How many thing have you made that you didn't like?

[Two Much]

To be more specific, have you made things that you either hated, or found fault with the design,
finish, or craftsmanship?
The reason I ask is we're on our fourth project that is a big disappointment. I mentioned on the
other thread that we're currently making a large tray for the center of our dining table. Well...
it looks like a clunky thing.
I also mentioned that I have this big fish centerpiece that I wanted
to put on this tray, so I wanted something substantial. I achieved substantial alrighty, however, also
sacrificed style.
I partially stained and painted it, and it has a shabby chic look, which I don't like
and also doesn't fit the room. The head guy said, we should just toss it I said let's give it one
more shot. Sand it down, round the edges and we'll paint the entire thing gold. If it still looks
clunky, I can use it for an outdoor serving tray in the summer, and start over.

We made an Asian birdcage, ( a total disaster) that was tossed...And two small end tables,
they were both nice tables, however, they just didn't fit our style.
One table I sold at a yard sale, and the other I gave to our son for his computer room.

So, on this very disappointing Sunday morning, do you care to share your disappointments and disasters.
Joann...

[leehljp]

When I design something, or at least have something in mind, I look for similar things/designs on the internet. Some ideas come from others and are modified to my taste or needs. Some ideas originate with me according to my need or want or material, but I look on the internet for something similar and compare or get ideas for simplification or design changes.

I have a few boards of rare or unusual woods, and have in mind what I can make with them. And for one of them, I have a mental picture of a hall table. I most certainly will look at hall tables of many designs before using it, but it will have to conform in size to the board that I have.

[Two Much]

That's what I should have done with the tray, an Internet search.
There are probably lots of them out there. I hope I can salvage this tray.
for where I want it...if not it will become our outdoor tray.

Our son came over last night and bought us a door from his new
cabinet that he ordered for the TV. It came with a scratch on the
door and he called the store and they sent him a new door.

It's about 18" x 18" with a nice piece of beveled glass in the center.
I'm looking at it and thinking, "what can we do with this? "
...maybe clad the outside edge with something and make a table out
of it for his room. His family room is quite large, so I'm sure he can find
a place for an extra table.

[cwsmith]

Other than carpentry projects, my woodworking is fairly young. My shop is currently in my basement and has been at a standstill for the last five years because my wife has been bothered by dust, etc. (We had a bad apartment fire a couple of blocks away and since that time, just the smell of wood in the house bothers her.) Tomorrow evening I'm going to a Zoning meeting to get approval on a new backyard building (12 x 20) which I hope will be my new shop.

As mentioned in a previous post, I pretty much draw any project practically to death. By the time I commit it to tooling, I've spun it around in my head for days and weeks, drawn every detail in Corel Draw and/or SketchUp. The design is spun around, observed from every angle and if there's a moving component like a drawer, it's been graphically moved in and out and all the clearances checked and double checked. I know exactly where the dowels or biscuits are going, where the holes are drilled and how deep. Pretty much all that is left is to execute the operation with the tools at hand; and even that is pretty much been run through time and again in my mind.

However, two projects come to mind. The most recent being a small table with drawer that I designed and built. The construction came out exactly as planned, but the finish was a disaster. It was made exclusively of pine, actually scraps to a large degree, as we decided we wanted a high-gloss black finish. Well, I couldn't use polyurethane as planned, so opted for Valspar Ultra Premium High Gloss Enamel. It came out great... or so it looked. Nice high shine that you could read the reflection of ruler with... but it never set properly! Even now after four years it still feels tacky and you can't set anything on it without leaving a print. (Once in the new shop, this will be stripped and refinished.)

The second disaster was done several years before, I built a cabinet and book shelf to surround a wall heater in our family room back in Painted Post. It was shortly after I retired and was the first project I did on my newly purchased BT3100. The saw did a most impressive job. But at the time, money was exceptionally tight and I was talked into building this out of MDF. A friend had talked me into it, and although I was skeptical I figured what the devil, why not... after all, that's what most of these home improvement shows are using.

MDF was completely new to me, and I was just starting my 'woodworking' after being away for most of my working life. In the past I had worked with other sheet goods doing home improvement carpentry using various ply, chipboard, and OSB. MDF looked a lot better than the latter two and since it was going to be painted, I figured why not give it a try. While I thought it nasty stuff to work with (dust is horrible), everything went together just as I had planned and it really did look good, with all pieces fitting perfectly. But what a disaster... even the shortest spans sagged, in spite or re-inforcing. Glue didn't hold, screws pulled out, even the brass shelf hangers elongated the holes and pulled out. So, not only was MDF terrible to work with (I did all the cutting out on the deck and wore an OSHA approved filtered mask), I found it to have no integrity at all, just glued up ugly dust. I'll never, ever use MDF again for any project. It does make a fair sacrificial top for my RAS and for those inserts on my drill press, but that's about the limit of it.

For me, proper planning and good graphics will hopefully eliminate an ugly, but you can't illustrate what might end up as poor selection of materials or a lousy finish.

CWS

[capncarl]

I've had a couple of my tiny tables that didn't really make me grab it up and go show the wife. They were part of the series of tiny tables that I painted and had 4 sea life coasters imbedded in the top. They were stained wood tone, ***, they really should have been a beachy color and were the ones that I let an interior designer pick out the colors and coordinate them with the colors in the coasters. I'll repaint them with something that suits me.

My suggestions with your wood products would be to leave the wood natural and as a last resort add some paint for contrast. Let the wood show off its natural beauty. I think that a lot of people really appreciate natural looking wood furniture, it shouts that it was built by a craftsman and not so much the more commercial painted look because it looks like it was built on an assembly line!

capncarl

[atgcpaul]

It's about 18" x 18" with a nice piece of beveled glass in the center.
I'm looking at it and thinking, "what can we do with this? "

I was about to start my story with something like this.

I'm actually happy with most of my projects. I generally start with a pretty good idea of what I want to make in my head and will sometimes go as far as making a Sketchup model, but a wardrobe I started for my kids was not one of them.

Years ago, I bought these used indoor shutters from the Restore. They sat in my shop waiting for a purpose. I used a smaller set of shutter doors for a small cabinet in the powder room. Fast forward to last year and my girls were making a mess of the living room with all their dress up clothes. My wife wanted me to build them a wardrobe. I was gungho about it. I was finally going to use those shutters as the doors. They were the perfect height for their clothes. I designed a wardrobe around the doors and started milling up these 2 wide walnut boards. I glued them together--20" wide total--cut them to size, and joined the 4 corners with hand cut dovetails. They weren't my best DTs, but not too bad for the size of this thing. I also resawed some thinner stock for a small drawer compartment at the bottom of the wardrobe. So after I glued it all together, I realized I glued the drawer compartment in backwards. Luckily, it was symmetrical but now the ugly side of the compartment was out. I then made a shiplapped back for the wardrobe.

So then I got busy with our kitchen remodel and the exterior painting of the house. We also moved their play area down to the finished basement which has a closet so the wardrobe was redundant at that point and still a long way from being done.

Now the wardrobe just sits in my shop taking up a bunch of space. My wife wants me to repurpose it to a liquor cabinet/bar, but I think it's too tall. I just want to cut the box apart at the corners to reclaim the wood and my shop space.

[leehljp]

Years ago before we moved to Japan for 25+ years of work there, I would make different kinds of wood toys and small objects that you see at craft fairs. When I got to Japan and began that difficult language learning process, I continued to do some woodworking as my stress relief. THEN I noticed something. IN the US, we generally use pre-sized (thickness) wood, and for arts and crafts in general, we use what we have or what is available. Even small objects are made of thick wood. Over there, the appointments, accents and even basic construction determined the wood chosen and size of wood, including thickness. A generalized (meaning not always but general) thick heavy wood and large accents tend to distract in small items more than help. Good proportion is what attracts and adds to design. Again, this is a general rule that is contradicted in certain instances such as cabins and some rural/wooded retreat homes.

I used to make a merry-go-round about 10 to 12 inches in diameter, out of 3/4 in thickness wood (pine) suspended with 1/4 inch ribbons. I made a few over there. Then discovered 6mm to 8mm or 9mm wood and 12mm wood (not plywood). I made a few out of those woods and it made all the difference in the world in its looks.

For an illustration see capncarl's tiny tables. The original thickness of the wood did not determine the design (I am guessing). I would think that the boards were sawn thinner. I don't remember but it seems he did some chamfer to make it appear thinner - I could be wrong. The somewhat delicate looks make it look like it would appeal to its target people - ladies. And from what Capncarl says, it does. Imagine if it were made from 3/4 pine or oak with barely rounded edges.


The right "round over", the right "chamfer", the right "cove" or the right bead or groove can accent wood and make it look thinner, or more pleasing to the eye.

One of my favorite router bits is a 1/16" round over. Kinda hard to find, but they add the perfect edge in some cases, and my 1/8 in cove does the same. I don't use these often but when I do, they add the right accent. On 3/4 in, 5/4 and 2 inch wood, these are barely noticeable. At this point 1/4 in cove and round over would probably add a better accent.

An under-used bit is the chamfer bit. I use the 15° bit on occasion and hold the board vertical along the fence. Most people use the table saw to add this type of cut. And this degree of chamfer makes thick woods look somewhat more delicate.

Accents should not compete with the design but showcase it. Kind of like ballroom dancing - The man is there to act as the "frame" for the picture (lady).

[Two Much]

I sure agree with you Hank, about the right round over and cove, making things more pleasing to
the eye...Do you have any pics of these craft pieces? I would love to see them

This is an example of a cutting mistake that turned out for the better. It was suppose to be about 2 to 3
inches wider. ( can't remember) I made an oaktag pattern. The cutting mistake resulted in a much slimmer looking little
shaker clock, and surprise, surprise, I loved the slimmer look. How often does a mistake result in a
happier ending? Not much in my limited experience.

The slimmer clock especially looked better on the smaller wall space.

[cwsmith]

Very good points Hank.

I can't say these come to mind as I start a project as I've been more or less stuck with the usual factory offerings at the local big box. But then again, I have not made much in the way of actual "furniture" either. However, I see major changes coming as the house is now mostly complete and I can start doing more creative woodworking.

But, I really have never built anything from someone else's plans. Mostly, I look at the magazine articles or one of the many books that I have for ideas. From there we look for what is needed, the size of the space, etc. Then I go about sketching and then drawing. My wife and I have a saying, "It speaks to me!" For both of us, it's all about the way it looks, wood tone, color, shapes, etc.

You are very much right in that small objects, like the carousel you describe, looks better if the materials are also sized correctly. Having to make everything out of 3/4 would be a definite crimp in styling. (Believe it or not, model railroading very much goes in that direction... you have to scale everything down to proper size to get a realistic look to your landscapes and models.)

I like straight lines with soft edges, not sharp, but not overly rounded either. So much can be done, just laying out pieces that get enhanced with light and shadows. I like many of the Japanese furniture styles quite a bit, though I've never attempted to build such. There's a simplicity of lines that I like, with sometimes complex, fancy embellishments that catch the eye.

CWS

[Carpenter96]

I have only made one project that I did not like at all, but my customer loved it so I took the money and chose not remember it. I also did not show anyone pictures of that project. My main problem was that they chose to stain the beautiful maple so dark that I may as well have used plywood. It looked like it was painted a solid colour.

Regards Bob

[twistsol]

For me every project has a few imperfections that nobody notices but me (or they're too polite to say anything). I've had a couple that I really didn't like because they were truly horrible.

The first was a set of display easels for the elementary school. Of course the budget was next to nonexistent so they were all made from cheap pine and while they turned out to be serviceable, I thought they were ugly. The teachers all loved them.

The second was a massive lateral file cabinet that I built for my office at home. Proportions were horrible, I sanded through the plywood on the top in one corner, and I didn't match the color of the drawer fronts well. It was an eyesore for about 10 years and a couple of years ago was smashed with a sledge hammer and burned. I did salvage all the drawer slides first though.

[dbhost]

Can't count that high. I usually find something good about a project though. Even if it is that it provided firewood.

My current project, an improved pedal board for my bass guitar ended up being 2" too long across the top angle due to me being an idiot and forgetting the pythagorean theorem. So much for 5th grade math! I improvised a solution I am not super happy with, but it will have to do.

Here it is pre-finishing stage. It is being painted matte black using what I had available which is Rustoleum high temp BBQ black brush on paint. This stuff soaks into the grain WAY too easily, and it doesn't dry fast when it is humid, so I am waiting for coat #2 to dry right now. Third coat goes on and finishes my coverage, and I can apply the velcro and be done with it... I need to get a quart of regular latex flat black made up for projects like this... I have another one coming up soon, I need a pedal board for the guitar as well after all! I might re-make the one for the bass to fix my design flaw as well.

I have a pile of gifty items I messed up on. LOTS of on the lathe mistakes, you name it, I have messed it up. Most of the time I can pass off a mistake as a design element and move on, some times, the mistakes are just so bad I have to scrap it and start over again.

I should mention that my tolerance for error on utility projects is FAR higher than for decorative, or gift projects. I have scrapped more simple walnut coasters due to not being absolutely in love with the way the grain looks once I start finishing it than I care to count. (Too plain / straight? Forget it!).

I right now have a set of 4 tapered cylinders that I just couldn't get the taper as smooth as I would like on the lathe. I am counting them as firewood and starting over. I better hurry though, they are supposed to be for my wife's birthday which is next week. (She wants to use them to hold her bracelets).