Mid project blues....!

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Jameshow

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Hi

Anyone get the mid project blues....


Or as I call it the grand design blues... When a usually big project hits a little rough patch.....

I've been building a chest of drawers - my first...

I cut the front rails? to the wrong size - s random size - what I think I did was pick up the waste piece and saw that into 3 and then mortice out 2" of each end x3 Only they were 3" too small. And the remaining wood I have isn't the same quality as the rest of the chest....doh!!!
No biggy set me back a couple of hours and much frustration!

Anyone have similar misshaps!!!

Cheers James
 
Hi

Anyone get the mid project blues....


Or as I call it the grand design blues... When a usually big project hits a little rough patch.....

I've been building a chest of drawers - my first...

I cut the front rails? to the wrong size - s random size - what I think I did was pick up the waste piece and saw that into 3 and then mortice out 2" of each end x3 Only they were 3" too small. And the remaining wood I have isn't the same quality as the rest of the chest....doh!!!
No biggy set me back a couple of hours and much frustration!

Anyone have similar misshaps!!!

Cheers James
Of course mate, I call it Tuesday!

On a serious note, I have learnt in my limited time that it is all part of the learning curve. There isn't a project where I haven't made a few mistakes (and some of those projects haven't even started)
 
Thanks

I've been thinking about it and a coupe of reasons why come to mind....

It's been a personal back burner job whilst I have had work related jobs taking precident. This I haven't always had my mind focused on the project.

Secondly I didn't cut out all the parts from a parts list as I'm sure many of you do?

I cut pieces as I thought I needed them....

Finally my assembly table has the drawers stacked up on it and a large dumb scaffolding table resting on it!!! The legs etc have been scattered around the workshop! So the measuring error wasn't obvious as I didn't have access to the drawers!!

Cheers James
 
I think it’s always focus at the root of this. If I’m picking something back up, I usually try to take 10 mins to get everything squared away so that only the stuff I need is out. Some of this is working in a tiny space - I don’t have room to mess about so I have to work methodically. Cut everything to size, mark parts and faces, work out joints and then select what I’ll work on next.

I’ve had to work at slowing down and double checking. Good practice but I still screw it up. Last week I cut a bunch of miters at the start of the day and got the inside and outside dimensions mixed up on the track saw resulting in a whole load of new kindling as everything was 20mm out. Doh!

One more lesson learned...

Cheers

Scott...
 
I always make mistakes. There isn't one job where I didn't make some kind of mistake, but it's just a hobby. I don't work from plans. I just make things up as I go along, including when I made a chest of drawers years ago. Sometimes I just incorporate the mistakes into the design, mainly I end up with some spare bits of wood I can use on something else. Plans just give me more scope to make mistakes.
I do all the measure twice, cut once, most of the time, but still make mistakes. I have got to the point where I just don't worry about it and even find it amusing, then it's the "you stupid pineapple!" and I constantly relearn the same lesson.
 
I find that when I start to make mistakes I continue to make mistakes so it is better to take a break. If I come back to it fresh another day things go a lot more smoothly.
 
Getting cutlists from SketchUp has been a total revelation. Marking the components up and checking them off a list to make sure I've got everything and then run through my QA process (quantity, dimensions, do I need to leave a bit extra for now or can it go straight to final size, marking up which are the nicer faces and sides that I should have visible etc).

Sure, mistakes still happen - I've had to redo a few components because I did dumb things like cut a mitre the wrong way (I am still really not sure how the hell I managed that) or cutting a mitre and then finding out I'd made the piece too short as a result. Luckily I can repurpose the waste into smaller components on my next project.

I did find mistakes a bit disheartening at first, but I've pretty much overcome that now and just accept I'm inevitably going to do something wrong and I just have to learn from it and try not to repeat it.

As above, I find the number of mistakes I make has drastically fallen now that I do a set task then take a break rather than try to do as much as possible in a fixed timeframe.
 
Mistakes are not necessarily a bad thing, they can sometimes present an opportunity to improve your design by adding a bit of individuality. I once made a complete dining suite of a table and 6 chairs in oak including some of the lovely brown variety. I managed to make 3 significant errors caused by (a) poor workmanship, (b) router collet coming loose and (c) my daughter getting married.
This was a big project taking many months to complete. Half way through making the seats in the brown oak I had to down tools for a couple of weeks in order to get said daughter underway. On picking up the job again I carried on with the seat profile carving; finished roughing it out and, OMG, I'd carved out the underside, I didn't have enough brown oak for a complete replacement but I did have a piece sufficiently large to let in to replace the mis-carved section. A close run thing.
(a) & (b) were recovered with 'design features' The friends I was making the suite for were thrilled with the mods. They said it added an extra element of individuality.
Lessons from the learning curve:-
1. if you're pushing the boundaries of your ability, make sure you've got an escape route.
2. know your kit
3. think ahead - don't have daughters
Brian
 
1) My escape route - the woodburner!!!

2) my tools are fine my skills lag far behind!

3) I have two daughters. My two sons cause me more grief!!

Cheers James
 
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