That time my framing square overcorrected a roof pitch and I lost half a day

I was building a shed roof out in Bakersfield last spring, and I trusted my square without double checking the rafter table numbers. The whole thing came out 3 degrees off and I had to re-cut every single rafter after I realized the square was just a little bent from years in the truck. Anyone else ever get burned by a tool that looked fine but was secretly off?

3 comments

3 Comments

verawhite1mo ago

Ha! I'm gonna push back on that one. A tool that's "secretly off" is usually a guy who didn't check his gear before starting a job. @the_emery's story about the ground-down socket proves it - you had two days of frustration because nobody bothered to verify a basic socket. A framing square takes ten seconds to check against a known 90 degree corner, and a level you can hold up to a plumb bob.

the_wyatt2mo ago

Buddy of mine out in Fresno, Mark, had a vintage Stanley level he swore by. He was framing a pergola and used it to check his beam slope, felt great in his hands, you know? Turned out the vial had shifted just a hair from sitting in a hot truck bed for a decade, and his whole thing ended up with a weird tilt that looked like a funhouse floor. Took him a full Saturday to figure out why his cuts kept looking wrong when the level said they were fine.

the_emery2mo ago

That "felt great in his hands" part hits close to home. I had an old Craftsman socket set I inherited from my uncle, everything fit perfect and the ratchet had that smooth click you don't get anymore. Used it for years until I realized the 9/16 socket was actually a 14mm that had been ground down just enough to fool me. Spent two days trying to get a bolt off a lawn tractor before I noticed the socket was slipping.