Teaching friends to build. Never again!!

[Mojo Fandangle]

Great story 

Now your friend will get to experience the "joy" of screwing up a build all on his own!

Ah yes. I've learnt much from screwing up myself.

It'd also be fun to see the look on his face when learns rule 101 after getting his first parts order and realising that all those 1 watt resistors and gigantic high tolerance caps aren't going to fit on the board.

[drolo]

You are basically describing how it feels to raise a child and the fact that no matter how good your advice is, they will still make the mistakes to learn for themselves 
*speaking from experience on both sides*

[bluescage]

Great story! 

[mrclean77]

I am willing to give it a go w some friends who have expressed interest, but I'm a bit cautious because a lot of conversations are like, 'Yeah, I wanna build a delay/reverb thing, maybe kinda similar to a [giant Strymon unit], but I wanna add ______'

Pump the brakes, buddy.

Then I'm left thinking for the next few days if I have said something that is making people thinking I'm a circuit guru instead of a spare room hack.

...I have also discovered some things by accident because occasionally I am willing to just do things "wrong."

The dozen or so things in building that I know to ALWAYS do or to NEVER-EVER-EVER do are direct results of this method of learning. Sure, it's not the preferable way, but it seems to "stick" more when I make the big goofs. Anybody who has had to de-solder any component with more than one lead can likely file their new skill under the "One-Trial Learning" column. This may be a bigger hesitation in my wanting to teach buddies rather than the larger projects they wanna do - I'd be tempted to try to cram all those tips/tricks I learned the hard way over years into a couple of weekends - no way I'd remember everything to tell 'em, no way they'd retain it anyway.

Good on you for sticking with it and cool end of the story to have a working unit at the end.

[TNblueshawk]

Great read. I am someone who has tried many things once. I'll give it a go. Many times I've been stuck on my own and would have loved someone with knowledge to show me the way. What a luxury. Your friend looked that gift horse right in the mouth though. But, I've been your friend, such as when I was building my first amp cabs, and my carpenter buddy was showing me the ropes. I shut my mouth and asked questions on things I didn't understand. Never did I think I knew better. At least I have common sense even if I've made every mistake in the book it seems.

Do tell more about if he went into your wife's drawers for the pink panties though