From cutting inverted joints, to screwing and gluing pieces together backwards, upside down, and/or whatever other incorrect orientation that I didn't even perceive I could possibly mess up.
All this, when I'm working carefully and marking my faces and orientation! At least, I think I'm working carefully.
Now, I do this often, and as I tackle larger projects with more parts and more things to go wrong, it's becoming more and more of an issue.
Working on my bench, I was going to add width-wise stretchers to the bottom to increase the width of the base. Glued and screwed them on backwards before realizing my mistake. Had to take the screws out and split them off. Now I have to replace the stretchers, and I have screw holes drilled in the wrong places in my legs, and I need to reglue/screw everything. Not to mention make the trip to buy another 2x4.
Before attaching them, I remember specifically thinking "Ok - no mistakes! Is everything positioned right? Nothing's backwards right?" I double checked, and somehow, I still didn't notice that I had them backwards. I had, apparently, forgot that in flipping my table upside down, the side that was previously the front became the back. But the more vexing issue is that I specifically thought to check for that, and still, somehow, didn't notice.
I find that marking faces and orientation doesn't help much either. Somehow, even with reference marks, I wind up putting things together wrong. Of the 4 legs that I mounted, I noticed that one of them was joined upside down from how I had originally decided to orient and marked them. It didn't matter in the end, but....
I'm probably the world's worse when it comes to noticing these things, and making little mistakes like this. I grasp the big picture, and I can focus in and work carefully, but it seems I can't do both at the same time. I get tunnel vision when I have to be detail-oriented.
I guess I'm a bit predisposed to this sort of thing; if anyone's familiar with psychology, I'm very much an Intuitive, as opposed to Sensing orientation. That means I naturally tend to skim over the details, and look for the big picture, essentially, and this is reflected in my every day life; I could not, for instance, tell you the color of the shirt the person who I was just talking to was wearing, or the stores or names of streets that I cross every day to work. On the other hand, I'm very good at grasping general concepts and principles, understanding how things relate to one another, and getting a "feel" for things. I can be detail oriented/focused when I need to be, as is the case with woodworking, but it's definitely a bit contrary to my natural focus. Does all that matter in the end? Well, maybe not. It just means that I have to develop certain functions that I'm not used to using, or have a natural inclination to.
I'm sure that all beginners struggle with this to some extent or the other. But, it seems that I need to troubleshoot my work-flow, or be more systematic about things. What baffles me is not so much that I make mistakes, but that I make mistakes even whilst being under the impression that I'm working carefully and have my ducks in a row.
Is this something that any of you struggle with, or have any procedures for beyond "marking faces and checking things before you glue them"? My problem seems to be that I'm not mindful of everything at once, so I think I need to form habits in my work flow that remedy this carelessness. Just "remembering to do X" and "being careful" doesn't work so well for me, I think. As to what those habits should be, I don't yet know.
Reply With Quote