Ever done this?

[alaskaoneday]

So I am cutting out the pieces for my Momentum Minima vest and I think (big mistake) 'let me try the hot knife I have'. Just as I finish the first piece (thinking this is pretty slick) my finger slides just enough to hit the iron. Jumped just enough to drop the hot knife and score a bulls-eye right in the middle of the piece that I just cut out. #$&!! (insert long stream of colorful language). And of course it was the outer layer, not the inner that I harpooned but at least it was a nice 'hot' clean cut. Back to the cutting wheel for the rest of the project for me.
Lets hear your best dyi '#$&!'

[OrionFyre]

Not hammock related but I wrote a maitanence script that ran nightly to tidy things up on the media server. You know, merge and compress log files, check for system updates, compress DVD rips from the day if I put a dvd in the drive, etc etc etc.

<-me reveling in my sheer genius.

worked great for three days.

woke up one saturday morning to my dad asking why he couldn't access any movies.

<-- me when I realized the entire movie database had been wiped out.

I passed a variable incorrectly to "rm -rf" and it deleted the whole /movies/ directory instead of /movies/terminator/dvd/

lol terminator terminated 600 movies.

[JerryW]

So I am cutting out the pieces for my Momentum Minima vest and I think (big mistake) 'let me try the hot knife I have'. Just as I finish the first piece (thinking this is pretty slick) my finger slides just enough to hit the iron. Jumped just enough to drop the hot knife and score a bulls-eye right in the middle of the piece that I just cut out. #$&!! (insert long stream of colorful language). And of course it was the outer layer, not the inner that I harpooned but at least it was a nice 'hot' clean cut. Back to the cutting wheel for the rest of the project for me.
Lets hear your best dyi '#$&!'

I feel your pain, but look at it this way - sooner or later, a campfire is going to pop an ember at you and you'll end up with a burn hole. Now, it's out of the way and you won't fret over it later.

Jerry

[OrionFyre]

I feel your pain, but look at it this way - sooner or later, a campfire is going to pop an ember at you and you'll end up with a burn hole. Now, it's out of the way and you won't fret over it later.

Jerry

When you're chewing on life's grissle,
don't grumble, just give a whistle!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ

[Knotty]

Finished the 4th row of stitching in the ridgline seam of my first DIY cat cut hex tarp only to realize I had matched my sides wrong. Upside was up on one side. Upside was down on the other. Took over 4 hours with a seam ripper to tear out all the stitching. With a stitch length of 3mm that's over 14,600 stitches.

[Shug]

Made my first tarp out of non-waterproof rip-stop. Water gushed through.
Turned it into an SPE, stuff sacks and weather-shield.
Shug

[gargoyle]

Finished the 4th row of stitching in the ridgline seam of my first DIY cat cut hex tarp only to realize I had matched my sides wrong. Upside was up on one side. Upside was down on the other. Took over 4 hours with a seam ripper to tear out all the stitching. With a stitch length of 3mm that's over 14,600 stitches.

Man Knotty, I would have just trimmed the hems and seams off and started over. I would lose an inch or two of tarp, but 14,600 stitches with a ripper

Your a more patient man than I.

[Ramblinrev]

The vid on using a tailors awl is going to have to wait until after I get moved. This place is eligible to be a registered federal disaster area atm.

[WV]

Alaskaoneday,

Yup, we've been there, done that. When I'm cutting fabric with a soldering iron I always have to resist the temptation to shift the piece of fabric with one hand while holding the iron out of the way with the other. (But gee, I can do it perfectly 99% of the time, and it saves at least a second or two each time.... It's that other 1%.).

When I made my minima vest, I was surprised at Ayce's generousity with the fabric supplied. I hope you had enough to just cut that piece again.

I was showing off my newly finished vest to friends and gestured grandly ("Ta Da!"). My dog sensed great enthusiasm and thought I was reaching for the dog leash. His enthusiasm knows no bounds under such circumstances, and one of his toenails left a two-inch rip in the front of the vest. I used some of that extra fabric to patch it. It looks patched, but that way it fits in with the rest of my wardrobe.

[Hawk-eye]

Nawh ... I've never done any of that kinda stuff ... but a guy that looks a lot like me burnt a hole in his small sil tarp when he thought he'd just fold back a grossgrain loop and lightly melt the end that "he" forgot to do before stitching it on. I ... err ... he had to do the old piece of fabric glued on with seam sealer patch job