Knees, Shin's, forearms and +50 year old back! The hard plastic step edges are miserable even if carpeted between channels to kneel on. This even with the use of a foam pad over them. Learned a lot - especially not to pre-drill the corner caps, and supervise what I was told not to worry about, "you have enough to do, other people will be working on the stairs." About 3/4's of the steps were glued down and "wandered" once TapConed in, requiring a lot of custom in-place cutting of the wired and working step light
channel and re-drilling holes.
In general, the scene shop carpenter provided to make the
channel cuts made evey cut perfect, but between 1/16" and 3/16" too long. 3/8" tolerance to all step light corner blocks finishing them off.. no tolerance or slippage in mounting accounted for - perfect cuts. He even had a notebook to take down exact measurements for cutting. Sometimes the cuts worked ok or within tolerances, mostly every stair had to have it's moldind modified which
thru now off pre-drilled screw mounting holes in concrete. A few channels bad enough in "moving" had to be chiseled out and re-installed and even re-cut. What's an inch difference between one side and the other side? Once or twice is a thing.... more than that ... your note
book to write down dimensions was for what? Audience stair lighting is difficult the first time... next time... Can I pick the crew and supervise them?
Had to buy another
Fein Multi-tool type plunge cutter given the amount of custom cutting in getting two people doing so for just under 500 steps to light. Luckily we had a second and third Bosh BullDog hammer drill. Project Manager didn't like having to buy a second
Fein tool... (in addition to the one I own and happened to bring). Was un-happy with the install in general in what had been done so far, and amount of work it was going to take to make this work with quality install. "Well, if you or I had surpervised this better..." he handed me his
AMX corporate card to buy what I needed.
Almost lost it today on the other scene shop carpenter today who in the end was helping me install the lights/
channel/corner caps and
channel covers he was to be just installing without truma. If you know me, I'm always good natured, pro, ready to teach, and inspiring on a jobsite, especially if boss, and even more so publicly if not - best leaders are the best fowlers... In working with the carpenter as team mate in getting all the lights installed, I constantly commented after slow speed on the hammer drill... "full speed" in dimming up. He never got the concept and always only stepped the speed of the drill up a little. "He is young," "He is a very careful carpenter." He doesn't listen to advice. Praise in public. "Thanks for getting that lower stair installed.
On the
Fein Multi-Tool, ok I can see you are worried about cutting into wires so you pop
channel caps you just installed so as to remove the wiring in this chance you might not control the tool well enough and nick a low
voltage wire inside an insulated
channel you are cutting into. Literally doing a hundred or more plunge cuts... best time to learn control of the tool if there was one. I have never done this before either. See the blade (me seeing it in reading glasses), hold the cable away from the sharp
edge of the blade. Once the blade tip passes beyond the cable, it as a blade can vibrate the cable from it's sides without danger ....
etc in learning how to not have to remove the cable in cutting the
channel. Not ready for this concept.
Turn your speed up. Later turn your speed up (the volume of his multi-tool speed is hurting my ears in being the wrong speed as with the hammer drill speed both too slow.) Finally I have to say something as per a boss... but not on this project I'm now helping with in the only way to get it done. I just completed 30 stairs and did other things, he is onto his 10th stair at best. "What is your
dimmer setting at?
Milking the project for all it's woth speed?" .... "Oh' sorry I didn't realize it was set to #1" Really... you are a "carpenter" and don't realize you are cutting a
bit slow with the tool after a few hundred cuts.... it is set to #1, given I pre-set your tool to about 3 or 4 in setting it up for you when I bought it? How do these things happen? And at no
point did you realize... perhaps turning up the speed....? Had to walk away in not removing him.... this is going to take all day. What else can I walk away from him in doing?
Shop needed him and the other carpenter back and to leave at lunch. Project Manager was almost shocked when I said Yes! upon asking if both carpenters could be sent back early. Yes, normally I would be very mad had I useful people, and we were not getting to the end of the project list. That type of thing, if I only had one more person on the crew type of the thing. But in this case... so over-rated the scene shop carpenters. I finished up the last five stairs in 15-20 minutes.
Going away on-site is a nice vacation from the shop and family at the start. Going home for a day or end of project is pressing when others are in efficiently doing stuff, and in the way of that. Almost lost my cool, but didn't. Just finished it up for the poor kid that won't be on my crew in the future. Wiring and carpentry are just not his ability skill sets.
Was just as slow in wiring up lights.