Selling all the junk in my shop....

[Don Bullock]

Slow down Bro'. Ya' gotta breathe.

One trick I've learned to minimize mistakes is to use a pencil for everything. Do a very detailed drawing before you even start any cutting.

Completly mark all layout lines and cuts. Mark the waste side and the save side.

Using the pencil slows you down and forces you to visualize more of the project, or cut before a machine is turned on.

Great point Mike. That's something I often forget. Thanks for the reminder.

[Gary Herrmann]

I'm making a box for the wife out of bloodwood and yellowheart. Using the Leigh Jig for joinery. Sandwiched the bloodwood between two pieces of ply and I still got blowout. Sometimes projects just don't go like you want them to.

The box is half built. Bloodwood is expensive, and my darling bride said "I think it looks fine." I don't, but it is for her. So I'll see if I can hid the blowout a bit and move on.

Either bloodwood is more brittle than I thought, or I missed something I could have done to avoid the blowout.

Live and learn.

["Gary Brewer"]

Dear Slim Jim: Have you tried any local woodworking clubs. I joined my local club, Rochester Woodworkers Society, and have learned more in the last 12 months than I knew the previous 55 years ( about woodworking ). I am not up to speed yet and am still a rookie but I do see some light at the end of the tunnel. It has also provided an opportunity to see famous woodworkers through their lecture series and local workshops they offered. Garrett Hack, Don Williams, etc. There are also some very talented club members and many that suck like me and some who even such alot worse. It has been one of the nicest groups that I have dealt with. Try asking at some of your woodworking stores about woodworking organizations, clubs, societies and you should be pointed in the right direction. There are a wide wide range of talents, experiences, and abilities but it is really a great learning experience. You need to see peope doing it and do a bunch of workshops. there are usually local ones and if you look you'll find training all over. There are also workshops put on by Woodcraft, and almost all of the famous woodworkers. they can range from one day, weekend, a week to weeks over a long period of time. You just need some education. Then the buying of equipment fun starts.
Everyone needs to be helped.
Gary

[David Rose]

Jim,

I've been doing wood work intermittently for about 5 years. It is getting to the point that if I don't make at least one MAJOR mess up on a project, I wonder where I made one that I haven't found yet. I would not even consider a kitchen cabinet with my experience. OK, I would. But I would enter the project with fear and trembling. I've not done any of that type cabinet work, and that sounds like a big project to me. I am learning to go very slowly and figure that I know nothing. I think it helps.

A friend once told me that the difference between an amateur and a pro is that the pro knows how to cover up his mistakes. Hopefully, the pro makes fewer too, but...

David, who has been having daily humility lessons lately

[lou sansone]

mike makes a good point about using a pencil. the other thing that you can do is a mock up of a complicated joint or some cut you have not done before. that usually helps me.

lou

[Roy McQuay]

Hang in there Jim, as David says, the more experience you get, the more mistakes you will learn to fix, or hide. 4 years ago I was planning retirement in 5 years. I decided that instead of waiting 5 years to start replacing all of my inferior major tools, I would start buying right then so by the time I retire, I will have enough experience to use them like I know what I am doing. I am much better now, have a shop full of nice tools, and pretty good at fixing, not scrapping, my mistakes. The real trick, is to not get hurt in the process. Good luck.

[Robert Mahon]

David,
Your comment "the difference between an amateur and a pro is that the pro knows how to cover up his mistakes." has become my mantra.

I made that same observation years ago and have been proving the statement regularly.

The idea is to not let the inanimate work get the better of you. You just have to be smarter than what you are working on.

[Kurt Forbes]

I really feel your pain. I spent all day saturday building a set of free standing shelves for a new storage shed. Late saturday evening as the sun was setting i got the wife to come help me cart it inside and it was too blasted tall to get into the doors. So sunday I cut it 2 inched shorter and threw it in the shed. Eventually you get used to cutting the bottom off of everything you build if you have to build outside. Did I mention the bookshelf in my daughters room that is about 5 inches shorter now also for the same reason.
Do not throw in the towel it either gets easier or you get used to cutting the bottom off of everything you build

[David Rose]

I *do*??? Uh, oh...

David

David,
Your comment "the difference between an amateur and a pro is that the pro knows how to cover up his mistakes." has become my mantra.

I made that same observation years ago and have been proving the statement regularly.

The idea is to not let the inanimate work get the better of you. You just have to be smarter than what you are working on.

[David Rose]

You know, if that is the key, I might be able to do cabinet work. I normally measure a few times, cut twice, then need to add some back.

David

I really feel your pain. I spent all day saturday building a set of free standing shelves for a new storage shed. Late saturday evening as the sun was setting i got the wife to come help me cart it inside and it was too blasted tall to get into the doors. So sunday I cut it 2 inched shorter and threw it in the shed. Eventually you get used to cutting the bottom off of everything you build if you have to build outside. Did I mention the bookshelf in my daughters room that is about 5 inches shorter now also for the same reason.
Do not throw in the towel it either gets easier or you get used to cutting the bottom off of everything you build

[Jon Shively]

I know a wood worker that after accidentally cutting off two fingers on a table saw is back at it. Talk about a bad day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At some point we take ourselves to serious, it is a hobby and we don't need to act like the golfer that throws his clubs in the pond. Great advice given, enjoy the time and space, ability to create, and money to afford this hobby. Great thing about these wood working tools, they don't need to be fed daily and cleaned up after so if you don't visit your shop for a couple of weeks while you mentally recoup your senses, no big deal! Think of it this way, you are good enough to realize you made a mistake, that is a big step, now the baby steps in learning to not make or repair those mistakes are as hard if not harder to do. Keep it up.

[Jim Becker]

Doctors have cemeteries; woodworkers have woodstoves. Same difference.

LOL! That's a fact.

------

Jim..."Sometimes you bit the bear...sometimes the bear bites you". The overriding import is that some learning happens. I also agree with whomever originated the sentiment, "The thing that makes a craftsman move towards to the top of the pack is his/her ability to mask their mistakes." Yup.

Hang in there...EVERYONE lacks perfection. And we are all our own worst critics, too.

[Frank Lopez]

Jim,
I'd like to invite you to join us at the SEMIWW (South East Michigan Wood Workers). We meet every third Thursday of the month in Ypsilanti. While not right around the corner, still not that far. Great bunch of guys. Always helpful, and fun to be around. You can find our forum at
http://www.marsh-monster.com/forum/.

Best of all, its FREE!!!! We'd love to help.

Frankie 2 Times

[Rob Bodenschatz]

Since you've posted this all over the place, you must be serious. Please post pics of your stuff & let the bidding begin.

[Pete Brown]

It's probably the same with you, but I am my hardest critic.

I have been (forever!) building cabinets for our kitchen. With a tiny workshop, no experience on a project this large, and really only one afternoon/evening (with supper and a bath for my boy in between) to work on it each week, it has been a real trial at times. And that's not even starting on wrestling all these 4x8x 3/4" pieces of warped (@!*$ Lowes!) maple veneer plywood around, or dealing with those bows and warps and hoping the cabinet will still end up reasonably square.

I have messed up a good number of things. Whenever I can, I see if I can alter some dimensions or otherwise make up for the mistake. I try not to make mistakes, but they somehow have a way of sneaking in there.

My wife, on the other hand, things everything looks great. I'll point out how something is a little proud or how there's a run in the finish inside the cabinet and she just asks me "now who on earth is going to see that besides you?"

If this was a small project, I might be more exact and more critical. However, on something this big, you're going to have mistakes. Think about your house - I bet there isn't a square corner in there, and no one beat themselves up over it

I've found I do my best work when I have it completely planned out ahead of time. I design each cabinet in a CAD program (sketches can work too). I write down (or print out) my full cut list. I either size the face frame to the assembled plywood, or the plywood to the assembled face frame - I never cut them both at the same time and hope I got everything right. I use a pencil to mark which areas get tongues, which get grooves, up/down/left/right, inside/outside etc. An eraser is easy to use (ok, so that was one of my mistakes. The back wall near the bottom of one lower cabinet has some pencil marks hehe)

Next, make sure you have a clean work area. I get the most frustrated when I'm tripping over things and banging into stuff. It happens a lot given the tiny size of my shop (my table saw is my assembly table more often than not), but I try and keep things clean and organized whenever I can.

Pete