Dear Sawmill creak neanderpeople,
After a caffeine induced manic email (that I regret already) to Stan, I was reflecting on the many dumb things that I've done on this woodworking journey. After trolling the archives, I realized that there's no posts on dumb things to avoid!
On my end, here's a few:
1. Buying used, worn out Japanese planes as a "bargain."
Most of mine were completely unusable, with the exception of a block plane and small sized one.
2. Buying a Grizzly plane set and assuming that it'd work out of the box.
It cut like butter--a stick of butter against ebony, and the sole was warped in 3 ways.
3. Buying a Stanley plane iron from BORG to replace the Grizzly plane iron.
It cut like cheese--Parmesan against ebony. Not too effective at all.
4. Trying to build a Hauser guitar out of flamed rock maple and ebony using a butter knife, razorsaw, and said Grizzly plane set. This was an exercise in futility, and where I first learned the value of good tools. The maple ended up going to Kathy Matsushita to hopefully make an instrument.
5. Buying a 26" 1870's Marple try plane, and trying to flatten it on a scrounged up 28" long piece of glass and 18 micron sandpaper. I ended up giving it to a luthier friend.
Also, dumb things that I've been talked out of doing (thankfully):
1. Making a frankenplane using a Japanese Iron, Krenov attachment, and fancy woods.
2. Splitting my own lumber from a log using a broad hatchet.
Dentist + broad hatchet + workholding using other hand= career loss waiting to happen.
3. Building my own bandsaw.
4. Building my own planer.
5. Cutting down a 40 year old air dried, laminated 3" x 22" x 70" maple slab for banjo parts.
6. Making tools and heat treating them in the kitchen.
Thankfully, most of my other purchases/projects have been pretty satisfactory thanks to the advice of people like George, Stan, David, Harry. I've kept my fingers largely thanks to the kind people here.
Would you care to share your experiences of dumb things not to do/buy/start?