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The Dreaded Hammer Dance: A Cautionary Tale

goatflieg

goatflieg

Well Known Member
In case you haven't seen it on other media sites, I've created a homebuilder's advice video and put it on my YouTube channel. It will probably be my only advice video... for obvious reasons. Hope you find it... umm... helpful. Here's a link.
https://youtu.be/GC7MxzfpQXM
 
Thank you for the smile early this morning!

Very good advice. So easy to get lost and overwhelmed!
 
Outstanding!!!

Even your title is great. I've done that dance several times - makes it hard to sleep too. The only cure is to immediately stop working on the aircraft until sanity returns. One beer helps at times like this.

I think that Van's parts order takers have silently laughed at me several times as I ordered replacement parts to install in place of parts that I messed up. Thankfully, the parts are always in stock!:cool:
 
Seriously, that was a funny little video, but I have some real advice for noobs.

Sweep the floor.

That's it. Just sweep the floor. It's mindless task, it has to be done, and it helps keep you from tracking aluminum into the house and onto wifey's carpet.

While you're sweeping the floor, you can ponder what needs to be done next. Sometimes the answer to that question is to have a beer. Sometimes the answer is to go to bed. Sometimes, the answer to whatever you're pondering will pop into your head. Sometimes the only answer is to ping the list for advice.

Regardless, sweeping the floor can prevent many mistakes, keep wifey happy, and produce a few good ideas.

It also makes your friends marvel at how clean your shop is. And I can tell you, even after several airplanes, I still sweep the #*$&@ floor and I've got the cleanest $#(@! shop you'll ever see. I've practically swept the #(*$* paint right off the floor.
 
vfrazier said:
Seriously, that was a funny little video, but I have some real advice for noobs.

Sweep the floor.

That's it. Just sweep the floor. It's mindless task, it has to be done, and it helps keep you from tracking aluminum into the house and onto wifey's carpet.

While you're sweeping the floor, you can ponder what needs to be done next. Sometimes the answer to that question is to have a beer. Sometimes the answer is to go to bed. Sometimes, the answer to whatever you're pondering will pop into your head. Sometimes the only answer is to ping the list for advice.

Regardless, sweeping the floor can prevent many mistakes, keep wifey happy, and produce a few good ideas.

It also makes your friends marvel at how clean your shop is. And I can tell you, even after several airplanes, I still sweep the #*$&@ floor and I've got the cleanest $#(@! shop you'll ever see. I've practically swept the #(*$* paint right off the floor.
Click to expand...

I totally agree; this is excellent advice. I've had people comment on how clean I keep my shop, and some have warned me that if I worry about that too much, I'll never finish the airplane. But cleaning the shop can be very cathartic and helpful for all the reasons you mentioned. It clears the mind as well as the shop, and allows the next steps to come into better focus.
 
On point! I've yet to start building, but find it even more true as it is easy to want to start worrying about parts of a project that are months/years down the road before even starting.
 
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