Measure Twice, Cut Once

Learned a lesson this week. Measure Twice, Cut Once. I guess I’m not really measuring, or cutting, but it relates. Reminds me of a story. Back in high school, when I was around 17, I had a 55 Plymouth Savoy I was restoring. My Grandpa said I could use the lean-to on his garage as my place to fix it up. It was cool in the summer/fall, but once it started getting colder, we were freezing. A buddy of mine was working on it with me every day, so we decidied to put some insulation in the lean-to and some plywood up on the walls. We insulated everything, and then we needed to put the plywood up. Thing is, we needed to cut the plywood down a little. We measured, and it was something like 73 and 1/4 inches. We went and my grandpa was ready to cut, and said 71 and 3/4 – and we were like – no no, 73 and 1/4. We argued but didnt want to push the issue, so we cut it at 71 and 3/4. We goto put up the plywood, and there is a big gap at the top. All hell breaks loose, and we are scrambling to get something shim it up, etc, etc.

We should have measured twice.

Now, the example above isn’t a huge deal, we lost a few sheets of plywood. But just think if we needed to put up thousands of sheets, and we cut them all before checking – we would have been big time screwed. Moral of the story – before doing something that you might have second doubts on – double check it, then double check it again – otherwise would could be wasting alot of time later. Measure Twice, Cut Once 🙂