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Blew $150 on a fancy tube expander before a veteran told me to just use a socket and hammer instead
Spent an entire afternoon fighting with that overpriced tool on a 2-inch boiler tube job near Gary before giving up and trying his method which worked in 5 minutes flat anyone else wasted cash on specialty tools that just collect dust?
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phoenix5731mo ago
Ha, yeah that hurts! I bought one of those fancy "pipe bender" tools for like a hundred bucks and it sat in my garage for two years before I just started using a spring and my knee. I think the real mistake is thinking the tool will do the thinking for you. Every time I watch someone do a perfect job with a hammer and a socket I feel like a complete idiot for trusting the packaging. But hey, at least you can sell that expander on Craigslist to some other poor soul. Or keep it as a reminder that sometimes the most expensive lesson is the cheapest one to figure out.
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grant4781mo ago
Honestly that line about "the tool will do the thinking for you" hits way too close to home, @phoenix573. Ngl I've got a drawer full of stupid gadgets I bought because the packaging made it look like pressing a button would magically fix everything. Took me way too long to figure out that a crescent wrench and some elbow grease is usually the answer. The real kicker is when you finally master the cheap method and realize you wasted money on the fancy thing just to learn the same lesson everyone else already knew. But hey at least now you've got a good story for the next guy who shows up with a brand new expander thinking he's gonna be a hero.
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shane_hayes1mo ago
Oh man, that's the oldest trick in the book. I fell for the same thing with a set of "professional" wire strippers that cost me like $80 before an old electrician showed me you can just use a flathead screwdriver and your teeth. Those specialty tools only work great on perfect clean jobs you never actually get. The socket-and-hammer method is basically boiler repair gospel at this point, saved my butt more times than I'd ever admit.
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