Frequent Woodworking Mistakes
Think you are the only one who makes mistakes? Think again! Yesterday, I asked folks on Twitter, Facebook and in The Wood Whisperer Community what mistakes they make most often. Here’s some of the highlights:
- “Purchasing an overwhelming tool… most recently Leigh Dovetail Jig…. uggg” – KN_SSA-r
- “measure once, cut twice.” – Yucatandan
- “Measuring twice doesn’t help if you only think once…” – Torch02
- “doing ‘just one more thing’ when tired. Always leads to disaster. Go upstairs and sleep, bozo…” - jmk89
- “underestimating the time needed to complete and overestimating my ability to get the job done” – FredCannon
- “mis-measuring in some subtle way (e.g. missing kerf or reading wrong side of line)”- Cyface
- “buying new tools before learning what my current tools are capable of accomplishing (and, thus, spending money I don’t have).” – CogWheelBrain
- “I jump in to bigger projects than I can do and get discouraged too quickly.” – michaelbclark
- “Woodworking mistakes? Let’s just say I can’t count the mistakes on my fingers.” – Aquapasture
- “Drips and runs in the finish” - Dbingham
- “Letting my mind go 100MPH … hands can’t keep up thou…lol…I NEED TO SLOW DOWN :)” – Lubos Kuzma
- “Not spending enough money for tools. The single worst thing I’ve done (repeatedly, unfortunately), is thinking that a cheap tool will work just as well as the good tool.” - Carlos Alvarez
- “chipout on the corner of a board from hand planing or routing…” – Matt Berger
- “Not buying enough raw material… always have to go back to get more. Should know by now LOL”- Andreas Schwall
- “Trying to do everything with power tools when they should be done with hand tools” – Matt Rakowski
- “Trying to keep all the good wood for yourself when you are building a project for a customer.” - Thomas Elliot Glynn
- “Having 5 projects going at once in my 1 project workshop…(and occasionally finishing one).” – Gary Aurora
- “Either under-buying wood and then struggling to match grain and color later or over-buying and ending up with too much but not quite enough for another project.” – Allen in Ohio
And this has to be my personal favorite:
“jeez, all of the above… I suck… B-/” - Bob Daniel
See! You’re not the only one who makes mistakes. :)
76- Humble Pie
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Ever wish you could fast forward 5 years and see how your projects are holding up? That would certainly be useful information as it would let you know what worked, and what didn’t. So in this episode, I pull out a number of old projects and examine them closely for damage, flaws and evidence of wood movement. I’ll also go over the joinery used in each project and what you can expect from them over time. And the grand finale is my chess board (the second project I ever made). Let’s just say that you should never underestimate the power of wood movement. Incidentally, if you answered our viewer survey this past summer, you’ve already seen this episode.
Are you a Humble Woodworker? Just for fun, take this little quiz created by Garrett over at ToolCrib.com
52 – My Mistake
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In the years since I started woodworking, I have only had a few close calls. Fortunately, most of my injuries have been minor. Most of those injuries took place early in my career before I knew anything about anything. This video will show you some of the stupid mistakes I’ve made, what happened to me, and how I avoid repeating those mistakes.
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