Anybody have a project that went to hell
I was making a Toy Box for my younger daughter. She gave me $100.00 for the wood.. I never told her it cost me at least 4 times more for the woods I like to work with.
Jatoba and Pango Pango… Every thing went wrong! And them some.. Is this a message from God to quit woodworking?
I hope not because i’m sure there is a workshop in Heaven AND Hell.. I’d think they are both the SAME places!
Replies
"Is this a message from God to quit woodworking?" Maybe a message to quit something else?
Hi Will ,
One has power tools and the other only hand tools , which has what is the question .
d
I like that!!
I would add that one requires the utmost in concentration along with sweat,tears and great physical conditioning and where no music or extraneous thought is allowed and still nothing turns out perfectly and the other is a lot of fun.Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke
I've been wondering the same thing.
I once had a project that was going to hell, but we couldn't agree on a delivery date.
but we couldn't agree on a delivery date. FUNNY!
My way round is not to decide what it is I am making until it is finished. Even then it's not right.
No it is not a sign to quit woodworking, no way. Someone said that if you are not making mistakes you are not doing anything. Not to say you made mistakes, but sometimes things just happen.
It is just typical of pushing yourself and your skill level, every ball player has a slump at some point so to speak, just pick yourself up and go back at it from a different direction.
I am nowhere near a fine woodworker, but I enjoy it. I have however progressed from when I started as a teenager. I used to get so frustrated. I only had the most basic of tools (powertools) a circ. saw and a jigsaw and a mitre saw and a sander. I knew the results I wanted and I knew what it would take to get them, but I didn't have the "right tools" or knew how to use hand tools properly in a traditional sense to acheive the desired result. At times I gave up,at times I had success.
As woodworkers, it is a practical skill we pursue but there is also the intangible of the creative impulse that drives us. The plans and dreams of the ideal, of a design or project, at some point seem to yield, always seem to give a little, somewhere, to the compromise of birth.
I think where I am at in my learning curve right know is that I am trying to gain expereince, while not treating every project as a life and death struggle for perfection.
I guess that is where my artistic sensibilities take over I can autocad a peice, design it, print out basic plans, but at some point in the process, once started, it almost always becomes a compromise between what I want in absolute perfection, and what the peice, and the wood, the grain, the materials, want to be, and my skill will allow. Now I am not saying that I don't build what I want, or that I give the material the choice, but perfection is very rare.
Every project becomes a portrait of our skills, our sense of proportion, our finishing choices, our workmanship, and yes our mistakes.
I read once that an architectural student was frustrated and remarked. "I see in my mind what I want and need to create, it is perfect. But when I make one line on my paper the dream becomes less." I think about that alot.
I just try not to take myself to seriously. I try to take something away from each experience. I have thrown more than a few projects away. Just yesterday It took for ever just to put a simple plywood bottom in a dovetailed chest. I cut up an eighth of a sheet of plywood and made four bottoms before I got it right. I was asking myself out loud how could I have mismeasured so badly. Oh well....
Hope this helps.
Webby
Edited 7/5/2008 6:03 pm ET by webby
Edited 7/5/2008 6:06 pm ET by webby
Edited 7/5/2008 6:07 pm ET by webby
Edited 7/5/2008 6:13 pm ET by webby
So long as you never give up, failure is impossible.
Will, Ive had a couple go to Limbo ( if you went to catholic school you know where this place is) but not quite to hell. I did have a friend though who took tremendous pride in doing any job perfectly. He made a gun cabinet for some long guns; wall mounted type. He decided to display the the guns by installing glass doors. So far so good. Then he got the brain storn of making the glass doors sliding glass doors. He finished the project mounted it on the wall and then TRIED to put the rifles and shotguns in it. They wouldnt fit. He destroyed the cabinet and part of the wall in a fit of rage. It could be said he should not have owned guns in the first place; nor power tools or anything with a sharp edge.
Wicked Decent Woodworks
(oldest woodworking shop in NH)
Rochester NH
" If the women dont find you handsome, they should at least find you handy........yessa!"
Edited 7/6/2008 8:41 am ET by cherryjohn
It could be said he should not have owned guns in the first place; nor power tools or anything with a sharp edge.
Good point!
I've been there and done that. Most of my work is plastered with repairs or redesigns. Just recently I got fed up and decided to make a model out of pine and mdf before cutting into the expensive stuff. It takes a little bit longer obvisouly but the extra time is returned very quickly once I understand the overall form and function of the piece. Not to mention I get to practice the joinery on scrap first. It's also very valuable to have a working mock up so you can determine the overall dimension to see how well the piece will work in the room it's going in.
God is telling you to build a mock up; Satan is telling to you to blindly cut into the $14/bd ft wood first.
Edited 7/6/2008 10:51 am ET by mvflaim
God is telling you to build a mock up; Satan is telling to you to blindly cut into the $14/bd ft wood first. Yep that is me for sure.. I try to listen to both sides. Mom taught me that. She had one exception. SHE WAS ALWAYS RIGHT!
I do both (sometimes).. But I usually just use cardboard sheets for overall look.
Most everything I make is sort of 'on the fly' and go as things come. I really hardly ever make BIG mistakes. Usually something like glue dripping someplace it had no place being at!
Every thing I have made for the first time has had some errors. One of the most significant things you learn in woodworking as in life is how to correct errors. Cut too short? - add on a piece with biscuits (save cut offs). Cut too narrow? - glue on a piece (no biscuits needed). Tenon loose? - add a shim and recut. I have found no problem in woodworking that is not correctable. Except of course, cutting yourself. Good luck.
Haste makes waste.
Most catastrophes are caused by an accumulation of instances of not minding flat and square, especially where boxes are concerned.
"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted!"
- Randy Pausch
There will always be days when things don't go quite right, and days when things go better than expected. Today for example I found that a very simple doweling jig I had bought two years ago (and never really used much) can actually do much more than I thought so that pleased me 'cos i felt like the money I spent on it was justified.
I read a quote from Warren Buffet recently; "Capitalism without failure is like Christianity without hell". Same is true of wood working. That said, I heat my shop with a wood stove to get rid of the evidence!! LOL
Stay with it, better results are just around the corner.
Regards,
Mack
"Close enough for government work=measured with a micrometer, marked with chalk and cut with an axe"
Christianity without hell?..
I thing God (whoever you believe in) is NOT that mean to MOST folks! Child molesters and killers and all sorts of REALLY mean folks.. I believe God deals with them personally! No time for us common folks not to worry about!
For us sort of good folks.. God gives us trials and listens fer' I GOT IT! And God says 'It was good'
My project that 'went to hell' is a medium sized Toy box for child toys..
I 'thunk' a day or two on this problem.. and started thinking it was really simple.. THEN I thought of.. What IF her brother or sister locked her in there?
NO AIR! I made air holes! (I'm not THAT stupid.. I drilled alot of holes in the back AND the sides)
THEN I thought of.. Sliding drawers.. What if little fingers get caught in the sides of the drawers? I already made a slot on top and bottom of the pull out drawer to fit a Mill Rights hand in there!
There goes my drawer shadow lines!
AND then I thought of what if she open BOTH drawers to get her toys!.. Maybe tip over on her?.. So I put cleats on the back that stuck out 32 inches.. Sure to find a stud? I hope...
I burned it and started it over.. I had a Lawyer draw up something as a warning to be pasted inside.. Then I thought.. maybe outside also!
I finally decided... Make it MY way and send a 'gift' of free ER insurance at the local Hospital if she gits' hurt using it!
My Mom fixed me and my brother with Dental Floss stitches!
Edited 7/8/2008 1:31 pm by WillGeorge
"Success is getting up just one more time than you fall down."
- Anonymous
you may have to wait until you age enough to have patients I did.
you may have to wait until you age enough to have patients I did...
At my age I HAVE! Very patient with others. Thing that would have caused me much grief when I was younger no longer bother me (most things). However, I'm still hard on MYSELF!
It is sitting on my bench right now.
One of the best projects I ever made was a folding art easel for the kids from one of Norm's books. I think I screwed up enough times to buy the wood three times over, and it took far longer than expected.
But, I enjoyed working on it, and it turned out great. Just not so cost-effective, which I hadn't expected anyway.
Someone else mentioned prototype; if I had done that with a cheap wood (step by step, before cutting the red oak), I would have saved a significant chunk of change...
Hi mkb,
I'm the one that mentioned the prototype and while I was strumming around my photos I found one I made. If you notice, the prototype looks almost nothing like the final piece. Why? Because my wife hated it! She had an idea of what she wanted and it looked good on paper but once I built a model to approximate size, she hated the way it would turn out. So, I redesigned it to a more traditional look and now it fits perfectly with our decor. The money I saved building the prototype is in the hundreds of dollars as I would have ruined a nice piece of cherry plywood building it. Prototype is nothing more than 1"x12" pine stock and a piece of mdf I got at Home Depot and I used nothing more than pocket screws for the joinery. Base was burned. Still have the mdf to use for another day.
Mike
Should have kept the prototype.. You said 'just used screws'... Take it apart and use some glue and screw it back together! Make a great tool storage or something.. OK so you may have to add a shelf and a door or two! Paint?
The problem today there is no such thing as 'cheep' wood! Why I mock up with cardboard sheets for form only..
I am NOT knocking making a prototype...
I love watching David Marks for some reason.. He spends more on MDF for his templates for cutting than I do on most finished projects which usually end $500.00 or so in wood.. NOT counting everything else!
Just my thoughts which have little meaning!
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