When a mistake is not a mistake.

Good result Pashley. Been there, done that a few times.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

Remember the mantra…...It’s not a mistake, it’s a design modification.

-- Adrian ..... The 11th Commandment...."Thou Shalt Not Buy A Wobble Dado"

Hey, I go with my mistakes on every project. That’s why I never plan too carefully ahead of time.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Some of my best mistakes have been projects.

-- www.robneves.com

A true sign of experience… covering a mistake!

-- - Please help keep Lumberjocks an enjoyable escape by refusing to participate in political discussions. Simply spit out the bait and ignore the thread...

Well I must have a crap load of experience if “A true sign of experience… covering a mistake!” <grin>. I seem to have to always fix mine or someones elses mess-up but I guess that is Job Security in the long run.

-- "so much to learn and so little time"..

I agree that if you can fix a mistake, it’s a sign of experience. The only thing I can’t fix is cutting too short. No matter how much I cut it, it’s still too short.

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

The true sign of experience is if you CAN cover a mistake, not that you make them.

Low experience folks almost always need to make a new part from scratch. More experience allows one to modify a design, like making the table an inch shorter, modifying a feature to cover a gaffe, like an inlay or Dutchman, or effect an invisible repair, like a tenon fattener. Experience may tell you to always make a fifth leg, extra face frame stock, or an extra door panel.

Experience shows you that most folks won’t notice that a dining table is 76 vs. 78 inches long, if an inlay was supposed to look exactly as it turned out, or if you laminated a tenon to help make a thin tenon fit properly. If the changes are done properly, all is well…

Now, if you built a cabinet 31 inches tall that goes with 7 others that are 32 inches tall…
THAT’S a problem! <g>

-- - Please help keep Lumberjocks an enjoyable escape by refusing to participate in political discussions. Simply spit out the bait and ignore the thread...

You have just learned one of the fundamental aspects of woodworking.

It’s not a mistake, it’s an opportunity. Everyone makes mistakes, it’s what you do about them that makes you a real woodworker.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

mistakes …..........that word should never be mentioned, merely better said as a design change because it is rarely about how fast you can make it, rather how fast you can fix it and “minimize” the odds of an error but a mistake is the “mother of inovation”.

I framed a wall up today at the shop. the leantoo/shed part of the shop and a mistake in hieght calculations caused a little bit of a hiccup in how it could be done. About a 2’ error in stud length led to two walls being built which was a real heavy, akward, almost a workmens compensation advertisement effort…...just a hernia in waiting. In the end it worked out perfect because the top wall could be brought out 4” and it let me “step” the siding…............. absolute perfection on the “visual” end of the scale…..and I digress.

When I put the last screw in, on the window installation it started to pour down rain, followed by hail
...................it hailed like the heavens were coming down.

and I stood inside, dry and looked out the window and I smiled.

For what its worth. I dont make many mistakes at this craft, rather view the whole thing as a journey where the end result is beautiful.

-- http://www.furnituremann.ca/

I cut a board to narrow today, so I split it up the middle and put a strip of contrasting wood to widen it. I have a lot of practice doing this.

-- Ron Central, CA

I’m totally in agreement with the design modification theory and I practice it often : )

-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .

When I carve out the rocking chair seats I drill depth holes so I have a guide when carving and can make both sides uniform. One day the drill-bit collar slipped and the hole went about 1/8” too deep. So I drilled it deeper, and added a crushed turquoise 1/4” dot inlay. The gallery loved it and asked that I make the same “mistake” on all of my chairs, this has sort of become my signature “mistake”. Though I always give a direct customer the option to have it or not.

If mistakes weren’t meant to happen, we would all be perfect, then would mistakes really exist?

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

I am making a trivet for my wife with some scraps from other projects. Pictures will follow, I promise.
It’s just an oak frame with mitered corners and a rabbet cut in the top to hold a tile. The tile is a souvenir from San Gabriel mission. A couple stumpy legs to make it look “mission style.”

I cut all the pieces out and it all looked okay until all 4 sides were together with a rubber band around it, then it became obvious that while the mitre gauge was perfect, the blade was not 90° to the table, so the corners all had huge gaps.

I was going to toss it all and cut some new sides when I had a lightbulb moment. I can make this thing whatever size I want – the dimensions I started with were arbitrary! So I widened the rabbet and re-cut the corners. This time they line up perfect. (or as close to it as I can get) So the thing is ¼” smaller than it started. Who cares? And the tile gets a bit more support under the edge.

I didn’t make a mistake, I just made lots of extra cuts to get to size.

I am in agreement. It is these ‘variances’ that add an immense amount of character in a piece. If an item were ‘perfect’ then it might look sterile or like something made in a production line shop.
I am in the process of making 2 lowboys from a plan. Not only are there variances from the plans, lowboy #1 is slightly different from lowboy #2, to the point that I have my parts marked specifically for each lowboy to account for their uniqie character.
John