rcarol wrote:
My uncle was a finish carpenter. Part of his job was installing interior doors. He literally used to drive the screws for setting hinges using a hammer, claiming it was much faster than using a screwdriver. He used screws as though it was a nail.
With apologies to your uncle... Here's the back story:
On August 10, 1967, we'd been in our new house in Greenville, SC, for two days. The builder was still sending out his contractors to finish a punch list of items. My parents had held back a portion of the sale price until the items on the list were finished.
Two guys rattled up our driveway in a 1940s Ford pickup. They smelled like B.O. and rancid Budweiser. I noticed that there were dozens of empty beer cans in the bed of the truck, as they unloaded some boards, saw horses, and tools. They didn't look like finish carpenters. In retrospect, they looked like prison escapees.
One of the items on the punch list was an odd-size access door from the basement to the unfinished crawl space area where the furnace and water heater were located. They proceeded to measure the opening, build a frame, cut some tongue-and-groove 1x6s for the door, and assemble them.
My Dad walked in, just as the lead guy started to hammer his third wood screw through a 1x2 on the back of the door, to hold the tongue-and-groove 1x6s together. He saw the screw bend and break in half, and the wood split, and suddenly, I saw a look of disgust and disrespect on Dad's face that I'd never seen before in my 12 sheltered years.
What followed was a stream of Navy-grade expletives and creative Anglo-Saxon curse words I'd never heard before. Actually, I don't think I'd ever really seen my Dad get significantly angry before. He was the proverbial, "big bomb at the end of a very long fuse," and I'd never seen the bomb go off. He normally had the patience of Job, and the politeness of a butler, until he saw an example of total redneck idiocy like that one.
His message, minus the creative cursing, was,
"Use the right tool for the job. NEVER drive screws with a hammer. It splits the wood. Leave the wood and screws. Pack up your tools. Get the _____ out of here!"
The guys hurriedly grabbed their tools and saw horses, then ran out the basement garage door to their truck. They hopped in, in a fit of laughter and rebel yells, popped the tops on a couple of cool ones, and drove off with blue smoke belching from the tailpipe and beer cans rattling.
"What an introduction to South Carolina's finest..." I thought. Dad looked rather relieved they were gone.
"Sorry you had to hear that, Bill. Now let's finish this correctly."
He was a Systems Manager for a textile machinery manufacturer who understood quality, precision, and quality workmanship. He taught me to do things right, without shortcutting quality results.
We put the door together, with Dad calmly explaining how to do it properly. He counter-sunk the right zinc-coated wood screws with a special drill bit, as he had learned in shop class in high school. He made several measurements to be sure the door was squared with the frame. Then we primed it. The next day, we painted it. The day after, we hung it.
I learned a lot that week!