A (small) Disaster NOT Averted

[jackellis]

I was cutting 1/2 inch ply to make a bunch of drawers this evening. Being in a hurry (will I ever learn?), I broke down 24x48 inch quarter sheets into 2 19 inch pieces and a 9 inch piece so I could set the fence once to rip 4 7/16 inch wide sides.

And then I referenced the wrong edge on the 19x24 inch pieces to cut 25 19 inch pieces instead of 20 24 inch pieces.

I wouldn't say the cut plywood is useless, but I wasted an hour and almost 5/8 of a sheet of plywood. At least I got one drawer's worth of usable sides.


Arrrrrgh!

[shoottx]

Jack

That is two strikes in a relatively short period of time.

You might want to take a little break from the shop. Take a nice flight someplace for a couple of days. Then come back to the shop refreshed.

Sounds like the same problem, pushing to get a project finished!

[JR]

You might want to take a little break from the shop. Take a nice flight someplace for a couple of days. Then come back to the shop refreshed.

Eagle Lake! You and LOYL can have a nice steak. Watch the eagles soar. Be back for dinner.

JR

[jackellis]

Take a nice flight someplace for a couple of days.

I know. But I took the airplane to Portland on Tuesday evening so it could play with the big jets and I could do some business. All that did is put me further behind.

More shop time would be better than less shop time at this point because I wouldn't feel pressured to hurry. When I work slowly, it's all fine.

I'm hauling a nearly finished cabinet up to Tahoe this weekend and have three others up there that need to be assembled. Glue and clamps. Screws for the hinges. Maybe some finish. Hopefully that's not a dangerous combination.

[gary]

No blood spilled (fortunately) so it can't count as a disaster. Enjoy your holiday and slow down a bit.

[jackellis]

Well maybe my "luck" is changing. I had to fabricate new wood parts for a wheelbarrow. Getting the holes to come close to lining up is a challenge since there are several angles to deal with but it went back together yesterday. Note. Drill holes 1/64th larger so you don't have to help bolts through the holes.

Then the first of three upper cabinets I had brought up in pieces so I could get all three in the truck went together perfectly. With biscuits, no less, which have always been a problem for me. The doors are 1/4 inch too large and I'm not sure how that happened, but a few minutes with a table saw should fix them.

[SARGE..g-47]

Those sides about the same lenght look kinda alike... don't they? I generally mark direction of a drawer bottom with a light pencil mark and number them if the drawer sizes have been graduated in size as I often do. I think staying organized is one of the most important skills to master in the shop.

Good news.. you are set for smaller drawers on another project. Bad news.. you are behind and doubled your work load for this phase. Good news is you won't make the same mistake twice most likely so... the Good news seems to out-weigh the bad as I see it.

[jackellis]

Those sides about the same lenght look kinda alike... don't they?

Yep. That's about the size of it. To avoid this and similar mistakes from forgetting things, I bought two boxes of chalk. Marks make all the difference, even if the only benefit is to help think through the whole process.

I'm assembling the upper cabinets now and marks on the parts were worth their weight in gold.

[crokett]

I agree with marking and organizing things. Before I took the sheathing off the roof sections for the shop I spraypainted alignment marks and direction arrows on them so I knew how the pieces went back together. It saved me a lot of time up on the roof when I was putting it back down.