That dish soap foaming up thing is a good point. You gotta use cold water with the soap, not hot, because hot water makes the soap suds up way too much and you'll have a mess. The plumber told me to squirt the soap straight down the drain, run cold water for like 30 seconds to push it into the clog, then hit it with the shop vac on wet mode. If you use hot water first, you're basically making shampoo bubbles in your pipes and the vac will struggle to pull it all out.

@finley_flores28 called it, turnover is the only thing saving those 7-Eleven trays.

Heard someone mention they used bamboo skewers inside the cardboard tubes from wrapping paper and it worked surprisingly well. The cat couldn't chew through them because they were buried inside the box structure and the tape held them in place. Dowels might work but like you said, the cheap tape is the real problem lol.

Honestly used to think stepping away after a good run was superstitious nonsense, but @king.lisa has a solid point. You get all hot and confident, then try to rush the next one and end up with cold spots or scale problems. Had three perfect welds on some 1095 blades last week, felt unstoppable, then went straight into a billet and got a cold shut that split the whole thing apart. Started taking a 10 minute breather after a streak and my failure rate dropped way off. Its like you need to reset your headspace before you get lazy with the hammer control.

My neighbor did this exact thing three years ago and his desk still looks like it's gonna collapse any day now... but that's mostly because he used two hairpin legs and called it a day. The stair treads themselves are fine, but they're basically just thick pine so they'll sag if you don't put a center support under them. I mean, $35 is a steal compared to the $200 I spent on my butcher block top, but you get what you pay for with wood that soft.