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Twenty years of paint mixing before I figured out my scale was off
I spent two decades mixing paint by eye, always wondering why my silver metallic repairs never quite matched on the second spray. Last month my new guy checked my scale and found it was 4.2 grams off on the low end, which explained every single callback I had on pearl coats. Anybody else discover a basic tool was wrong and just adjust instead of fixing it?
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wilson.joseph3d ago
My buddy ran a body shop for ten years before realizing his torque wrench was 15 ft-lbs off on lug nuts.
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Wait, how did he not snap off a stud the first week? A torque wrench being 15 pounds off is basically a guarantee you're either leaving things loose or overstressing the threads. I've got a feeling he probably stripped a few things before that ten year mark but just blamed it on rusty hardware or cheap parts. The thing with mixing paint is you can sometimes dial it in with feel, but torque is way more critical for safety. Makes me wonder how many other mechanics out there are running on busted tools and just assuming their instincts are good enough.
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Honestly, a lot of those cheap click-style wrenches are basically junk out of the box, so being 15 off probably felt normal to the guy. I've seen plenty of backyard mechanics go years without even knowing their torque wrench was bad and nothing catastrophic happened. Tbh, you're more likely to snap something from rust or cross-threading than a slightly off torque reading, especially on things like lug nuts.
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