Grrr... Tough day in the shop

[Brian Tymchak]

:mad: Have been working on a timber frame inspired lumber rack for quite a while but I finally have the arms of the rack attached (drawbored pins through tenons with epoxy). Up to this point I've attached all the arms with only 1 pin breaking (missed some cross-grain in the pin), but the pin made it most of the way thru the joint before it broke. I just plugged the backside hole. No problem.

Today I'm attaching feet. Did the first 2 (of 6) a couple days ago, no problems. First foot today, another pin breaks while I'm driving it. Ok, bummer, but just set that one to the side to deal with later after the epoxy cures. 2nd foot up, epoxy up the joint, start driving the pin and instead of closing the joint it opens it up! Whoa! Big surprise. Turns out that I drilled the holes thru the tenon offset the exact opposite of what I needed. :mad::mad::mad: Foul language was used...

I quickly took the joint apart, cleaned up the epoxy as best I could to minimize the labor when I figure out how to fix the mess, turned off the lights and radio, headed upstairs. Learned a while back to just walk away when things go really wrong. Just wasn't meant to get anything done today I guess...

But it gets worse. Get upstairs and I find I'm out of my favorite adult beverage!! The last straw....More foul language was used...

Off to the store.

[Frank Pratt]

Condolences. We've all had days like that. Foul language does seem to help.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Brian, at least you have learned that valuable lesson to walk away and remembered it! Sorry to hear of your difficulties.

[Patrick Kane]

Yes, valuable lesson to walk away. One that i still havent learned. I usually go down the dark path of beating things with a hammer.

[Bill Carey]

Yes, valuable lesson to walk away. One that i still havent learned. I usually go down the dark path of beating things with a hammer.


2nd that. And if that don't work you need a bigger hammer.

[Jim Becker]

Some would say that the real lesson is to be sure to never run out of the adult beverage. :) :D But...yea, in all seriousness...good decision to walk away for a bit!

[Lee Schierer]

Learning to walk away when things go wrong in the shop is a critical safety step. Continuing to work when frustrated leads to unsafe shortcuts and additional errors and usually more damage or injury.

[Paul F Franklin]

Gary Rogowski of Northwest Woodworking Studio mentioned in one of his recent podcasts that an acquaintance of his owns a business named Flying Hammer Productions or something similar. That's a great name and I think we've all experienced those moments when we were tempted to hurl a hammer across the room. Good on you to do what you had to do to extricate yourself and then walk away. Problems always seem less serious after calming down a bit.

[Mike Kees]

Paul not only tempted but have thrown them as far and hard as possible. It is the only way to deal with the pain of smacking a finger hard with a framing hammer,also seems to slow the blood flow down...:D

[Paul F Franklin]

Paul not only tempted but have thrown them as far and hard as possible. It is the only way to deal with the pain of smacking a finger hard with a framing hammer,also seems to slow the blood flow down..

Mike, closest I've come was when I was sweating some copper pipes and a blob of molten solder dripped on the back of my hand. I nearly hurled the (lit) torch across the room. Fortunately my brain somehow figured out quickly that that was a bad idea. Hurt like you know what and I still have the scar.

[Brian Holcombe]

Epoxy is not needed if you’re draw-boring and the pins are correctly sized and the structure is also correctly proportioned. The great part about draw-boring is that you can bang the pegs out and take the assembly apart.

I have a tiny shop so all of my large work is draw-bored. I moved from round pins to rectangular or square pins a while back. It requires a hollow chisel to make the joint but the process is much easier and more reliable than round pins. I make the pins using my planer to size them.

Much better and faster to make long pieces of pin stock from straight rift, cut the straightest sections for use and throw away anything with weird grain. Better than spending time banging stuff through a metal plate.

I plan my offsets at the machine. I make an extra housing so that I can build my offset into that housing by moving the machine or planing the edge to remove the necessary amount. I set the tenons into the housing and cut their corresponding holes. Make a test first.

[Frank Pratt]

I usually use dowel from Lee Valley. You can pick through to get the straightest grain, but really, the overall quality is very good. Diameter is usually spot on to. Rounding off the end of the dowel & easing the leading edges of the holes on the inside surfaces helps guide the pin through. I once had a white oak pin head off course, split, & drive right into the solid hard maple like it was a nail. A little wax helps too.

[Brian Tymchak]

Epoxy is not needed if you’re draw-boring and the pins are correctly sized and the structure is also correctly proportioned. The great part about draw-boring is that you can bang the pegs out and take the assembly apart.


Agree, but this is the first time I've attempted thru mortices with timber this size (3.5"×5"). I knew there would be mistakes, etc., so I went ahead with it. I have no plans to ever take this thing apart. I used the drawbore pegs just to tighten the joint. First time I tried them. Was neat to see the joint close tight as I drove the pegs thru. BTW,I used 1/2" pegs, 2 per joint. I searched for info on peg size but didn't find anything. The tenons are 4" wide on the arms, 5" wide on the feet.

I started another project today, but when I get back to the lumber rack next week, I think to fix my problem with the offset on that foot, I'm going to rebore for 3/4" pegs. That will allow me shift the centers of the holes to give me the 1/16" offset that I used on all the joints.

[Brian Tymchak]

I usually use dowel from Lee Valley. You can pick through to get the straightest grain, but really, the overall quality is very good. Diameter is usually spot on to. Rounding off the end of the dowel & easing the leading edges of the holes on the inside surfaces helps guide the pin through. I once had a white oak pin head off course, split, & drive right into the solid hard maple like it was a nail. A little wax helps too.

I ordered my Ash dowel from a company near Cincinnati. Not many suppliers of Ash dowel, and their price was pretty reasonable. As you mentioned I ordered extra to be able to choose the straightest grain. I "sharpened" the points on to pegs on a belt sander. Didn't think about waxing them, but the epoxy served as a lubricant.

[Tom Bender]

I made octagonal pins for 1" holes in my brother's Garagemahal. White Oak pins in Hemlock. TS rough size / Plane to size / TS angles / Belt sand points / cudgel into place.