To keep the ego in check... what have you messedup lately?

[Frank Pellow]

There is a thread about this on the Canadian Woodworking forum and I just posted to it.

It is quite therapeutic to learn about all the screw-ups that other folks make.

So, I thought that I would kick off a similar thread here.

 

[Frank Pellow]

I made some cabinets for my daughter Kathleen for Christmas. They were to go into her basement rec room.

On Boxing Day, I went to her house to install the cabinets and found that they would not fit down her narrow basement staircase.

In the next week or two, I plan to start a thread about this screw-up and how I recovered from it.

 

[mwhafner]

Wish I could say I hadn't had that happen to me before. 

While I wouldn't exactly call it a mistake, but I did run into a door installation a couple weeks ago that should have been a couple hour job.  Turned into a two day affair. 

 

[honeydoman]

the last upstairs bookcase I built, just a basic one in a bedroom office.  I made it to fit into the space..... turned out, after checking several points on the wall there was one area that was  about 1/4" to wide and it would not fit at all any way shape or form... what do I do... take it apart trim it down?

brilliant idea.... used my 850 planer and planed the side of the case down about 3/16" on each side near the top  looked like heck, but it went into a wall cubby and would not ever be seen... while doing this quickly.... remember what they say about being in a hurry?  I hit a screw with the planer head and it now has a small nick, darn.

plus I did not bring my vac upstairs, and put a small tarp down... what a freeking mess,  but vacumed it up with the customers vac and it look good as new.

almost every job I do I run across small issues that I have to correct or adjust, it is just the nature of our business.

the most funniest one was about 11 years ago when I was just starting to do this business I had to replace a small piece of doorcasing in a downstairs small room that then went out to the garage.

these people were renters and were moving and the dog had chewed up the casing for about 3'  so I cut out about 3' up, left and went to hd a grab a small piece of 2 1/4 casing and went back to the house and it was 2" to short.  again in a hurry.

so what do I do.?  well I moved the 2' piece of baseboard over and set the casing on top of the base and it fit fine.  now what about the 2" gap in the not so well lite corner?  well I used 20min drywall mud and filled it and shaped it so it looked just like baseboard.!  well almost.

how stupid was that>  funny but never did that again.

even to this day when I replace rotted wood I replace the entire piece never just part and again make it right.

lesson learned.

the day I made baseboard out of drywall mud may it rest in piece!

 

[bruegf]

I'm working on a rocking horse for my 2 yr old nephew and just drilled two holes for the foot rest dowel 1/8" oversize because the labels in my new box set of Forstner bits are shifted over one drill size and I didn't realize it.  Guess the foot rest will be 1 1/4" instead of 1".

Fred

 

[erikfsn]

I'm at work today (remodeler) glance at my feetand instead of work shoes I've got on some Mephisto loafers. Whoops they need a little tender care now

 

[joiner1970]

Well this week I have been building one small wardrobe and some shelves for a customer only a small job but I have managed to squash my Midi vac hose then yesterday my TS55 kicked back and chewed up my 2700 rail  [embarassed] [embarassed] [embarassed] funny how you always think after the accident how I didnt quiet support the sheet I was cutting properly I wont do that again  [embarassed]

 

[mouppe]

It's just a small thing but today I forgot to reset the depth adjustment on the Domino and instead of plunging 15mm I went 25mm, through the maple ply and into my workbench.

Battle scars!

[attachimg=#]

 

[peter halle]

It's just a small thing but today I forgot to reset the depth adjustment on the Domino and instead of plunging 15mm I went 25mm, through the maple ply and into my workbench.

Battle scars!

Nope.  Fashionable dog holes!  Holds dogs that can be removed, sanded, won't damage a sharpened edge, etc. [thumbs up]

Nice idea!

Peter

 

[Bill Wyko]

Now fill it with a home made domino, problem solved. ;D

As far as my mess ups go, I mess up all the time.....I'm really good a fixin though. Check out my gallery and go through the humidor build. I didn't hide anything. I screwed up over and over with the veneer top. But I got better and better at fixing it. [eek]

 

[Frank Pellow]

I make that type of mistake far more often than I should and my workbench shows it.  

Here, for instance is a nick that I made about a week ago with a jig saw:
[attachimg=#]

That is not nearly as neat as the two symmetric Domino holes in your bench.  Yours could be construed as intentional, mine is obviously a screw-up.

I usually fill such holes with Bondo auto body filler.  Two such repairs that I made earlier can be seen as pink circles in the region just to the left and below the recent nick.  I notice that I also used Bondo, to fill in on top of the imperfect tenon that I cut when making the bench.

 

[Wim]

I make also my screw-ups. But I make a division between normal screw-ups and stupid screw-ups. A normal screw-up could be cutting on the wrong side of the line, something exactly 100 mm too short, holes too deep or too wide.
A typical stupid screw-up was when I made a drawer cabinet for small tools and hardware. I make this sort of cabinets to a fixed form, a frame, plywood sides, plywood drawers and wooden rails. To make a cutting list I had set-up a spreadsheet for earlier cabinets. I type in the width, height, depth and the height of each drawer. A large cutting list of all components will be produced with a simple press on the Enter-button.
The width and depth should be 500 and 600 mm. For some reason I typed in 400 and 500. I started cutting in assembly line style. In record time I had a stack of plywood panels and frame parts. When I started assembling, I was a little disappointed about the storing space it had. Only when I put it in place, I saw my mistake. I will spare you the next 30 minutes after installing.
After a week I started all over again and could use the wrong cabinet somewhere else.