Botched a project

[Rob Luter]

Grrr

Had a fence slip as I was routing some grooves to hold the top and bottom of a finger jointed box. In the scrap bin it goes. At least I can salvage the top and bottom.

Time to re-engineer the fence so it won’t slip.

Practice, practice, practice........

[Brian Holcombe]

Sorry to hear about that. A few years back I was making a rosewood box with my last remaining Indian rosewood veneer, beautiful wide quarter sawn old growth stuff, naturally deep red. I planned a section of solid rosewood sandwiched between top and bottom plywood sections, then veneered around the box. I ran Gabon ebony trim around the edges, then chamfered them to form a neat detail.

I planed to kerf in the center of the solid wood to form the top and bottom. I was so excited to see the rosewood finished that I polished up the top to check it out then left the rest to be completed after finishing the last couple steps needed.

Not wanting to scratch the top, I decided to put a thin paper cover on one top of the box to prevent scratching the veneer, then ran it down the router table to groove it. I realized how stupid my plan was not far into the cut when the cover bound up and pushed the cut off course running through the solid wood into the plywood.

My wife rescued the box from the trash and it now holds my finishing supplies. I left the ragged edge as a reminder.

[Jacques Gagnon]

...the good news in both cases is that time and wood were « wasted » but no body parts were compromised.

I suppose that only people who do not work with their tools cannot tell similar stories.

[Jim Becker]

I've had that happen a number of times at the router table...I learned to really crank it down once set in "the spot", but alas, sometimes intention and action doesn't necessarily match and the mistake gets repeated. LOL

[Don Jarvie]

Welcome to the club we have a lot of members. Live and Learn.

[Peter Christensen]

I'd cut away the damage and make a smaller or thinner box. You'll find a use for it even if only to hold some tools or extra pens by the telephone.

[liam c murphy]

Could you salvage the box by covering the bad grooves with a liner? Perhaps you could finish it as planned and cover the mistakes.

[Rob Luter]

I'd cut away the damage and make a smaller or thinner box. You'll find a use for it even if only to hold some tools or extra pens by the telephone.

Great minds think alike. Alas, I had already done that after the first goof up. This second one ran me out of options. Always a sliver lining though, I’m getting smarter by the minute....

[Phil Mueller]

Per one of your other threads, sounds like you decided to pull out the router. I do the same, but dang, when using power tools, those mistakes happen fast. I was dumb enough not to install a router bit correctly and half way through the groove it climbed up through the show surface. That scared the you know what out of me. Haven’t done that again.

[Rob Luter]

Yup. Here’s the good news. After a bit of pouting and a short nap I jumped back in the game. Instead of finger jointed QSWO I went with some nice Cherry from the stash and I’ll be mitering the corners and adding some keys to lock the joinery. I salvaged the bottom and top and predict success barring another fubar. I went back to hand tools which means I’ll screw it up much slower and be able to catch mistakes before they happen rather that after. Fingers crossed.

[Neil Gaskin]

There are no mistakes in the shop. Only opportunities for redesign. - origin unknown

[Yonak Hawkins]

There are no mistakes in the shop. Only opportunities for redesign. - origin unknown

I agree. It's all a learning experience. That's why we practice our craft.

[Jim Koepke]

In a search to attribute the old saying, "he who makes no mistakes likely makes nothing else." (may be a paraphrasing of Benjamin Franklin or Teddy Roosevelt) this popped up:

I come from the school of thought is that there is no such thing as a mistake - it is just a great learning experience. It looks like I am in good company at that school!

We must not say every mistake is a foolish one. - Cicero

It's always helpful to learn from your mistakes because then your mistakes seem worthwhile. - Garry Marshall

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior. - Henry C. Link

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. - Franklin P. Jones

To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all. - Peter McWilliams

Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life. - Sophia Loren

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. - George Bernard Shaw

A man's mistakes are his portals of discovery. - James Joyce

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mahatma Gandhi

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. - Oscar Wilde

Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes. - Oscar Wilde

Mistakes, obviously, show us what needs improving. Without mistakes, how would we know what we had to work on? - Peter McWilliams

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. - Scott Adams

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit. - Conrad Hilton

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. - Albert Einstein

What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You make other mistakes, and when you have made all the mistakes you possibly can without drowning - and some of them many times over - what do you find? That you can swim? Well - life is just the same as learning to swim! Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live! - Alfred Adler

I think we all wish we could erase some dark times in our lives. But all of life's experiences, bad and good, make you who you are. Erasing any of life's experiences would be a great mistake. - Luis Miguel

All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes. - Winston Churchill

Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave. - Mary Tyler Moore

There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go. - Richard Bach

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. - John Powell

If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford

Fall down seven times, stand up eight. - Chinese proverb

Without music, life would be a mistake. - Friedrich Nietzsche

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. - Theodore Roosevelt

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. - Napoleon Bonaparte

A mistake is to commit a misunderstanding. - Bob Dylan

Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement. - Henry Ford

You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing. - Rene Descartes

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. - Edmund Burke

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. - Alexander Hamilton

We have all likely had some experience of making lemonade from our lemons.

Some of my early mistakes are in plain view in the shop as reminders of what went wrong and how much my work has improved by making those mistakes.

jtk

[Jerry Olexa]

Welcome to the club....We've all done that....We understand,,,,

[Joe Bradshaw]

Been there, done that. I have the tee-shirt and the DVD.
Joe