I was just curious what other people do.
Unless it is a nasty faux pas…I tend to keep them in the piece.
Some are definate mistakes, others are just natural flaws in the wood.
Now…I am not a pro so I have only me to satisfy but I think keeping the minor mistakes lends truth to the piece that someone made it rather than a machine assembly line.
I have been asked to make furniture by some friends and they have trusted my eye but I am wondering if some of the pros share my opinion.
Do you find that a client wants “perfection” or do they tolerate “character”?
Here are a couple examples:
I made a bathroom vanity and when I was installing the backsplash…I measured once…need I say more?
Drilled for a dowel and was drilling leading edge of spash rather then center…drilled a hole half in and half out of the front of the backsplash.
Boy were the explitatves rampent for several minutes! Anyway…I wouldnt expect that would be something anyone other than me would tolerate or pay for.
I kept that one and filled with sanding dust and finish as a “reminder”.
Another, was the matching mirror.
The wood used had a couple areas where imperfection in the surface could have been planed or sanded out but I chose to leave them in. I think it adds some visual interest.
Replies
Personally, I like minor wood "imperfections." Wood is an organic, living thing and I don't mind being reminded of that.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
When ever I do a project it ends up getting all scratch to crap from the work bench top. You know how it is, Share a work bench with 3 other guys in a shop that isn't really made for cabinet making. THey drill holes in it, leave dirt on it it. Anyways, it bothers me when the piece isn't flawless and I hate to make stuff for others and then look and see some big scrath in it. That is just me though, You work hard to do a good job and then opps.
Derek
Some say that one criteria for becoming a pro is knowing how to fix one's mistakes.
KGETCH,
All woodworkers make mistakes. One of the differences between an apprentice, a journeyman, and a master is their ability to anticipate, repair, and camouflage 'em.
I chalk some kinds of imperfections, like knots and wormholes, up to "character" as long as, for example, the knot isn't in a conspicuous area of a writing surface, where it would merely provide evidence of poor planning or material selection.
On the other hand, some common mistakes aren't too easy for me to overlook. One that comes immediately to mind is the failure to remove millmarks before finishing. That's just poor craftsmanship, IMHO.
When it comes to paying customers, I have to base the acceptability of the results on their expectations - and accept responsibility for helping to establish their expectations in the first place.
Hope this is the kind of feedback you were after,
Paul
HI KGETCH
the man I learned cabinetmaking from told me 90% of being a cabinetmaker
is being able fix you goof ups. good luck
mark
Hello KGETCH, I actually like minor imperfections in the wood to give the piece character, a solid knot once sanded looks great. And as Jazzdog said as long as it is not in a bad place. I don't do any work for customers, I am too slow and too picky to ever make any money at it.
IMHO, cutting pieces short or drilling a hole in the wrong spot and filling it is not adding character to the piece, it is poor craftsmanship. If I did that I would just start making a new piece, as much as I might not want to.
I am currently working on a entainment armoire, the sides are very large raised panel cherry, (the raised part is 18"x65"). I inlayed some macasser ebony strips and in the process got a little off on the routing. By not keeping enough pressure on the router to the fence, there is a spot the width of the bit the "bulges out" about .010". On this I did not make a new piece, I filled it with saw dust and super glue.
Each of us work to our own level of skill and needs. I hope to get better and learn with each piece that I make. The great thing I find about woodworking that I do is like you, I only have to please myself (but as I said I am picky). If I were building for a customer my level of craftsmanship would need to be alot better. You are not building for yourself any more and if the customer does not like it you could be stuck with it, or if they do take it chances of repeat orders are slim.
Just my two cents......
Mike
Thanks to everyone for the replies!
I agree with everything everone said. Especially in regard to milling marks...I hope I didnt imply I left those and chalked it up to character.
Although, in the right piece it might in fact be appropriate. Say like a totally hand tool utilitarian chair or something like that.
I have seen antique Shaker chairs with the mortice location marks still faintly visable...I think that is pretty cool.
Granted, whomever crafted the chair never intended it to be sold for $900 but rather plop your #### down after a hard day of work and have dinner.
The vanity "incident" was my second piece of furniture I ever made...and I left it and filled it for 2 reasons really.
1) I am extremely cheap. Yankee thrift I guess beaten into me by my parents.
2) As a little reminder to be more careful and not work to late, I see it every morning and to be honest...I really dont see it anymore and no one has ever commented on it.
Thanks again for your replies!
Kgetch,
I'm at that point where just about every piece I make has errors...including milling marks. The self educated newbie has few, if any, sources at there disposal to determine the proper process steps or methods for a given situation. Recently I cut some very nice finger joints making a frame in some quarter sawn stock....I carefully routed the back side to accept the panel...and leave the exposed fingers untouched....half the bottom finger just fell off...bummer.
Likewise, being yankee, I recycle wood. I can't feel or see the planer marks..even if I wet down the panel before finishing. It only shows up when the polish is applied....luckly, my family thinks everything is great...
Good subject, this. Obvious that there is no actual solution. Not making mistakes is not open to man (or woman) born of woman so how to cope with them is a subject we all have to deal with.
When I was starting out I was, like the rest of us, short of stock and short of machinery. Every mistake was a real problem. Sometimes it could be hidden, or maybe turned upside-down, filled, the design changed on the fly so that the evidence could be cut off. As others have pointed out, it's surprising how other people rarely notice what is to us glaringly obvious.
Nowadays I'm in a much better position, the other day I was putting a prototype door together and cut a mortice in the end of a style instead of the end of the rail. It took me maybe five minutes to cut out another piece of stock, plane, thickness etc until I had a fresh piece ready to take the place of the messed up style. That's good for me, but the option of not making the mistake in the first place was not available
John
Now, I'm not a perfect in my work either, but it sure makes me feel better when I saw local showing of Sam Maloofs woodworking in Oceanside, Ca. and Riverside, Ca. last summer. He has a few "dutchmens" in his work, too. Not bashing him, his work is incredible. Boy do I love those hard and soft lines of his work.
Like they say "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"
I built a rack for my truck using salvaged red oak and mahogany with a charcoal stain to match the dark grey of the truck. I installed it during my lunch hour and was terribly disappointed in the poor color match but I didn't have time to remove the d--d thing before going back to work. After the third compliment on the "awesome woodwork" I had to slip out to the parking lot and take another look at it , guess its not so bad after all!
I am still going to refinish it when I have time but I'm not so embarrassed to be seen with it.
Mike raised a good point, I think. Wood character and craftsmanship are two different things. I'm delivering a church set tomorrow (altar, pulpit, and lecturn) which is a bit late because one of the pieces wasn't up to snuff. I am probably the only one who would notice that the legs weren't quite parallel (it's all curves...I'll be posting in the gallery soon) but I know it's there and since it will be around longer than I will be, I scrapped it and built another one. That said, there are imperfections in the wood which I filled, rather than glue up another panel. We all make compromises with wood, and the level and degree we comp9ormise is up to each of us, I guess.
Scott
My biggest fear recently has been the mistakes in finishing. You get so used to seeing the piece in it's raw wood state that it is a shocker when the first coat of stain/dye...goes on. I used to want to rush to put the top coats on so I could see the finished piece. I owe a lot of credit to Jeff Jewit and M. Dresdener for taking the mystery out of the finishing process. Now about those boards with too much character...
"My biggest fear recently has been the mistakes in finishing. You get so used to seeing the piece in it's raw wood state that it is a shocker when the first coat of stain/dye...goes on."
Just to be sure we're all talking about the same thing, in my feeble mind millmarks are the sometimes miniscule scalloped ridges left by jointers and planers, and their annoying cousins "tractor marks:" the impressions left by thickness planers when too thin a cut is taken. Similar marks can also be left by tools such as a router used with an inappropriate feed rate or a dull cutter.
Millmarks are the culprits that most often show up as nasty surprises during the finishing process.
Since each of these little scalloped ridges exposes endgrain, which accepts dyes and stains differently from the face of a smoothly scraped/sanded board, getting rid of them before applying finish is imperative. Using a raking light and swabbing on some naphtha can help reveal these nasty little buggers before finishing begins.
These are the avoidable kinds of mistakes that can be anticipated and corrected, and which often separate a prize winning project from an also-ran.
Hope this is helpful, and not overly pedantic,Paul
You're absolutely correct about the mill marks. What I'm talking about is color and texture changes the wood goes through when the first stages of a finish is applied. After I've spent many hours sweating the details and getting a piece to look just right it's hard to take that first swipe with a stain soaked rag. In the back of my mind I'm second guessing myself until I can stand back and take a fresh look. After learning how to eliminate/reduce mistakes during the woodworking phase you have to learn another set of techniques to do the same in the finishing stage.
That's what makes this so fun...the pursuit of perfection - That perfect curve, that incredible dovetail joint, the ultimate finish...the list goes on....
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