I'm really mad at myself

[HowardH]

I've been making a lot of cheese and cutting boards lately to sell and I was getting ready to glue up one of those incra style boards.  That's the kind of board where each successive slice is slightly larger than the one next to it and you alternative two different colored species going the opposite direction.  Sort of like this below.

I was getting ready to my first glue up and looked at the thing 3 times to make sure I had put the slices in order. Seemed good to go so glued everything up last night and came out after work to worked on it and discovered I had a maple slice out of order! arggggg!!!  $20 of maple and walnut down the drain.  I hate making stupid mistakes like that.  It's really strange how your brain can trick you into not seeing something that should have been obvious.  i just put everything away and came inside.  Woodworking while being mad is not a good combination.  I'm sure you guys have similar if not way more expensive stories to share. 

 

[rvieceli]

[member=396]HowardH[/member] It's not a mistake, it's a unique interpretation of the design. [wink]

Ron

 

[Sparktrician]

"This is ONLY a test..."  [big grin]  (Great idea, though...) 

 

[peter halle]

I've been making a lot of cheese and cutting boards lately to sell and I was getting ready to glue up one of those incra style boards.  That's the kind of board where each successive slice is slightly larger than the one next to it and you alternative two different colored species going the opposite direction.  Sort of like this below.

I was getting ready to my first glue up and looked at the thing 3 times to make sure I had put the slices in order. Seemed good to go so glued everything up last night and came out after work to worked on it and discovered I had a maple slice out of order! arggggg!!!  $20 of maple and walnut down the drain.  I hate making stupid mistakes like that.  It's really strange how your brain can trick you into not seeing something that should have been obvious.  i just put everything away and came inside.  Woodworking while being mad is not a good combination.  I'm sure you guys have similar if not way more expensive stories to share.

Repurpose into a smaller board(s) or an oddly shaped board.

Peter

 

[Cheese]

Neat design idea Howard...I've never seen one of those before.  [smile]

 

[shanegrilah]

Is there a way to slice out the bad portion, make new pieces then glue them in the correct sequence?

 

[RKA]

We are our own worst critic.  It's not as perfect as you envisioned, but it's not terrible on my computer screen.  I'm sure whomever you gift that to will be thrilled!  So it's not $20 wasted, it's one less gift to buy! 

I'm always looking for ways to streamline my thoughts and workflow to eliminate these things.  Often I start with..."okay, what can I screw up today" and focus on managing my brain so I do NOT screw it up.  And it works.  But it's not uncommon for another less obvious screw up to peer through the wormhole and bite me in the behind!  Some days I just can't help myself and other days it seems like the stars align.

 

[sancho57]

When something like that happens to me, I call it "custom"

 

[Jiggy Joiner]

It's like an artist leaving his signature.  [wink]

 

[Rob-GB]

Wabi sabi

The Japanese thinking of perfection within imperfection. (wiki link)

What you see as a mistake someone else will see as something to treasure, I think it looks great.

Rob.

 

[threesixright]

It's really strange how your brain can trick you into not seeing something that should have been obvious.  i just put everything away and came inside.  Woodworking while being mad is not a good combination. 

Hear you!

Key is to detach yourself and do something else, then look at it again. Also, asking someone else (means often you need to explain) will make you catch 'simple' errors early on.

 

[HarveyWildes]

I make mistakes all the time.  Part of the challenge of making is either fixing the mistakes, adjusting to make them look like a natural part of the design, or just doing nothing and calling them features.

 

[Michael Kellough]

From the picture posted, seems like the fix would be fairly easy, unless there is no more wood.

 

[duc996]

I make some cutting boards that takes a lot of steps for glue ups and what has helped me is to number them on the end that I will cut / square later. What has also helped is draw a guide line like a triangle to help with visual that I can sand off later.

 

[Tinker]

A good friend and mentor had a great observation: A good mechanic can design his way out of any mistake he made.
Tinker

 

[Bigdaddy65]

It's like an artist leaving his signature.  [wink]

And double the price [big grin]

 

[Jiggy Joiner]

It's like an artist leaving his signature.  [wink]

And double the price [big grin]

You know it.  [big grin] [wink]

 

[Gregor]

I honestly fail to see what's wrong with the board in the image.

 

[RJNeal]

This kinda reminds me of one of my screw ups that got saved. Awhile back I was making a bunch of end grain boards.
I decided to make some checker boards with maple and walnut. So I made two what I call blanks of alternating walnut and maple. Then I ran them thru the drum Sander.
By the time I got the blanks smooth on both side, they ended up a little thinner than they should be so when glued up in the end grain formation they wouldn’t be square. O wells, I placed them in the racks for a few years.
Finally I started to clean out the shop and someone needed a reasonable price board. Some her I had a deal for you ......
Next she wanted a juice groove. Which I never did before. So I made a template, practice, set depth of bit. Then I started to route the board. In the process of putting down the router from practice and getting set up for the real deal the depth stop loosen up on the router so the plunge in the board when too deep. Just alittle upset.
So I place a nice bow tie to cover the hole. Luckily the bow tie got close to centered on the board perfectly splitting the maple and walnut.
So the board was a double failure that I still sold for some cash.
Rick.
Rick.