Share your stupid moments

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I always say, "I love a good laugh, especially when it's on me." Here's my latest "duh moment." I spent a long time with a combination plane hand-rabbeting some pine boards for building a steam box. (Note: I do this by hand because I enjoy it and not for bravado.) All I had to do was drill the holes for the dowels that will hold the items being steamed suspended so heat can get all around them. In order to make the holes match up on either side, I clamped the two boards together, and drilled all the holes through both boards at the same time. Yes sir, I'm smart like that. So smart. I'm so proud of how smart I am...

...and then I went to assemble the thing. Turns out I clamped the boards together both facing one way, when the rabbets should have been facing inwards, so one board is okay, but the other doesn't match when you put it the correct way. UGH!!! SO- this morning I made another board, and tonight I'll clamp it to the other board the RIGHT way, and match the holes up.

So- what stupid thing have you folks done lately?

[Peter Christensen]

Why wouldn't you plug the holes and drill new rather than make another side? A second stupid perhaps?

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Why wouldn't you plug the holes and drill new rather than make another side? A second stupid perhaps?

I thought that might get asked. (a) this is a two-level steam box 8' long with a hole for each level every foot, so there are 16 holes per side. (b) Since it's a steam box, I figured the wood might move and the plugs come out. There isn't a glue I would trust to glue them in with that much heat. (c) I'm a perfectionist to a flaw.

...mostly c It would have bothered me, even though this is a purely functional piece. It would make my OCD hurt. The other board won't get wasted- it will be cut up to make the end caps and whatever is left will be saved for blocking, drilling blocks, or whatever use I find.

[Doug Garson]

I was making some small boxes with thin plywood bottoms. Since the plywood was thin, I clamped a strip of MDF to my table saw fence to make sure the plywood wouldn't slip under the fence. Then I set the fence using the rip scale and cut the plywood. For some unknown reason the plywood was 3/4" too small, in both dimensions! DUH.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I was making some small boxes with thin plywood bottoms. Since the plywood was thin, I clamped a strip of MDF to my table saw fence to make sure the plywood wouldn't slip under the fence. Then I set the fence using the rip scale and cut the plywood. For some unknown reason the plywood was 3/4" too small, in both dimensions! DUH.

Why didn't you just run them through the wood stretcher? :-)

[Michael Costa]

I shared my stupid moment on Thankgiving.... when I decided it was a good idea to take the tip of my finger off with my Jointer.

I had the stitched removed last Thursday. I would have done it myself but my finger looked necrotic. Turns out it wasn't. They said the stitches weren't doing anything anymore. It wasn't healing properly and doing some kind of secondary healing from underneath. Well, it only took 36 hours after suture removal for my finger tip to come loose. The gauze slightly sliding back and forth pulled it away. My finger is totally jacked now and nothing can be done.

Personally, I'd like them to give me another full digit block and I can clean some shìt up with my dremel and sew it back together myself. Use 25 vs 8 stitches. Lol

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I shared my stupid moment on Thankgiving.... when I decided it was a good idea to take the tip of my finger off with my Jointer.

I had the stitched removed last Thursday. I would have done it myself but my finger looked necrotic. Turns out it wasn't. They said the stitches weren't doing anything anymore. It wasn't healing properly and doing some kind of secondary healing from underneath. Well, it only took 36 hours after suture removal for my finger tip to come loose. The gauze slightly sliding back and forth pulled it away. My finger is totally jacked now and nothing can be done.

Personally, I'd like them to give me another full digit block and I can clean some shìt up with my dremel and sew it back together myself. Use 25 vs 8 stitches. Lol

Oh man, that's not good. I'm sorry to hear that. I lost the tip of my thumb in my younger years and they made me a new one out of skin from my left arm. The thumb looked so bad for a while I called it "Frankenthumb." Now you can't tell which thumb was hurt and which one wasn't. I am amazed at the body's ability to heal. I do seem to remember that mine healed from the inside out. In my case, after the accident there was a small sliver of skin left covering the bone. I was told that if there is no skin over the bone, they have to remove the whole tip and can't just do a skin graft.

[Doug Garson]

Why didn't you just run them through the wood stretcher? :-)

Yeah, I've been thinking of getting one of those but can't decide whether to get the 18V cordless model or the gas powered one. which do you recommend?

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Yeah, I've been thinking of getting one of those but can't decide whether to get the 18V cordless model or the gas powered one. which do you recommend?

The gas model is much more powerful. I have a buddy that built his whole house with just one 2x4 using a gas stretcher. His neighbor barely was able to get a shed out of his 18V cordless.

[David Utterback]

I have made the same mistake as you with drawer sides. Time does not permit me the report all of the duhs nor will my mood benefit by reviewing them.

[Hoang N Nguyen]

My most recent stupid moment was a few weeks ago. I was in the process of making shaker style doors for some built-ins I'm working on for the office. Not wanting to run out to the lumber yard for lumber and having to wait a few weeks for it to acclimate, I dug up enough 8/4 scrap hard maple to make the doors. After hours of planning and laying out how to cut the boards, what to resaw to get 3/4" thick profiles, I went to work. I spent about 4 hours cutting, jointing, planning, resawing, more planning and finally ripping down to size on the TS. I had all my parts made and cut to "rough" length" so decided to take a break and grab some lunch. After lunch, I sat down at my computer in the office and started looking at the base cabinets already installed. I had a tape measure laying around so I decided to double check my measurement....... turns out all my stiles were cut around 1" too short. I had a drawing I had done on CAD in the shop and use it as a reference for measurements and the drawings had door heights on them. I even cut the stiles about 1" longer than needed for final cut. The mistake I made was I changed the drawer height above the doors and made them 1.5" smaller, I also reduced the toe-kick 1/2" shorter as well. This lead to a 2" difference in height from the plans to the actual opening of the cabinets. Needless to say my whole day was shot and I said, I'm done for the day. I haven't touched the project since and now have a pile of wood on my rack acclimating before I can start again. Hopefully this week would yield better results.

[Charlie Jones]

The gas model is much more powerful. I have a buddy that built his whole house with just one 2x4 using a gas stretcher. His neighbor barely was able to get a shed out of his 18V cordless.

I say go straight to the diesel model. Then you could build a whole development from one 2x4!

[Kris Cook]

The gas model is much more powerful. I have a buddy that built his whole house with just one 2x4 using a gas stretcher. His neighbor barely was able to get a shed out of his 18V cordless.

I wish I had known about these before I started my shop build. Could have saved a lot of dough...

This made me laugh.

My shop construction is progressing more slowly than I would like. I have one of my sons helping three days a week.

Yesterday I was working by myself, and not wanting to waste the rental of the man-lift, and trying to get started on the roofing - I nailed two (thankfully small) sections of decking on, and cut and nailed the sub-fascia on the adjacent section. The upper story has three different roof sections.

After I put the decking on I realized once I had laid out the plumb cuts on the other rafter tails my soffit wasn't wide enough for the overhang length on the section I had decked.

To make matters worse, at the end of the day after working on other things, I looked up at the roof line - the middle section that I nailed the sub-fascia to has an overhang on each side I hadn't finished building and the board needed to be extended on both sides.

So - I probably would have been better off staying inside yesterday as I had to spend part of today undoing and redoing those areas.

[Lee Schierer]

So - I probably would have been better off staying inside yesterday as I had to spend part of today undoing and redoing those areas.

You can probably order one of these and get it before Christmas.
https://www.toolsofthetrade.net/vide...rd-stretcher_c

[Rick Potter]

Wow, I love it Lee, I want one, but the website is out of order.