u/tidalpebble65

Spent about three months convinced my flatpicking was stuck because my fretting hand couldn't keep up with faster tunes. Turns out the problem was never the left hand at all. I finally recorded myself playing "Shady Grove" at a normal tempo and the picking hand was all over the place, hitting extra strings, losing the rhythm on the drone strings without me even noticing.

What fixed it wasn't a new technique, it was just cutting my tempo in half and staying there for two weeks straight. Felt embarrassingly slow at first, like I was playing for a room of people who'd fall asleep. But once the picking hand actually learned where it was supposed to land every single time, speeding back up took maybe three days instead of the months I'd been grinding at full tempo.

I play a 4-string mountain dulcimer, DAD tuning, mostly old-time and a handful of Appalachian gospel tunes I learned off recordings rather than tab. The noter style is what I grew up watching my grandmother do, but I've been leaning more into fingerpicking the last year and that's where the sloppy picking hand really showed up.

Curious if other folks here have had the same experience where slowing way down solved something that felt like a fretting problem but was actually the other hand the whole time. Also open to tune suggestions that are good for practicing steady picking without getting boring, I've worn out my patience with "Boil Them Cabbage Down" for that particular drill.

I got a small kitchen scale about two months ago after my hedgehog, Biscuit, lost a little weight during a cold snap and I got paranoid. Started logging her weight every night around the same time, right before I put her food down, just typing the number into a notes app so I wouldn't lose track.

What I didn't expect was how much her weight bounced around week to week even when nothing seemed different. Some nights she'd be up four or five grams, then drop it right back the next night. I used to think a single low reading meant something was wrong, but seeing it laid out over weeks made it obvious that the real thing to watch is the trend line, not any one night.

The pattern that actually mattered showed up after I switched her kibble brand. She dipped steadily for about ten days before leveling off, which lined up almost exactly with her being pickier at the bowl during that stretch. I probably wouldn't have connected those two things without the daily numbers sitting right there.

She's back to her normal range now and eating fine, but I've kept the habit going anyway. Feels like cheap insurance considering how good hedgehogs are at hiding when something's actually wrong. Anyone else weigh nightly or is that overkill for a healthy hog? I go back and forth on whether I'm being careful or just anxious.

Got a little overconfident last month and decided my first stack cut project should be four layers of 1/8 inch baltic birch instead of the usual two everyone recommends for beginners. I wanted four matching ornaments for a craft fair table and figured stacking would save time compared to cutting each one separately.

The stack kept shifting no matter how much painter's tape and hot glue I used at the corners. By the third piece the blade (a #5 reverse tooth) started wandering off the line because the layers weren't staying perfectly flush anymore. Ended up with two decent ornaments and two that looked like they'd been cut by someone having a seizure.

What actually fixed it wasn't more tape, it was drilling tiny pilot holes through all four layers at two opposite corners and running small brads through before taping the outside edges. Kept everything locked in place the whole cut. Also slowed my feed rate way down on the tight curves since a thicker stack doesn't forgive rushing the way a single thin piece does.

Next batch I'm doing three layers max until I get more comfortable with the technique. Curious if anyone here regularly stacks four or more layers successfully, and if so what you're using to keep it all aligned besides tape and glue. Feels like there has to be a cleaner method than what I cobbled together.

Spent most of the summer chasing an idle that would surge up to 1200 then drop to almost nothing on my 71 Super Beetle. Rebuilt the Solex 34 PICT-3 twice, checked the idle jet, swapped the diaphragm, even pulled the intake boots thinking I had a vacuum leak somewhere I couldn't see.

Turned out it was the distributor. The point gap had crept out slightly and the vacuum advance can had a tiny pinhole crack in the diaphragm, just enough to let it bleed off pressure inconsistently. Replaced the can with one from a parts car sitting in my buddy's yard, reset the points to spec, and the idle finally settled at a steady 850 like it should have been the whole time.

What got me is how many hours I spent staring at the carburetor when the actual problem was completely unrelated. I think a lot of us do that with these engines, we assume the newest part we touched is the culprit instead of stepping back and checking the ignition side first. Cheap lesson in the end, the can was maybe twelve bucks, but the diagnosis took way longer than it should have because I kept overlooking the obvious stuff.

Anyone else have a "should have checked that first" moment like this on their engine? Feels like a rite of passage at this point.