Last spring, when I put up the Nature Trail signs, I had the crappiest day ever. When I tried to attach the two-by-four supports to the four-by-four posts, I stripped every single screw, and couldn’t get them to go in or out; I thus left most of the screws halfway, looking mighty sorry. Then I tried to put the signs on using Liquid Nails, and contrary to the directions on the can, it just didn’t work. I held them on for twenty minutes each, and finally they stayed, but I was disappointed. Disappointed? I was pissed. I didn’t have much time to make it work, and it was really frustrating. I couldn’t believe this Liquid Nails stuff was such crap. I had bought two tubes, and I used up the first tube of the junk on the first eleven signs. When I got to the twelfth sign, and opened up the new tube, I found a completely different substance inside. It turned out the tube had been mislabeled, and I had tried to join wood and plastic using caulk. Yeah. And I had been using deck screws, which had a square Phillips head top, and tried to attach them using a regular Phillips bit. Sigh.
So today, when I walked around to the signs with new screws and the correct drill bit, I felt acutely the usefulness of knowing what you’re doing. Drilling the new screws in took almost no time, and it was satisfying, too.
A lot of people, myself included, think it’s easy to learn how to build stuff—you just have to have the right “For dummies” book. But it’s not that easy. You have to know what a deck screw head looks like, and you have to know what Liquid Nails looks like, or you have an ugly set of circumstances.
That’s why I’m proud of this fence.
Woo hoo for vacation!
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