You'll feel it" is exactly how people strip threads on old French bikes too, so I have to push back on the idea that the feel thing is some lost art we should trust. Those co-op vets learned on the bikes that came through their door, and back then a cracked wedge just meant grabbing another one from the bin, they were not sweating a 1978 Schwinn that is now a collector item. A beam wrench costs like twenty bucks and adds ten seconds per bolt, there is no good reason to skip it even on beater parts. The real problem here is not your heavy hand, it is that old alloy gets brittle and the torque spec in the book was written for a fresh part, not one that has been sitting in a garage for forty years. Snug plus a check is the move, not snug plus a prayer.

Did he also print out satellite images and circle stuff with a red marker... my cousin did that last Thanksgiving and now we just eat in shifts.