Do you have any common mistakes?

[Chris Tsutsui]

I notice that I have made the same mistakes in the past, and there's sort of a pattern and I've got to do something about these mistakes so they stop happening.

Here are my most common mistakes:

1. Mark a piece of wood, measure and re-mark the piece of wood. Then cut on the wrong marking so the piece is too short. (I need a good eraser with me)

2. Put the cutting guide on the wrong side of the pencil markings so that the piece you want is a blade kerf too short. (I need to mark the scrap side of the pencil markings from now on)

3. Planning error in the design. Dimension is wrong on the cutlist so after you make all the cuts and begin putting it together, one or two pieces is off. (I guess i just have to double check or use some sort of software instead of pencil and paper)

Sometimes you know that something doesn't look right, yet you make the cut anyways and then it's too late. :(

That was happening last night...

[David Christopher]

Chris, I only cut on the wrong side of the line when I have no more wood left

[David DeCristoforo]

Well, I for one have never made any of those mistakes....http://www.daviddecristoforo.com/Misc/rofl.gif

But for those of you who are prone to such lapses, the easiest way to avoid #1 is to scribble out the "extra" line. For #2, make an "X" on the waste side of the line. For #3, run your numbers at least twice. It's also a good idea to have someone else check your cutlist before you dive in. Often, if, say, you transpose numbers or make an error in writing the number, you will see it the same way the second time too whereas another person will be more likely to catch the error.

[Jason Beam]

For #1, I circle the mark that is the keep mark. It started out for visibility because sometimes my pencil lines were short little ticks and got lost in a sea of material surface. I would circle the mark so i could find it easily. This evolved into my "Not that one, THIS one" technique eventually.

So far, I haven't had a problem with #2 - though I do consider it right before the cut is made "am i on the right side?"

As for #3 - this is exactly the reason I use SketchUp and design each and every part in-place. This makes actually building more of an assembly process than a "figurin' stuff out" phase. I already did all the figurin' before. In addition to that, I may only measure one or two initial parts for a project - after that, every part gets marked in-place to accomodate the space it's going into - no measuring; just hold the rough piece up to the space it's going into and mark it. I don't trust measurements when something has to fit somewhere. I take the piece to the space.

[harry strasil]

I seldom mark the material for cutting, prefering to measure between the fence and the blade to set the distance and on my cut off saw, I have a stick down tape and also use a stop clamped on to the guides with a hand clamp for numerous cuts the same distance.

[george wilson]

I went a long way to buy some choice curly maple years ago. I was resawing the nicest piece into wedges for making an archtop and back guitar. I sawed the piece the wrong way,and ended up WITHOUT 2 pieces that were bookmatched. I was trying to cut the wood in the best way to get the most pieces out of it,and royally screwed up!!!That's the simplest way I can describe it,but I was totally unhappy about that! This piece had very small curls,not much more than 1/8" to 3/16" wide,my favorite kind of curl. The drive each way was a long one,and the wood wasn't cheap either!

[Rich Neighbarger]

Reading the tape upside down caught me a few times. I now use a lefty-righty... Problem solved.

[Mike Henderson]

I make a lot of mistakes but I don't know if I can classify any as "common". There are so many places to make mistakes that I'll probably never run out of opportunities, even if I don't repeat any.

Mike

[David DeCristoforo]

"There are so many places to make mistakes that I'll probably never run out of opportunities..."

Ain't that the truth! You would think that by now all of the possible mistakes would have been discovered and we would know about them. But it's like chess. The possibilities are infinite.

[Bill White]

It took me a long time to SLOW DOWN. Not that I still don't screw up, but being in rush when it is not necessary always led to errors. Then, by the time I fixed the ----ups, I had spent all the time I "saved" anyhow. ;)
Bill

[Chris Tsutsui]

Well at least it's reassuring knowing that I'm not the only one getting frustrated from time to time.

Things can get so complicated on projects that seem so easy...

[phil harold]

1" mistake haunts me

[Matt Stiegler]

I always remember to turn on the DC before I use a tool ... but I frequently forget to open the right gate.

[Chris Harry]

Ive installed a TON of molding in my house, yet I still make the same few mistakes:

1. For some reason, EVERY time I start trim work, the first piece I cut is always off. 90% of the time too short so I get to re-start

2. Measuring and marking trim, cutting it at a 90 degree and realizing it needed to be a 45 to mate up with another piece (in fact, I just did this over the weekend)

3. Measuring and marking the short side of a miter, and cutting it like its the long side. Meaning of course I need a board stretcher ;) or more molding

Really frustrating part is when Ive purchased primed and painted the molding for the job, but then run out because I made too many oops. Then I get to go get more molding, prime and paint and wait for it to dry.

[David DeCristoforo]

"...the first piece I cut is always off..."

That's not a mistake... it's an "axiom". But what is "funny" is that the last piece is always off too!

[Joe Scharle]

Well, one of those mistakes can be fixed forever......


Never trust a cutlist!

[John Pratt]

You would think that by now all of the possible mistakes would have been discovered and we would know about them. But it's like chess. The possibilities are infinite.

And much like Bobby Fisher, my mistakes can drive me crazy.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I've noticed that most of my mistakes occur when I don't plan something. I know I ought to just draw up a good set, but sometimes the desire to skip that step is too strong. The time I spend rebuilding something I goofed on is far greater then the time it would have taken to just sketch a quick set of plans to begin with.

[Guy Germaine]

Nope. Never!
I do however, give myself plenty of Design change opportunities! :rolleyes:

[ROY DICK]

Chris,
If I did make a mistake it was only if , I was alone or with somebody.
We all make them. Lay out a plan on paper, read and re-read.
Use the same measuring device what ever that would be. Check and recheck if need be. Damhik.
Calm down and be safe.

Roy

[Chris Tsutsui]

Actually, this is sort of overlooked as more of a nuisance and not a mistake, but I think there's a troll in my shop that likes to steal my pencils.

Then I think the troll eats the erasers off the pencils he doesn't steal.

[Bob Carreiro]

We all make 'em. Without 'em, we wouldn't be growing and learning.

Last night, was my second attempt at a simple drawer. The first attempt, I bought milled poplar. As I was about to cut the last to length, I realized I was a half inch short - rrrrrrr! So last night, I used 3/4" knotty pine (left-over from the panelled cabinet the drawer is for). I milled, datoed, rabbited, glued up and clamped, but something just didn't seem right (don't ya hate it when that happens?) and ...DAH! Rather than the 15" Deep by 21-1/2" Wide that I needed, I ended up making a 21-1/2" Deep drawer, 15" Wide! :mad: So sometime next week I'll make a thrid attempt!

Anybody got wood I can use? I'm all out! :o

Bob

PS: Now I have a drawer to build a cabinet for! :)

[John Harden]

Mistake may not be the best way to describe it, but my worst habit is not being organized in my approach. I tend to think in a linear fashion. This works well for me in my professional life, which only reinforces the behavior.

Envision making a drawer for a cabinet. Then, you make another drawer, and another. Now, wouldn't it have been far more efficient to make four drawer faces, four left sides, four right sides, etc...?

It has its positives and negatives and I've gotten better over the years, but it sometimes annoys me that I have to keep reminding myself of something that other people just do naturally.

Regards,

John

[Richard M. Wolfe]

In cutting I remember more than once scribing a line and being determined to get it perfect put it just one side of a mark on the tape and getting it perfect - one inch too short. Mumble, mumble.....something about a forest and trees. :mad:

I went to a house and got some measurements to make two sets of doors for an open cabinet which were pretty close to the same width and height. Didn't mark the sketch for height and width. Don't need to go further with an explanation, do I?

There is a nice set of drawers in the shop now that when built fit the cabinet carcase great.....without any clearance for the slides. However, I can say that I didn't do those. On and on. The really maddening mistakes are the ones that get repeated. Sometimes the first one can be funny, depending on my mood and availability of backup material.

[Tom Veatch]

It's far from being the root of all my mistakes, but the biggest single factor generating scrap in my shop is impatience. Getting in a hurry to finish saves neither time nor material.

[Ben Franz]

Over the years I've developed a fool-proof system for avoiding these types of mistakes. The only hitch is that fools are too ingenious....:mad:

[Billy Trinh]

I measure twice, cut once and still off by couple inches. Once a while, my head says 1ft = 10". Why does it have to be 12"?

[Larry James]

I notice that I have made the same mistakes in the past, and there's sort of a pattern and I've got to do something about these mistakes so they stop happening.

Here are my most common mistakes:


Chris, my comments:

1. Guilty of this - I put an X over the the incorrect line.

2. Guilty of this - Mark scrap pieces clearly with an X. Use arrow head to mark kerf side.

3 - Guilty of this - Do not cut all parts listed to exact length before you build project, errors will just be compounded. Use a cut-list as a guide, not as a bible.

Make “real life” cuts as you go - the idea is to have equal length cuts for equal length parts. For example, say you are cutting 4, 20” stretchers (per cut-list) for a small table. What is most important is that they are all the exact same length - if they are 20” +/- 1/4” that will not usually be critical - unequal lengths are a killer. Make all following measurement “real life” based on previous cuts. This will usually require dry fitting as you proceed.

If you are not using free SketchUP (http://sketchup.google.com/product/gsu.html), try it - great design “tool.”

Larry

[glenn bradley]

Chris, I only cut on the wrong side of the line when I have no more wood left


I just blew coffee all over my monitor. :D I don't make repeated mistakes. I find new ones to make all the time.

[Mike Cruz]

My vice (okay this is one of many, but the ONE that I am willing to admit to right now) is that I tend to get an finish that is just right. Well, it is almost just right. So, I'll give it ooooooone more coat. BAM! Drip, run, whatever. It'll screw up the finish. Shoulda left it alone. Coulda left it alone. DIDN'T! Now a lot of sanding, scraping, and another 43,000,000 coats to cover up my screw up.

LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!

Some day I'll learn that....:o

[Thomas Pender]

Thinking I understand what the measurement is supposed to be without reading the plan is my favorite.

Warren Bickley of Manassas NFP told me he sells lots of wood near closing time to professionals who have screwed up. He was obviously trying to make me feel better.

Still, if we would all check our plan, measure twice, make sure the fence is set correctly, etc., we could eliminate more than half of them. another thing to do is to stop woodworking when you get tired and try not to improve on what is already good enough.

[John Schreiber]

Cutting the wrong side or the wrong direction.

I think that I'm thinking through how the multiple sides of a piece will interact, but somehow I cut the joints on the wrong side. These days I lay everything out in the final positions, then mark them. But sometimes it happens anyway.

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

"another thing to do is to stop woodworking when you get tired and try not to improve on what is already good enough" by Thomas Pender (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/member.php?u=25225).

[harry strasil]

I just cut 4 pieces for a pryamid top, the last piece I cut the angles for glue up on the side with the big imperfection. Time to take a break and a nap and back off for awhile.

[Chip Lindley]

I Misunderstood early in woodworking, and instead of "measuring twice, cutting once", I cut it off TWICE and it was still Too Short!!

[Alan Wright]

One step further on the pencils. My brother in law and I tend to go back and forth between his shop and mine. He has exactly two pencils in his shop, and we can never seem to find them. We spend half our time building and half our time looking for the stupid pencil.

I went to the dollar store and bought 300 #2 pencils and bought an electric sharpener at Staples. I got 6 coffe cans and put 50 sharpened pencils in each and put them in my shop. I NEVER have to search for a pencil again.

[David DeCristoforo]

" I NEVER have to search for a pencil again."

I give you two weeks before you cannot find a pencil...

[Jerome Hanby]

I tend to visualize what I want to do, then fly through the operation without thoroughly planning. Example, was making a simple cabinet. Long pieces top and bottom with rabets to hold the side pieces and a dado to hold the center upright piece, three identical upright pieces to be the left and right sides and a center divider. Drilled shelf pin holes to correct depth the left and right pieces, through holes on the middle piece. Realized I needed to rabbet the back edges of the left and right pieces to hold the back panel and trim a quarter inch off the center piece. I of course grabbed the wrong piece and cut the quarter inch off one of the side pieces! Thought I dodged a bullet because this cabinet was going into a wall and no one would ever see the left and right sides, so I drilled through holes on the side piece I messed up and ended up with a cabinet with extra holes on the outside of one side. But since no bad deed goes unpunished, my wife pointed that the newly glued and screwed (in more ways than one) cabinet was a quarter inch too deep and would stand proud of her trim in a very unsightly fashion.

So kind of like the other poster, I now have a cabinet to find the right depth hole for :D

[Chris Tsutsui]

This contractor I saw said he solved the lost pencil problem by getting this retractable string that attaches to your belt. He thought it was a good idea until he had to actually use the pencil and found that a pencil and tether is not fun to use to make accurate marks so he ditched the whole idea after an hour.

Another general contractor always keeps his pencil in his ear. I never liked how a pencil felt there but I decided to give it a go. So I was leaning over a panel I was painting and the pencil slipped and dropped on the wet paint.

That brings me to the point of why do gnats have to magically appear out of nowhere only to kamikaze on fresh paint.

[Prashun Patel]

My most common is getting lazy during finishing

Not sanding through to the right grit; not letting something dry long enough, etc.

I tend to lose steam during the end of a project. When that happens, I work in short bursts so to give everything its due.

[Chris Tsutsui]

My finishing mistake is I always miss an area of wood glue that wasn't sanded off.

Plus, I rarely follow the directions on the cans so "Curing for 24 hours" usually means "2 hours" or "1 hour + heat gun".

[Ben Franz]

" I NEVER have to search for a pencil again."

I give you two weeks before you cannot find a pencil...

Too funny...and TRUE :eek:.