Working when tired

[twistsol]

My daughter is having a boy in March and rather than buy a new house, she wanted a Murphy bed so the dual purpose weight room/guest room could be triple purpose, weight room, office, guest room. I picked up the murphy bed kit from Rockler last week and started on it early Saturday morning around 6 am. I had all the parts cut, and nearly all the holes drilled etc. One of the last steps was to cut a 3/4 by 3 1/2" slot 1/4 inch deep to inset some hardware into each of the sides. This is where the trouble began.

3:00 PM
I created a jig so I could route the slot, but didn't plunge far enough initially to get the bearing into the template and wandered outside the jig and ruined one of the side pieces. I cut a new one, edge banded it and came up with a fool proof plan of using my Festool track, a 3/4" bit, the track guide for the router, and a couple of stops so I couldn't go outside the alotted length. A quick test piece the hardware dropped into the slot with no wiggle room.

5:00 pm
I set up the new side piece to cut the slot, double checked everything (almost) and made the cut. The hardware dropped in perfectly again. Feeling proud of myself I was just about to grab the second side piece when I realized I'd cut the hardware slot on the outside of the panel instead of the inside.

5:30 pm I gave up for the night and finished the rest of the parts today and got them all primed ready for my first foray into spraying Benamin Moore Advance.

She wants it delivered on Friday night and with a 16 hour dry time on the paint, I have no more room for error.

[Nick Keenan]

My rule is once I've made two mistakes I'm done for the day. Too easy to hurt yourself once you stop thinking.

[capncarl]

Sony you just hate it when you cut the wrong side of the board! When I get into situations where that’s possible I take the time to mark each side of the board with tape and write on it which side us up,left,right inside our outside etc, I can’t think of the number of table aprons that have multiple angles only to find that the presentation side is on the inside of the table and is not always salvageable.

concerning Benjamin Moore Advance. I can’t recall the dry time being that long. Also, I have sprayed with it and found that I have gotten exactly the same finish results rolling and brushing with it!…… if you follow the rules. Don’t know the rules? Ask.
Being able to use a brush or roller might vrs spraying could speed up your completion time considerably.

[LCHIEN]

Wow, yeah, it's easy to start making a chain of mistakes.
Especially if you have a design with a lot of look alike pieces some right handed and some left handed and also upside down versions.
I find in that case its really worth the time to use a pencil, marker or masking tape (if no permanent parks are allowed) to mark the side and end to be cut and also mark hash marks on the waste side of a cut.

And if you make two mistakes in rapid succession, it's time to take a break, maybe overnight.
Those deadline projects can be miserable; they make you take shortcuts and rush.
I'm glad to be retired and a hobbiest with no deadlines... I take as long as I like and take frequent breaks to reassess the next operations.

Good luck to you!

[cwsmith]

Lessons learned!

When I was 14 I was working late one night with my father. We were poor and my Dad often worked two, three jobs at a time, and many times at night I worked with him. I started when I was 12 and I learned a lot, but the biggest lesson was that night when we were working on a new house that my Dad was hired to build the new kitchen cabinets. We were using the guy's table saw as my we didn't have one of our own. IT wasn't equipped with any type of safety guards.
That night my Dad lost two fingers and severly cut a third on thqt saw! He was too tired and we were rushing to get the job done as it was late and my Dad had already put in a full days work on his full-time job.

Lesson learned, I don't work with power tools when I'm exhausted or have a severe headache! At 80, I still have all my fingers.

[twistsol]

Eventually I got it all done and painted. Put the final coat on early this morning and it will be ready to roll to the shores of Lake Superior Friday night. There are more parts in the other garage bay. Some of the parts are longer than my truck bed and with rain in the forecast, I'll be pulling them in the trailer.

I have to clean overspray off my wife's bike, but that's a task for when she is on vacation next month.