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I'm an idiot!

2K views 16 replies 16 participants last post by  TheMechanic007 
#1 ·
I'm an idiot!

Aaaargh! I'm…not smart. I was just working on a tapered leg for the end table I'm building. It's a beautiful blank, made from two glued up pieces of cherry. I tapered all of the legs on the tablesaw the day before yesterday, so now I'm working on planing out the saw marks with a little Buck Bros block plane. About halfway down the length of this particular leg are some deeper saw marks that it was taking forever to reach. Because I've only had two or three cups of coffee today, instead of my usual gazillion cups, I had the bright bloody idea of knocking out those saw marks crossgrain. After all, I didn't care if it was a little less than straight and level on one side. Brilliant, right? A couple crossgrain passes, and the saw marks started to disappear. Wonderful! One more pass across the grain, and of course, naturally, this crossgrain planing did what it does best, or at least second best-a splinter, two inches long, a quarter wide, and a sixteenth deep, broke out of the far side. If I'd thought for even a second, I'd have seen it coming from a mile away and just been patient with my along-the-grain planing. Impatience kills cherry. Now I've got to decide whether I should try gluing that splinter back in, or use up some more precious cherry and glue up a new leg blank. I guess I'll go take another look at it. But first, I'm gonna make another pot of coffee.

I'm going to invent a workshop helper. At random intervals, it will scream out warnings, like "Don't even think about it!", "You'll put yourself in a world of tearout!", "You're spraying too thick!", or "Back away from the workpiece and no one gets hurt!". It'll sell for 19.99, and be a big hit with anyone who doesn't have a wise and wrinkly old man handy. Or maybe I could just rent out wise and wrinkly old men. It would certainly bring production costs down.
 
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#7 ·
Well, today's just not going well. I couldn't get the splinter to fit back in very well, so I cleaned it up with a chisel and I was working on a patch from an offcut of the same leg when I sliced my thumb with my chisel. My head must not be in the game today or something. Time to take a break from it and regain my focus. Blackcherry, Bailey's sounds delicious right now, but I better wait till I'm definitely done with power tools for the day. Then it's your treat, right? :)

For now, I'll just reset the counter:
Days without stupidly cutting myself with a bench chisel: 0
 
#8 ·
Thanks for the story. How many times have we all been there? It's kinda of funny when it's someone else though--not the problems, just your account of it.

I am glad you can step back and "laugh". When it's me I usually want to scream and throw things, although I have gotten better over the years. If we learn from mistakes, I must be a genious!
 
#9 ·
The shop helper is a very funny idea..mabye like one of those talking Bass. But some old grumpy woodworker.. I was working on a jobsite where we had a nice shop set up in the garage..And i would always forgot to flip on the dust collection before using the tablesaw…The dude got soo annoyed and grumpy..Soo than i started flippin on the dust collection when i was done with saw…Dude freaked..
 
#12 ·
I have a singing catfish that sings [DON'T WORRY BE HAPPY] Oh and don't forget the ketchup song anticipation is making me wait. Opps must be showing my age, I'm that wrinkly old man you were talking about. LOL Look at it this way, at least you can say you didn't make a mistake, you just had a great learning lesson. I have them all the time myself. Like you said though you aren't to worried if it was a little less than straight or level on one side. I'd glue it in place it will give it character and a story to boot. Hope the rest goes well for you.
 
#14 ·
I was planing some oak today, first side when like a champ. Second, side, well, I forgot to turn it around. Plane stuck on the first swipe :-(( right into the grain!! :-((
 
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