What I learned today.....

[Larry Edgerton]

First, I learned that you should not paint patterns black. I was making some patterns for a table base out of recycled MDF and planned on keeping this set. So I grabbed some black lacquer I had in a gun and gave them a basecoat/clearcoat with lacquer. Looked awesome! But....... you can't see your marks so well.

Second, I learned that Glide coat has a lacquer thinner in it. Sprayed the patterns with Glide Coat and just left it on there, started routing parts. I normally don't buff it off of patterns so I didn't notice it was gummy, till the router started sticking. Let it dry, cleaned up the router base, all is well.

Third, Anti static spray is an awesome thing to clean your glasses with! I wear those funny glasses with the magnet in the middle like in "Wild Hogs" and they are always covered in sawdust every time I put them on. I use Anti Static spray for the machines when I mill Versatex so I thought what the heck, I'll try it. Takes a bit of buffing but NO SAWDUST! I drug them through the dust just to see and nothing sticks to them. Very cool!

And, I still hate Makore......

What did you learn today?

Larry

[Mark Bolton]

I learned, for about the 100th time, that I hate beyond hate the tedium of putting on a super clean and tight metal roof (which is only at about 40% after several days). I learned yet again that my back will not tolerate the cold any longer. I learned what I lean nearly every day when I get to the shop.. that I'm happy there.

[Larry Edgerton]

Cold? What do you know about cold? It was 6 at my house this morning.

Its funny how you always think of yourself the way you were when you were young. I am always surprised when I walk by store windows how stooped over I have become because of this work. Pain is the price you pay......

[Peter Quinn]

LOL....A while back I was making some big sanding blocks from EXP scraps, and learned not to joint them with 3M super 77. Funny what solvents can do. Turned my custom foam sanding block into a heap of mush. Today I learned not so set up a molder right before lunch....and if you do to check everything twice before turning it on......and that when you put one knife in forward and one in backwards its not the same as one of those euro chip limiters, even though it looks like it should work.....and that a backwards knife will plow through at least 2LF of test piece......and that reversing one knife on a casing can make a very strange looking wide astragal. And that every guy in the shop will come to see "what the hell that noise is" when you run a test piece with one knife in backwards right before lunch. Yup, very educational day here.

[Larry Edgerton]

LOL....A while back I was making some big sanding blocks from EXP scraps, and learned not to joint them with 3M super 77. Funny what solvents can do. .

Good to know. I was going to make a profiles sanding block tomorrow and use 66 to bond the foam.

[John Coloccia]

First, I learned that you should not paint patterns black. I was making some patterns for a table base out of recycled MDF and planned on keeping this set. So I grabbed some black lacquer I had in a gun and gave them a basecoat/clearcoat with lacquer. Looked awesome! But....... you can't see your marks so well.

Second, I learned that Glide coat has a lacquer thinner in it. Sprayed the patterns with Glide Coat and just left it on there, started routing parts. I normally don't buff it off of patterns so I didn't notice it was gummy, till the router started sticking. Let it dry, cleaned up the router base, all is well.
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What did you learn today?

Larry

I learned all of this. Thanks, Larry!

[John TenEyck]

I learned that a movie I wanted to see wasn't nearly as good as the book. Cost me $15 and 2 hours of my time to find that out. But it did get me out of the shop for awhile and away from the nine doors I'm finishing.

John

[David Kumm]

I learned that those really expensive and hard to source oertli insert cutters break immediately if you screw up and run the shaper backwards into the cut. Dave

[Larry Edgerton]

I did not know you could not do that. Hopefully I remember. Thanks David.

Learning is often making mistakes. I have never been afraid to make a mistake for this reason. People ask me sometimes how I have learned how to do the things I do and I tell them that I have made a lot of mistakes once. Many are afraid to admit their mistakes. They become paralyzed by their own fear of failure. Embrace mistakes and try something new, break out of the box!

I am that guy that is always looking for a better way. Many times I will try something on the quick just to see if it will work. A failed attempt will teach you more in less time than any other method in my world. I will often throw together a fixture that has no purpose than to teach me what I want to change on the real one. Sometimes these work perfect, so those are the really ugly fixtures around the shop

I try to learn something new every day. Hopefully it does not cost me too much...........

[Justin Ludwig]

I relearned that no matter how many hundreds of 5 piece drawers I build, I'll still manage to assemble at least one drawer incorrectly per job. The fun part is seeing my helper's face when I randomly blurt out, "You dumb a**", but he doesn't realize I'm talking to myself.

[Larry Edgerton]

I relearned that no matter how many hundreds of 5 piece drawers I build, I'll still manage to assemble at least one drawer incorrectly per job. The fun part is seeing my helper's face when I randomly blurt out, "You dumb a**", but he doesn't realize I'm talking to myself.

These days I pretty much work alone, but still that can be heard most days in my shop. Someone told me once that the reason that they talked to themselve was it was the only way they could have an intelligent conversation. We'll go with that...........

[John A langley]

Larry anybody that does not make mistakes generally speaking is not doing very much , The Trick could be in trying to figure out how to fix them , I have a good size dumpster in front of the shop I've been known over the years to throw a cabinet or two in it , Today's lesson was to make files for my paperwork so that I'm not looking for that Lost piece of paper

[Jim Becker]

Most of the time, there is no such thing as a "mistake"...it's really a "learning experience".

And as John Langley just mentioned, if we always "play it safe", we don't learn and improve our craft. The journey is often the most satisfying part of the process!

[John Coloccia]

I will often throw together a fixture that has no purpose than to teach me what I want to change on the real one. Sometimes these work perfect, so those are the really ugly fixtures around the shop

Here's a pile of jigs I just took apart. They never really worked perfectly, but good enough that I never bothered doing anything until shop cleanup day.

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and a couple more...er...boo boos that haven't made it to the fireplace yet...
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[Peter Quinn]

Hard part for me is trying to explain or justify the "creative process" to an employer that is paying for results. Good employers pay the bills and always have to balance long term growth with this weeks payroll. I get that, not an easy task, we don't always get to play on their dime. They don't see our mistakes as a great learning opportunity, often its this jobs profit margin going out the window. The shop I'm working in does a lot of custom work...which translates to its almost always the first time we are doing this exactly this way. Some things like cabinets are just variations on the theme, its more about getting it straight in your head and keeping things in order. But often, its beyond that. Like how to process large pieces accurately that challenge the capacity of a small commercial shops tooling....or how to make curved things....or plain old "how in the world are we going to make this cut". Or how to achieve a molding without more specialized tooling. Or how to interpret a set of designs into actual physical goods. Wonderful thing about a computer is it lets idoits....lets call them designers and architects for now....draw things that may be very challenging to build. I'm not talking Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann complicated, where its crazy but the aesthetic makes it all worth it. I'm talking "half baked ill thought out verging on impossible or at the very least difficult with no perceptible advantage" types of challenges that seem to end up on the shop floor as a result of a mix of bad communication and ego. No one wants to tell them their work is flawed and they don't want to hear it....perfect dysfunctional relationship. Its everywhere. The seedy underbelly of professional wood working. So you want to try new things, think outside the box, look for a better method, grow skills each time, and that does happen, but productivity has to be considered, things have to get made on budget, they have to look very close to the sketch you received, and they have to work. So think quick and get it right the first time! At least some of the time...


I've seen some really terrible jigs and fixtures persist for years in a shop because so much happens in the short run you just never get around to those long run optimal solutions. Take something as simple as a tall fence fixture. Last job they had a really bad tall fence fixture, was falling apart for years, cobbled together, mediocre results on its best day, ill conceived from the start. My opinion anyway. But on any given day....you need it to get through this one more job. One day it made me so furious, I cut it up on the BS, didn't ask anyone...just made it into small pieces and disposed of it. Then I collected pieces to make a good one, odd bits and left overs are the stuff of good jigs where I've been. One day somebody is looking around for something and I ask what.....oh that tall fence.....I threw it out. WHAT! YOU DID WHAT! I NEED THAT......no apologies from me, argument ensues, I tell them it was garbage from the day it was made...Im tasked with making the new one. Gladly, I make the most robust tall fence ever, kind of thing you can use to guide a barn door over a dado standing up! General opinion going forward...why didn't we do that years ago? Took all of 2 1/2" hours, makes every job where its used go better....even doubles as a killer resaw fence on the BS.

So mistakes are not always a welcomed opportunity to learn from every perspective. Sometimes a mistake in the short run is this jobs profit going out the window, sometimes the biggest mistake has already been made, and doing nothing to correct it is merely compounding the problem. And sometimes the design is a mistake, but its not your call, you have to build as designed event though it adds countless complications to your work. In light of all that....when a mistake does happen, there really is no better or other course of action than to learn from it, correct it, don't be crippled by it. I've heard it said that the best wood workers are the ones who fix their mistakes before anybody else notices.