Welded the armature too heavy and now I'm paying for it
Spent two days on an armature for a piece that's maybe four feet tall. Built it out of 3/8 rod because I had it and didn't want to drive to the yard. Bad call. The steel itself is probably 60 pounds before a single stone goes on, and now I'm going to have to cut it apart and rebuild it lighter or the whole thing will be dead weight nobody can move.
Twenty years ago I'd have planned it out on paper first. These days I look at the pile, think "that'll hold," and weld. Mostly it works. Not this time.
The old man I apprenticed under would have made me take it apart myself and he'd have watched the whole thing without saying a word. I hear him anyway.
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ok but the fact that you had the 3/8 rod sitting right there and the yard is a whole trip? I get it. my version of this is stretching a paper I know is too flimsy because the good block is in the closet and I want to start NOW. always the same lesson and I never learn it.
60 pounds before stone is brutal though. is it at least a cut-and-reuse situation or are you losing the rod? I'm weirdly invested now, four feet is a real commitment
Cut and reuse. I'll get most of it back out in usable lengths, the rest goes in the scrap bucket. Losing a little to the saw is the price of being impatient.
The paper thing is the same disease. You know it's wrong when you reach for it, you just don't want to hear it. I had 1/4 rod in the rack too. Would've taken ten more minutes.