The job site in Jersey City that finally made me ditch combo squares forever

I was framing out a bay window on a 4th floor walkup over by the Grove Street PATH station last summer. The combo square I'd used for like 3 years just gave me a bad layout on a corner bead, and I didn't catch it until the drywall crew showed up and started cussing at me. That little plastic locking nut stripped out mid-measurement, so my 90 was off by probably 3/16 of an inch across the whole span. Had to rip out 6 feet of corner bead and redo it on a Friday afternoon in July heat. My foreman didn't say much, but he handed me his spare Swanson speed square after that and just walked off. Anyone else have a tool fail on them at the worst possible moment and end up switching to something completely different?

2 comments

2 Comments

skyler_mitchell14d agoMost Upvoted

I read somewhere that combo squares with metal locking nuts hold up way better than the plastic ones. But yeah, that lemonade story is brutal, I think everyone's had that moment where you just know the homeowner is silently judging every move you make.

kevin_schmidt9715d ago

Man that combo square betrayal hits different when it's 95 degrees and your foreman is just standing there watching you mess up. I had a tape measure that got wet on a job and the rivet started rusting out so the hook got loose. Ended up adding like a quarter inch to every measurement for a whole weekend before I figured out what was wrong. The homeowner's wife was nice about it but she kept bringing us lemonade with this look that said "you guys are idiots" haha.