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What's the dumbest thing someone has said to you regarding woodworking?

2K views 26 replies 19 participants last post by  Gixxerjoe04 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
I have had a few people in my life that don't seem to understand exactly what it is that we do in our shops. I am hoping to get a collection of the dumbest things that people say to woodworkers, mainly for laughs, or commiseration. I'll get the ball rolling with a few good ones that have been tossed my way:

1. "Why wouldn't you just buy one at IKEA?" - upon learning that the lumber I just bought costs significantly more than their version of whatever I was making.
2. "Can you make me a dresser just like that one? I'd love to have it by this Saturday."
3. "Don't you just need one saw? Why do you have all these?" - I think they were under the impression that a circular saw was the only kind of saw. Same thing has been said of and applies to my handsaw collection.

To be fair, none of these were said to me by my wife, who rarely says a dumb thing.

Let's hear what you've got!!
 
#9 ·
"You need to…" and then proceeds to tell me how to do something they know nothing about! Or tells everyone that my project was their idea and they told me how to do it.

"How come you don't use nails when you build furniture?"

"Make it out of pine but make it look like oak"

"Why is your stuff so expensive? I can buy one just like it a Wal-Mart for $3.00"
 
#10 ·
Fishing falls into the same catagory as woodworking…......

"Why do you need all them rods".? You can only use one at a time..
"How come you have a different bait tied on each rod"?
"Why do you need all them plastic boxes full of lures and worms"?

Then the "essential" questions like:
"Why do you have two table saws back to back"?
"You don't need 4 router thingies, do you."?
"I see you don't have such and such….I think you need one of those"...

So…I just hurry them out the door and lock it…..
 
#14 ·
Me: "this will probably take me about 10 Hrs to finish. However, since we are neighbors I'm not looking to make a ton of money, how about I'll do it for $100?"

Neighbor: "how about $25 and you keep the extra material…?"

Scrap plywood and $2.50/Hr is more than sufficient to feed myself and my loved ones, of course I took the job!
 
#15 ·
We were at an "Arts and Craps" fair one day and I saw a sign in someone's booth that made me laugh. It said…

"Sure, your husband / brother / father / uncle / probably COULD build you one. But WILL HE? "
 
#17 ·
My shop fills three quarters of eighteen hundred square foot garage-shop she built (two bays and about eight hundred square feet of shop). The garage-shop is bigger than the house, which is as things should be, right? Anyway, after we married (I told her I'd marry her for her shop and she said okay (we both had glints in our eyes - maybe for different reasons).

After I got everything moved in, I don't know how many times I got the "[d]o you really need all these tools" question over and again. Now that her ten foot by twelve foot kitchen with about five feet of counter top is three times as big (among other things, the sliding glass door is gone), covered in granite and lit by under cabinet lights mounted to the cabinets I made, etc etc (I've added forty-seven lights to the house, which had nothing but the best 50's single bulb overheads), she does that far less. She hasn't even flinched at the ramblings for a new 8" jointer to replace the PM50.

She still shakes her head, occasionally, However, I've convinced her to get into beading. To that end, I've built jigs for bracelet making and so on, gotten her an articulating LED lighted magnifier, built all kinds of storage for such things, and the diversion is going well. Now, she wants an addition to the house so we can have a craft room.
 
#19 ·
Very funny responses so far…

Joe - That's a great sign. Not the dumbest thing since it probably generated a few sales. Love it.

Chuck - I think that guy is just called a lumberjack… though syrupjocks.com is an available domain. Someone's gotta get on that moneymaking train!

Kelly - That's my angle with mine as well. I'd definitely count "Do you need this many tools?" as a dumb thing.
 
#22 ·
On the topic of lending tools….

I'll lend certain tools to neighbors but nothing that is too nice…

One time a kid from down the street came over and asked to borrow an electric drill, I was in the middle of something and not really in the mood for visitors. I simply told him that "I don't have one", and then proceeded to pre-drill some screw holes…My lady started laughing and it actually took me a minute to realize what had just happened and what was so funny.

Before anyone thinks I am a total grinch however, I will say that I often help this kid fix his stuff over in my garage while teaching him how to use the tools as well. I will also let him borrow basic hand tools for a few hours when he needs them but nothing with a motor. He's a good kid and knows not to take my rubbish seriously… Besides the kid can handle that type of stuff, I learned this after he bought a bike from me for a neighbor discount that was supposed to be for him. I learned a week later he just flipped it to another kid for $40 more than I sold it to him for….hah!
 
#23 · (Edited by Moderator)
I just had to follow up on my comment about wives who wonder why we need nine routers (about six posts up), and all those other things filling a LOT of space (yes, this is a thread hijack, but the basis fr it is too good not to step over that line).

Today, I and my wife went to pick up a new chair she picked out (keep in mind, it's an hour, one way, to civilization). Perhaps she was feeling guilty for spending a few hundred bucks on it, but that would be far from justified, so I'm not going to dwell on that (but see note, below, because pity is can be as useful as guilt).

We left early, so had breakfast in town. While there, I rambled about my dilemma of whether I should drop nickels into my Powermatic P50 for a Helix head and a new motor, or aim toward a Grizzly G0490. Then I launched into an explanation about longer beds, wider beds, parallel beds vs dovetail beds and so on. Of course, I also pointed out I'd, eventually, swap the stock knife head on the Grizzly for a Helix head and that would cost more than it would if I went with it in the initial purchase.

She then suggest I just go for it. That is, just buy it on the card and make payments on the preferred choice (rather than actually deplete the family account). [To be fair to myself, this is the route I went when I bought the PM drum-disk sander the year before last].

Remodeling the family home can have its perks.

__

NOTE: It may be she just felt sorry for me, for being stupid, and whining about it. To be more specific, I let the relatively new Powermatic 8" jointer, which was six hundred dollars and only an hour away, slip away, after being on craigslist for several weeks. After that was the two Grizzly G0490's for about the same (knives, but I still whined for procrastinating).
 
#25 ·
Why do you have to make a federal project out of it, just slap some wood together and paint it. I hear this a lot from a lot of people. My answer to them is I don't like painting.
 
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