A Bigger Wrench-

Pushing through resistance when you should be asking why.

I needed to mount a television to a wall. The job started off on the right foot. I located the studs and made pencil marks where the pilot holes needed to be drilled. I followed the instructions, drilling 1/4-inch pilot holes where each of the lag bolts would follow. Things took a turn when I missed an important step and ignored the warning signs.

The lag bolts were 3 1/2 inches long, maybe a half inch longer than my drill bit. I knew what a pilot hole was for, but I only half understood it. It didn't occur to me that the pilot hole needed to be as deep as the bolt was long, so I didn't measure the bit or the bolt. I figured it would be fine. I was wrong.

I drove each lag bolt in until there was about a half inch left and the effort required for each turn increased. My solution was to get a bigger socket wrench. I know better. Rarely is getting a bigger wrench the proper answer to a mechanical problem.

I made a few turns with the bigger wrench, and then the resistance went to almost nothing. I immediately knew what had happened. I had snapped the head off one of the lag bolts.

Frustrating, disappointing, and certainly avoidable, but not the end of the world. I went to Home Depot for a longer drill bit and then moved the template down about two inches and repeated the process. This time I made sure that the pilot holes were deep enough.

It is easy to look back and tell myself that I should have stopped when I met resistance on that last half inch. In the moment, standing on a milk crate with a socket wrench in my hands, it's difficult to discern when to press on and when to back off and take a breath. If I had fully understood the reason for the pilot hole, I would have known what the resistance meant: the bolt had gone past the end of the hole and was forcing its way into solid wood. Starting over would have been frustrating. It would have meant taking out the lag bolts, going to Home Depot for a longer drill bit, and drilling the pilot holes again. In the end, I had to do all of that anyway. I just did it two inches lower, with a broken lag bolt still in the stud.