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Question Of The Week.... ( 2026 Week 16 )

ripjack13

ripjack13

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What's the most embarrassing mistake you've made while woodworking?



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Listen kid, there are two things you didn't know about the Earth.
One is me. And the other is... Godzilla
 
Hmm. Hard to say. (Not that I don’t make mistakes. More to the contrary I made so many mistakes I’m having problems identifying which one is the most embarrassing)

Probably when I drilled a hole for one of my flutes in the mouthpiece area instead of the are with holes.
 
I have a list, dunno where to start. I am a carpenter by trade so any woodworking mistakes are a bit embarrassing since I really can't blame it on lack of practice.
Short cuts and misplaced holes are high on the list. Bad math doesn't look good on a guy who once taught algebra and other tricks ...
Missing parts that are hidden where I can for sure find em when I get ready to use them, are definitely on my list.
I haven't really shown off my woodworking so it isn't as easy to embarrass me.
 
One of my first bowls quickly became a funnel. No biggie, life is harder when you can’t laugh at yourself. As Mike said, I had one of those days where I did measure twice and just couldn’t stretch the board enough. At that point I came to the house. Yep, wife also laughed.
 
Not quite my mistake, it was a check written for 2x4's I loaded. I said the name of the business twice, but the check was written out to Guy Diamond.
 
I managed to mount a dado set in the table saw with the outer blades facing backwards, took a bit to figure why it was performing so bad, it was actually working, just burning the wood like hell lol
 
Many years ago when I was using only hand tools, had been buying, restoring and sharpening old saws from garage sales. Got decent at sharpening rip saws. Then I tried a nice crosscut Disston back saw. Even picked up a good saw file guide from Lee Valley.

Was going great and had one side done. Don't remember my exact mistake, but was a couple inches in to the second side when I realized I had just filed two inches of the blade into needle teeth.

Still haven't gone back to that saw to finish. Will need to joint the teeth back to nothing and completely recut them. Really need to do that one of these days....
 
In my early days of woodworking, my nephew had been hollowing out a reasonable size cup that he wanted to use for drinking liquids from when he went camping. He was almost done with it. He asked if I could cut off some of the excess wood on the bottom. I took it to the bandsaw and proceeded to cut right through the bottom of the turning, basically making a 4” pipe out of it! Dumb! We glued it back together, but it just wasn’t the same. Think he used it for a pencil holder after that! Chuck
 
Nature Man said:
In my early days of woodworking, my nephew had been hollowing out a reasonable size cup that he wanted to use for drinking liquids from when he went camping. He was almost done with it. He asked if I could cut off some of the excess wood on the bottom. I took it to the bandsaw and proceeded to cut right through the bottom of the turning, basically making a 4” pipe out of it! Dumb! We glued it back together, but it just wasn’t the same. Think he used it for a pencil holder after that! Chuck
Click to expand...
You might want to try shrink pots if cups are your thing.
 
Made the inside bigger than the outside quite a few times! Had pieces go flying off into space while trying to show how skilled I am!
Worse one was wearing the wrong clothes and getting sucked into the machine.
 
Man, I'm so unlike the rest of you'ns. I've never made a mistake! Well at least no more than ten. That's as high as I can count as I don't take my shoes off and use my toes - they smell too badly and are kinda moldy - they get that way when you live under a rock. Oh, and there was this one time a tall narrow vase I was making from a chunk of mulberry that got free of the chuck and became airborne not once, not twice, not three times, not even five times, but 6 times before I called it quits. Sure glad nobody was around and nobody knows about it - it would be embarrassing if anybody did!
 
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