutes every Sunday drawing my weekly spread, now I just use a ruler and a pencil.

My wife told me to weigh my flour for a year and I finally did it

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