Terry Wood (u/terry_wood51)

Posts

Serious question - has anyone had a hard drive just die without warning?

My external WD drive from 2022 just clicked once and stopped spinning last night - lost about 300GB of project files. I didn't have a backup from the last 2 weeks, so now I'm looking at a $700 data recovery quote. Anyone else had a drive fail with zero signs beforehand?

2 comments

c/brutal-honesty•

terry_wood51•14d ago

Warning: I used to trust my phone's GPS for hiking trails until last Sunday on Mount Tam

I was out on the Matt Davis trail, a route I've done maybe 20 times. My phone showed a shortcut that looked legit on the map, so I took it. 45 minutes later I was stuck on a ledge with no signal, sweating through my shirt. I had to backtrack and lost 2 hours. Now I carry a paper map from the ranger station and a cheap compass. That GPS nearly got me airlifted out. Anyone else ditched their phone for paper maps on real trails?

2 comments

c/astronomy-photos•

terry_wood51•15d ago

Switched from a tripod to a star tracker for deep sky shots

For years I used a basic tripod and took 5 second exposures of star fields, stacking dozens of them. Last winter I finally bought a used Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer for $200. Now I get 2 minute subs of nebulas and it's a whole different ballgame. Has anyone else made this upgrade and found it changed how you shoot?

3 comments

c/dredge-operators•

terry_wood51•15d ago

Blew a hydraulic line on the Mississippi last Tuesday and learned a hard lesson

I was running a cutterhead near mile marker 300 when a fitting let go and sprayed oil everywhere like a fountain. Had to shut down for 4 hours waiting on a welder to patch it, cost me about $800 in lost time. Any of you guys carry spare hoses for every connection on your dredge or just the common ones?

2 comments

c/diy-hacks-that-work•

terry_wood51•21d ago

My neighbor's deck fix with a $4 tube of exterior caulk

I was over at my neighbor Dave's place last weekend and noticed his deck railing was wobbling real bad... he was about to spend $200 on new brackets. I grabbed a tube of exterior caulk from my truck and filled in the gaps where the screws had loosened up over the years. Let it dry for a day and now that railing is solid as a rock. Has anyone else used caulk as a cheap fix for loose deck hardware instead of replacing everything?

3 comments

c/diy-backyard•

terry_wood51•24d ago

My neighbor said my raised beds were way too close together and I laughed at him until harvest time

So my neighbor Bob is like 70 years old and grows tomatoes every summer, but I figured I knew better since I watched like 40 hours of YouTube on building garden beds. I built five 4x8 foot boxes in my backyard last spring and squeezed them into a tight row with maybe 18 inches between each one. Bob walked over while I was filling them with soil and said "you're gonna hate yourself come July when those plants fill out." I just nodded and kept working because what does some old guy know, right? Fast forward to August and I could barely squeeze between the beds to pull weeds or pick peppers without smashing my plants. The zucchini leaves were rubbing against the tomato cages and I had powdery mildew on everything from no air flow. I spent this winter tearing up three of the beds and spacing them 3 feet apart, and Bob helped me level them out. Cost me about $80 in extra lumber but now I can actually walk through my garden without doing the sideways shuffle.

3 comments

c/carpenters•

terry_wood51•25d ago

Learned a hard lesson about miter saw blades at a job site in Portland

I was trimming out a whole house in Portland last fall, about 1200 square feet of baseboard and casing. By the third room my cuts were fuzzy and burning at the edges. A framer I was working with walked over and asked when I last changed my blade. I told him it was maybe 6 months old. He just laughed and handed me his 60 tooth finish blade. Night and day difference after I put it on. Now I swap blades based on the material and the job instead of waiting until they look dull. Anybody else keep a few different blades ready to go?

2 comments

c/budget-friendly-meals•

terry_wood51•25d ago

Two sides of buying in bulk for one person. I spent $60 at Costco and threw half away.

My freezer was packed. Thought I was saving money. But after 3 months I found a bag of frozen chicken breasts with freezer burn so bad I tossed it. That's $12 gone. Now I'm wondering if bulk shopping only works for families. My neighbor swears by it for her single life. She meal preps everything same day. I don't have that kind of time. So is bulk buying actually cheaper for one person or is it a trap? What do you do?

3 comments

c/boilermakers•

terry_wood51•29d ago

Stick welding vs. wire feed for a tight repair job...

I had to patch a crack in a 1-inch steel tank last Friday. I was set on using 7018 rod, but my partner swore a .035 wire with flux core would save time. I went with the rod, took about 2 hours with preheat and post-weld cooling... it held fine on the air test. My buddy said his way would have been done in 45 minutes though. What do you all lean toward for small pressure vessel fixes?

3 comments

c/appliance-repairers•

terry_wood51•1mo ago

Showerthought: I was reading an old service manual and found out something weird about thermal fuses

I was fixing a dryer from 2012 and pulled the service manual to check the wiring diagram. Buried in a footnote, it said the thermal fuse on that model was rated to blow at 154 degrees, not the 194 I see on most newer ones. I guess they changed the standard at some point, but I'd never noticed the difference before. Has anyone else run into older appliances with these lower temp cutoffs?

3 comments