Small Time Wasting Blunders?

[Stew Denton]

Hi all,

Well, I made a small blunder today, but it will cost me a significant amount of unpleasant clean up time.

I am building shelves for my wife's kitchen pantry, using a good grade of softwood plywood. I carefully picked through the plywood, as it was somewhat pricey, but failed to notice some grain pulling loose and uplifting in one area on one of the pieces.

I decided to try belt sanding it and finishing a trial area of it with water base polyurethane to see it that would stick it down. (Since moving I have now located my belt sanders, but not necessarily where the dust catching bags, belts, etc., are boxed up.)

I used a type that is good for finish sanding, but without the unlocated dust collection bag, sanding carefully and watching the progress. I should have been watching the dust ejection.

I suddenly noticed that my dark blue pants now had a large light tan area on the left leg, and my tool cabinet had gone from maroon to a light tan also. Further my 3 carpenters tool boxes on top of the cabinet now had saw handles that had gone from a fairly dark brown to a light tan also, and the light brown color was now light tan. I couldn't believe how much fine powdered wood dust was over the area to the right of where I was sanding with fine dust covering hand saws and other tools.

I did some clean up, but given the time, I wasn't about work a lot later into the evening. Tomorrow I will have to set up to do clean up work on sawhorses and planks with a piece of plywood for a bench top. I will have to empty out all 3 of my big carpenters tool boxes, which are crowded full of saws and other tools and clean the saws and all of the other tools up. It will probably take at least 2 hours.

The trial sanding and finishing appears that it may solve the wood fibers problem, but I won't know for sure until I re-sand and recoat the trial piece a couple more times.

My small blunder was caused by not paying enough attention, as I was focused on the sanding results, not where the dust went. It didn't hurt the project I am working on, but it will be a time killing, dusty, not fun mess to clean up and retreat my saws, etc., with oil to prevent rusting.

What small blunders have some of the rest of you done lately that really didn't mess up a project, but ended up wasting a significant amount of time to fix. (I suspect I am not the only one.)

Regards,

Stew

[Jim Koepke]

What small blunders have some of the rest of you done lately that really didn't mess up a project, but ended up wasting a significant amount of time to fix. (I suspect I am not the only one.)

No, your are not the only one.

One piece of a project got messed up when a molding plane went askew and messed up the side of one piece of the project. The piece will have to be recut and started over.

jtk

[Dave Anderson NH]

I'm not telling except to state that the screw ups started when I started woodworking. They continue to occur to this day.

[Reed Gray]

Part of the art of becoming a master is being able to hide or cover your mistakes. If I can't do that, I have a wood stove.....

robo hippy

[Edward Weber]

If you've been working with your hands long enough, you'll have a few of these stories to tell.
The trick is to only have old stories to tell.

[Christopher Charles]

I did the same thing not too long ago. Fortunately I can open a garage door, put on a respirator and pull out the leaf blower. Does a remarkably good job with a couple of passes. If you can open a big enough door