The day I figured out I'd been using a torque wrench backwards for 20 years

I was tightening lug nuts on a 2005 Ford F-150 last Tuesday when my coworker Dave walked over and asked why I was twisting the handle the wrong way. Turns out I had the torque wrench set to foot-pounds but I was reading the scale in inch-pounds for two decades. Nobody ever corrected me because my stuff never flew off. Has anyone else had a tool they used wrong for years before someone finally spoke up?

2 comments

2 Comments

charlesj467d ago

Man, "nobody ever corrected me because my stuff never flew off" hits way too close to home. I did the exact same thing with a cheap digital caliper for like ten years, swapping between metric and standard without realizing the decimal point was in the wrong spot because the battery was low. Finally a buddy at the shop pointed it out when I measured a bolt as 2.54 centimeters instead of 25.4 millimeters, and I felt like a total clown right there on the spot.

wendy6746d ago

Haven't you ever wondered how many other people out there are still using the same messed up tool and don't even know it? It's like a secret club nobody asked to join, @charlesj46. The real kicker for me is how we trust the tool over our own eyes for a decade. The decimal point moving just one spot makes for a huge difference in fit, and nobody catches it until something rattles apart. Makes you think how many jobs got done with a slightly wrong measurement that just happened to work out close enough.