The First Scratch on Your Latest Creation

[Andrew Joiner]

I'm in the process of accepting reality.
I made a new table for our house. I considered several finishes and picked the best one for looks and durability. I tested ceramic plates sliding across my other pieces with the same finish and I was impressed with the scratch and stain resistance.
I showed my wife the test samples and we had the talk. I asked her if she'd be willing to put heavy abrasive ceramics, hot bowls and finger nail solvents on trays. We agreed on a few rules for our new table.
I sanded the top and babied it until it was set in place in our dining area. My wife and friends are amazed with the bookmatched top. Now it's been 2 months and no one is babying the table. They have the nerve to actually use it like it was a table! I haven't said anything. Of course the rules we discussed about protecting the table have fallen by the wayside. I new they would and eventually the table will get scratched and gain patina.

I'm telling my story here because I'm sure this is a common experience among woodworkers. With all the time we spend making things nearly perfect, watching your work experience every day use can be tough.

Anyone got similar stories?

[John Coloccia]

Anyone got similar stories?

I build guitars. For whatever reason, we take them and polish them until they look like glass. The first time you accidentally drag...oh I don't know....a pick...or perhaps a fingernail over the finish, it gets scratched. I've had prototypes I've lent out. After a couple of months, I got one back from a working musician full of scratches, dents and beer stains. LOL. I took it as a compliment that he was using it as a tool and not useless work of art (not that all art is useless, but IMHO a guitar is useless if form doesn't follow function).

I'm going to go against what I perceive to be the grain and say that to me the highest complement anyone can pay to my work is to take it and use it. I actually get annoyed when someone tries one of my guitars and babies it. I build them to play. Stop fooling around and play the darn thing like you mean it. In your case, I think I'd be annoyed with myself if I managed to build a table that everyone refused to use as a table.

[Paul Wunder]

John,

A very thoughtful and realistic answer

[Mike Cutler]

Andrew

I think every project works that way. At least I know it's true for me.
I'm with John, the best compliment someone can give me is using the things I've made. Of course in the case of your table, using a couple of trivets isn't out of the question either. I'd be slightly peeved too, even if it was a store bought table. Maybe a quick project for the future is to make some nice trivets for your wife and her friends to use. Leave them in a nice rack in the middle of the table.

[Cameron Handyside]

I had the same dilema after completing my wooden dinghy. I sanded, painted and varnished till it was perfect. 30 seconds in the lake and it was dirty! I once heard an old wooden boat builder say "if it's too nice to let a wet labrador jump in it, you got too much varnish".

['Jacques Malan']

I like the dinghy one. Mty brother build a dinghy and we were so careful with it in the beginning, I had to help him carry it, putting it gently on the grass. The last time he went sailing I saw him dragging it over the ground.

I myself tend to get upset when new finishes get scratched, but taught myself that it doesn't matter. It is there to be used, and if using it means it get damaged, so be it.

[Steve Kohn]

I built a new kitchen table for our house. It has a 5/4 cherry top, finished with 6 coats of lacquer. It's been in the house for less than a year and is already developing both the distintive coloration of cherry and the patina of having 2 grandchildren using it. And then SWMBO had the temerity to suggest that the dings (where the grandchildren sit) was on the table when I installed it. Oh well, at least it's being used daily.

[kevin nee]

I think sometimes we do these super finishes for other woodworkers. I do a lot of usable turnings and sand to 500 or 600 (oil hand-buffed finish) and people cut salad with a knife and fork in them, leave them in a half water filled sink etc. Then there are the customers who THANK YOU by taking great care of the items and another THANK YOU by coming back. On to the next project and enjoy the woodworking! I a have family too (Can't live with em and can't kill em)

[Jason Roehl]

I'd say there is a distinction between wear from regular, normal use, and careless abuse.

In the guitar instance, I'd be annoyed if the guitar was beat up because someone couldn't be bothered to transport it in a case, so it bounced around in their back seat. Or if they weren't mindful of where they set it on stage. Pick and fingernail scratches would be fine. Oh, and the annoyance would be on prototypes/loaners. If it's a guitar they bought from me, then if they want to smash it after a concert, it's their property...job security!

One I've had to accept is the damage that comes from pets. We have cats, and have a decent dining set that was a hand-me-down gift years ago. One of the cats has chewed on all the sharp corners of the chairs and the table. Oh, well. Maybe some day I'll refinish it, but for now it just shows that (in addition to the cat damage) we've had much fellowship around that table with family and friends over the years, which is far more important to me than stuff.

[Larry Fox]

I can relate - I built my (then) very young son a new bed. Very proud of it and the finish was rubbed out and everything. I "deployed" it thinking he would cherish it and pass it down to his kids and all that. His first reaction - bounced up and down on it, pulled himself and proceeded to BITE the headboard through the finish to expose the underlying wood. Reflecting back on it - I have to say I completely agree with John! We build our stuff to be used.

[Pat Barry]

Its part of the process I guess. I had built a end grain cutting board from remnants of my workbench lamination. It turned out surprisingly nice and my bride loved it and used it all the time. She even put more mineral oil finish on it from time to time to keep it nice. Now, more than a year later, it has developed a warp. It wasn't in the dishwasher of course, but it most certainly got wet and didn't dry evenly, thereby inducing the warp. Maybe it will come back to flat although I doubt it. Oh well, I didn't have that much invested in it anyway and it did get used a lot.

[David Helm]

I feel your pain! With young grandchildren around there is no way to keep a piece perfect. One of the first tables I made (coffee table in highly figured maple) took such a beating from the grandkids that I sent it home with them.

[Jeff Duncan]

I have one that's just the opposite! I made a 1-3/4" thick S.A. mahogany c-top for our kitchen, stained it up and applied several coats of a nice durable satin finish. It's been about 8+ years now and it has little scratches and dings here and there and it really bothers my wife. I on the other hand don't mind it at all as to me it's character brought on by the use it gets. Now granted it's different than a table or other piece of furniture. I just find it funny how much it bothers the other half while I embrace it as character:D

JeffD

[Jim Neeley]

I built a new kitchen table for our house. It has a 5/4 cherry top, finished with 6 coats of lacquer. It's been in the house for less than a year and is already developing both the distintive coloration of cherry and the patina of having 2 grandchildren using it. And then SWMBO had the temerity to suggest that the dings (where the grandchildren sit) was on the table when I installed it. Oh well, at least it's being used daily.

Steve,

If you rotate the table so the grandchildren also use the "other side", it will at least be even! Got lemons? Make lemonade!!

[Ben Hatcher]

I recently finished a fumed quarter sawn white oak table top for my grandparents. I refinished it several times before I finally got that perfect finish. I put down cardboard in the back of my SUV to transport it. Then I bring it into their house and discover a huge scratch in one corner from a staple I forgot to remove from the cardboard. Doh!

Tomorrow will be my 4th trip back to their place to put on the last coat of finish over the repaired section.

[Mark Bolton]

Reading John's reply made me reminisce about a short time I spent trying to make a living as a potter in my own studio. It use to drive me nuts when people would buy a pot and put it on a shelf. I made functional and decorative work but in my mind it was all functional.

I attended a workshop once with a very well known maker and he said something that has stuck with me to this day, that his greatest achievement was to make a pot that died a good death in the kitchen sink from overuse. That's when you know you've done a good job. This notion alone gave me a real perspective with all the aspects of making right down to signing your work. I want my work, whatever it is, to be used.

Of course I see things on the turners forum here and I know they will likely live a life as objects of beauty, and that is a very good use, but a table is simply not that. I couldn't thing of a worse prison for a table than to have to live its entire life without being used.

[Rob Holcomb]

It's not just with things we make that this happens to. Before I got serious with woodworking, my wife and I bought two solid Cherry end tables for each side of our sofa. $700 a piece! One is still pristine while the other one was the table my son, who was 12 at the time decided to use to write down a phone number on a piece of paper. He pressed so hard, that the numbers are indented in the wood. I can read the phone number on the table. At the time, I was furious. I don't think we had owned the tables a month. Now I look at it and remember when he was still a kid and not a full grown man and it makes me smile and think about how much fun every day was watching him grow up, even during trying times as a parent. Could the table be fixed? Sure, but I wouldn't think of it! :)

[Bas Pluim]

I used to obsess about getting all the scratches out of an end grain cutting board. After realizing that the first bit of chopping action made any sanding scratches irrelevant. I stopped obsessing. Now I just worry a lot.

[Daniel Atkins]

I've always cherished the first scratch on a new car, a fresh project, a new purchase, then you can get down to really using whatever it is instead of babying it.

[Andrew Joiner]

I recently finished a fumed quarter sawn white oak table top for my grandparents. I refinished it several times before I finally got that perfect finish. I put down cardboard in the back of my SUV to transport it. Then I bring it into their house and discover a huge scratch in one corner from a staple I forgot to remove from the cardboard. Doh!

Tomorrow will be my 4th trip back to their place to put on the last coat of finish over the repaired section.

Yes, Ben, that's the ironic part. It must be perfect when it leaves our hands. However the scratches it gets after it's in use, we have to accept.

On a new car I'm kinda relieved when the first scratch happens, then I can relax because it's inevitable. If I built and painted the new car I might have a harder time with the first scratch.

[Steve Kohn]

I built a new kitchen table for our house. It has a 5/4 cherry top, finished with 6 coats of lacquer. It's been in the house for less than a year and is already developing both the distintive coloration of cherry and the patina of having 2 grandchildren using it. And then SWMBO had the temerity to suggest that the dings (where the grandchildren sit) was on the table when I installed it. Oh well, at least it's being used daily.

Another sad story to add. I just finished 2 cribs and a changing table for 2 more grandchildren on the way. These pieces were made from dyed ash. Last Sunday my son and a friend were taking the changing table up the stairs at their house to complete the nursery. You guessed it, the front edge of the changing table top got raked on the doorway thru the finish and dye. Now I have to see about repairing the finish because the damage couldn't be in a more obvious place.

I'm to the point that I do my best but when it exits the shop any defects become "character".

Thanks for listening to me wax philosophical. And sorry if I took over the thread.

[Sam Murdoch]

I've had my client's kids draw on my furniture (well, their furniture that they paid me very well to build) with a heavy hand and a hard pencil :rolleyes:.
And so begins the family heirloom :).