I gotta know...... a poll....on projects...........

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Have you even completed a woodworking project that was absolutely perfect......no mistakes that required adjustments.........nothing that had to be covered up or considered a "design modification"?

Just wondering................

[Bruce Page]

By perfect you mean you wouldn’t change a thing?
Nope. I have made many perfectly machined metal parts/assemblies. In woodworking, there’s always something I wish I would’ve thought of or done differently.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Bruce....I'm just curious...I'm working on an entertainment center....and just blew it. I misread my own drawings and made a rabbet on the end of a piece of 24 1/4" by 72 1/4" oak plywood that was suppose to fit into a dado. Now as luck would have it, it won't be visible so I cut a "filler" strip and glued and filled the gap with it.

[Neil Brooks]

I'd almost rather split this up. Because .....

I've NEVER been satisfied with a project that I've built, but ... others -- recipients, particularly -- sure have.

We ARE our worst critics. That seems like rule #2, after "never too many clamps." ;)

[David Nelson1]

I'm working a bench right now that I have so many "escapes" I'm waiting for all the parts to have gone AWOL. 1/16 of an inch here 1/8 here. I'm face gluing all of the main support pieces to get thicker stock and I thought 1/4 over for rough sizes would be enough. Nope good lesson. Tedious redraw and note corrections.

[Matt Meiser]

Yep, I'm guessing Duh! No! will win by a landslide but if you asked significant others, then the results would be drastically different.

[Bruce Page]

Bruce....I'm just curious...I'm working on an entertainment center....and just blew it. I misread my own drawings and made a rabbet on the end of a piece of 24 1/4" by 72 1/4" oak plywood that was suppose to fit into a dado. Now as luck would have it, it won't be visible so I cut a "filler" strip and glued and filled the gap with it.
That sounds like a good reason to learn CAD! :D
Glad you were able to recover.

[Jerome Hanby]

Is there a category lower than Duh, No? :eek:


Yep, I'm guessing Duh! No! will win by a landslide but if you asked significant others, then the results would be drastically different.

[Ron Jackson]

Man..........you ever built many rocking chairs ? I build "mission" style, and try to be true to the Stickly construction specs. and haver NEVER finished piece yet, that didn't require some "constructive remedies". That's why I continue to be addicted to the craft !

[Ken Fitzgerald]

That sounds like a good reason to learn CAD! :D
Glad you were able to recover.


My drawing was right....my reading was wrong. Will a CAD correct that problem?:confused::rolleyes:

[Ron Jackson]

Hey Ken, I love CAD......but, that doubles your chances....you can draw it wrong, THEN mis-read the drawings. Oooops!

[Bruce Page]

My drawing was right....my reading was wrong. Will a CAD correct that problem?:confused::rolleyes:
My CAD drawings are much more legible than my hand drawn sketches. ;)

[Ron Kellison]

My perfect category would be "Not even close!"

Regards,

Ron

[ray hampton]

can you say DUH , three times real fast

[Ken Fitzgerald]

My CAD drawings are much more legible than my hand drawn sketches. ;)

Bruce......Legibility wasn't an issue.....senility probably was.....:confused::(

[Bill Geyer]

They're not mistakes, they're just learning exercises.

[Bill Huber]

I do the same thing, I will spend a week in SketchUp getting the plans just right, put all the dimensions on it and then check them.
Print it all out and then when I go to build it I read it wrong and cut the board the wrong length.

So don't feel like the Lone Ranger....;)

[david brum]

I've certainly never completed a project without mistakes. I'm OK with that, as it adds to the challenge. What I can't figure is how my projects always take 4X longer than my worst case scenario.

[Cody Colston]

You're joking, right?

I guess what constitutes a "mistake" can be somewhat subjective but in my opinion, I've never completed a mistake-free project. Even though the mistake may be hidden, I know it's there.

If I ever did have a mistake-free build, I would probably stop woodworking as I would have reached perfection...something that can't be improved upon.

[Dave Anthony]

I have worked on numerous projects (~ 100%) where the initial plans required subsequent modification to express artistic license.

[Brian Tymchak]

I'm assuming a "project" for the purpose of the poll is more complicated than a single flat board planed and cut to the correct dimensions the first time.. I've done that... a few times.. :o

[Neil Brooks]

I'm assuming a "project" for the purpose of the poll is more complicated than a single flat board planed and cut to the correct dimensions the first time.. I've done that... a few times.. :o

Boy. That's gotta' feel good :)

[Jeff Monson]

I'm assuming a "project" for the purpose of the poll is more complicated than a single flat board planed and cut to the correct dimensions the first time.. I've done that... a few times.. :o

Thats what I was thinking when I answered the poll. If you mean multiple pieces of wood, with proper joinery, to the correct specs, glued up and finished with no mistakes!!!! I can GUARANTEE you that will not happen in my lifetime.

[Art Mulder]

Yep, I'm guessing Duh! No! will win by a landslide but if you asked significant others, then the results would be drastically different.

Bingo.

I am my own worst critic, but I'm getting better. My wife has been working on me for the past 10 years and I am gradually getting better at NOT immediately showing people all the mistakes that I made. (I have to show them, because almost none of them ever notice anything amiss.)

[Tom Ewell]

Always are mistakes made, the one's I dislike the most are the one's that occasionally repeat themselves and the fixes are all too familiar

[Zahid Naqvi]

Funny thing is what we perceive as glaringly obvious mistakes are never noticed by casual observers. For example look at the following picture of a hall cabinet I made several years ago. If you look carefully you will notice the left side arched infill pattern is slightly short on the right side corner where it touches the stile. The infill panel is about 1/4" thick and the corner broke off when I was routing it. The piece got sucked into the dust collector beyond retrieval. I was going to fix it by attaching a small replacement piece to match, but that was about 4 yrs ago. It's still the first thing I notice. But over the years not a single person I have shown this to has noticed it (or at least made a comment on why the infill is slightly short on one side). I suspect a WWer can possibly never make a project without a mistake, because we are our own worst critics.
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[David Helm]

Many cultures always put an anomaly in a project on purpose. The reasoning is that only god can do perfect.

[Marty Paulus]

My problem with this poll is the category of Not In My Lifetime is not a choice.

[John Coloccia]

I've pulled off small projects without any mistakes but I don't think that really counts. I don't think I've ever made anything complex without a mistake or two somewhere. Well, that's not really right either. At this point, I can build a guitar neck without making a mistake, but it gets easier when you use the same design time after time. I have a build book that I've entered all of my steps, I have basic templates I use to get blanks, etc. I'm sure if you built 10 entertainment centers, by the 10th one you would have no mistakes. That's not what most people do. Most hobbyists build one of something. Of course you won't get it right on the first try.

A pro might get it right on the first try but that's only because he's built dozens of similar items so a small change of dimension here and there is irrelevant. He's got his procedure down pat. He knows how to avoid mistakes because he's made them all and he's learned from it. My luthier mentor tells me, "I still make mistakes, but they're very small mistakes and easily correctable. These days, I can see the big mistakes coming and stop myself." I think that's the best you can really do is just stop yourself before making big mistakes.

I find myself making little boo boos but more often than not it's something that will get carved away later, or something that won't show and will have no effect whatsoever on anything else. I think to myself, "boy, that was lucky!" but maybe it's not luck. Maybe I'm getting better at seeing the big mistakes coming too because I build the same things over and over and over again. Eventually, the process becomes very mechanical and a mistake is like slipping...yeah, it happens but I don't spend my day slipping.

If I build a different piece of furniture everyday, you can bet that every one would have boo boos, but I promise you that if I built the same chair day in and day out, by the end of the second week every one would be perfect except for the occasional slip.

[Gordon Eyre]

I go on the principle of mark once and cut twice so you know where I come out on the scale. It would be nice to look back on a project and declare it perfect. I am running out of years and so I don't hold out much hope that I will ever get there.

[Jim Rimmer]

Maybe we need a forum for Jokes for this type question. :D I built a maple buffet for LOML about 40 years ago. While laying out the face frame I forgot to allow for the stiles between the drawers. By the time I noticed it was too late to fix it (college project and the semester was running out). So I have a row of three drawers and the one on the right is two inches wider than the other two. I know it's there but in 40 years, no one has mentioned it.

[Brian Tymchak]

...By the time I noticed it was too late to fix it (college project and the semester was running out).


Well, I gotta ask... Did your instructor notice it??

[Rod Sheridan]

Bingo.

I am my own worst critic, but I'm getting better. My wife has been working on me for the past 10 years and I am gradually getting better at NOT immediately showing people all the mistakes that I made. (I have to show them, because almost none of them ever notice anything amiss.)

I also always tell people about the errors in my projects, and as Art said, they aren't noticed by other people......Rod.

[Don Selke]

It is not the errors that count, it is how you compensate and correct them that matters. As they say, only God is perfect.

[Ron Jones near Indy]

The person that never makes a mistake is the person who never does anything. The craftsman knows how to hide or take advantage of a mistake and turn it into a feature.

[Mike Schuch]

I worked really hard on a solid hard maple shelf to hang over the toilet in the bathroom in a cabinetry class I took at the local community college. I made the face frame 1/16" over so I could trim it flush with a router and got perfect joints pretty much all the way around. When I cut the very last piece, the strip along the back to hang it I cut it 1/8th to narrow. The very first thing I see every morning as my eyes are beginning to open is that 1/8" gap hidden behind all the towels. Nobody else has noticed it but I see it every time I use the toilet. In 10 years I have found no other flaws... but maybe it is because that one is such blaring flaw.

[Cary Falk]

LIL. The day I complete a project that I am 100% satisfied with is that day I sell my tools. I will have completed my goal and have nothing left to accomplish.

[Greg Portland]

Yes, I can think of 2 total and both were "simple" projects. One was a simple shelf made with melamine (4 shelves so 7 total pieces) and the other was a quilt display clamp (4 pieces). Anything slightly complex will have a few glitches along the way, even when I plan everything out in SketchUp.

On the other end of the spectrum I was making a large built-in bookcase and ended up cutting a few shelves to the wrong length (3/4" short). I figured that I could cut the rest for that unit short and it would look OK. WRONG. I had to cut ALL the shelves to length to make it look right & then the entire unit didn't fit / fill the wall perfectly. Fortunately I was able to shim in between each unit with 3/4" scraps and make it all look good (face frame covered the boo-boo). That was one of those domino mistakes (1 error quickly results in multiple things being changed & then that produced more screw-ups).

[Roy Turbett]

My projects don't have mistakes. They have "features".

[Tom Horton]

You know how, when you build a swing set from a kit, you always have extra parts? I don't know how many times I've made all the parts for a project, laid them out on a bench and built the project...... and I've always got a couple of extra parts.... I can't tell you how many times I've had to rebuild something because I've "forgotten" to install a tiny, but oh so important piece..... ;-)

[Jim Rimmer]

Well, I gotta ask... Did your instructor notice it??

After 40 years I don't remember but as I remember him, I'm sure he did and probably chastised me for it.

BTW, just last night, while working on my prototype bedside table, I cut mortises on my last piece of wide Poplar for the rear apron. Yep, cut it wrong and can't fix it because it will be too short. SO off to the BORG for a piece of Poplar. On the other hand, that's why I am making a prototype before I start cutting into my mahogany.