mistakes

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I try not to take myself too seriously. And I can't stand those that do or those that never make a mistake. Me I make them everyday. I try to stay pretty humble and down to earth, which came in handy today.

Delivered a new set of cabinets to the customer and started installing. Now I just bought a new cabjack from shopcarts usa and was really looking forward to trying it out. I start installing and everyone stops to come check out the new tool. It's working great and I fly through all the uppers but the last one.

I hang it on the wall and step back. Now this cabinet is on the left of the window. I notice there is a 3 1/2" gap between the cabinet and the window casing. On the right of the window there is a 1\4" gap like was specified. Needless to say everyone stopped again when they saw me just staring. The contractor asked how I could miss that much making the cabinet. I looked back at the sheet and layout and behold. I misread my intial notes, typed the wrong number in on the 3D layout and never caught it. I told everyone I was wanting some more shop cabinets and now I had a nice one to show any potential customers.

Everyone was relieved I wasn't angry. What good would it do? I screwed up and I'll make it right. But it did lead to an hours worth of what's your worst screw up stories, which was pretty cool.

What's the point of the little story? We all make mistakes, just accept it , correct it , learn from it, and above all don't take it too seriously. Life is too short.

Happy woodworking,
Chris
 
chris,

maybe it's in our name, i make more mistakes than i care to admit...oh, i guess i just did. like the time i got to the jobsite and my buddy who was helping the homeowner design the house asked, "where's the dishwasher" ooops, i had totally left it off. luckily there was a spot where it was intended to go and the cab that was in it's place was about the same size. i have forgotten to put finished ends on cabinets and many many other things. alot of my mistakes come from trying to hurry my cad drawings and copying and pasting without changing stuff.

i am usually pretty darn aggravated at the moment, but i can always laugh about it later.

like i said there are many more. just when i think i have learned all my lessons, i find a new one

thanks for sharin
chris
 
I made a mistake yesterday, I actually thought that I had made a mistake but I was wrong as I hadn't made a mistake, so that was a mistake.... my very first as far as I can remember.... Did I mention that I was Perfect? If I didn't, that was a mistake so I've made another, Gosh Darn it, I'm on a down hill slide, and today started out so fine. SWMBO is out of town and I've gone to Pot.... Hope she doesn't find out how far I've fallen while she is away... :rofl:
 
Mistakes???????? Let's just say that there was a very good reason that my signature line on another forum read;

"Some mistakes provide absolutely too many learning opportunities to make Only Once".:doh::D

........and if it is all the same to you, we'll just let it go at that, since I don't want to type for half the night.:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
When I was about 16 years old, I worked part-time on Sundays at a "Quick Lube" place, Sunday we worked from about 9 AM straight through to quitting time around 6 PM, sometimes we would get a five minute bathroom, sandwich break, but we were hopping all day, we would have a 4 to 10 car line up on BOTH bays all day. I worked down in the pit, a real grease monkey :D

Sometimes, we would have a problem, a stripped drain plug a filter that would NOT come off without the hammer and chisel method etc etc. The bosses were two brothers, if there was a problem, one brother would whine, moan and basically throw a fit, cast around for someone to blame (often it was no one's fault) and just make a mess of things, the other brother, would just fix the problem. I learned real fast, which method worked and which did not.

I've tried my best to be the guy who just fixes the problem.

Cheers!:thumb:
 
learning how to fix mistakes is a large part of being a good carpenter.
It's a large part of being good at many professions. ;)

I think you took the right approach Chris. It's hard to get anything done when you're wringing your hands worrying about a mistake.
 
If not for mistakes, we would never learn nor would we try anything new or different.

What a different world this would be if no one had taken the time to learn from their mistakes or had just given up after the first try.

Karl
 
No such thing as mistakes....they are just prototypes or fuel for the woodstove, that's my story an I'm stickin to it.

I make mistakes on a regular basis, makes me appreciate when I finally do something right.

Ole boy once told me, if you don't make mistakes then you aren't taking any chances.
 
I like to not think of them as mistakes. Rather, I believe I'm taking steps to insure a steady supply of fuel for the fire pit on the patio.

You've got the right attitude Chris!
 
I never make misteaks. ;)
Fortunately, since most of my time is spent writing, and the advent of computer word processing, I can erase ('delete' in computer speek) and redo in seconds without being embarrassed in front of the world.
In the shop? Well, lets just say my shooting backstop gets bigger all the time. That's where I dump scraps and 'misteaks'.
 
Here's today's!

Just made the doors for two solid oak triple wardrobes, sized them, sanded them, hung them, all ready for finishing.

I've now looked again at the spec sheet, and noticed that the client has specified the centre rail on each door to be one third of the way up the door.

I've put them in the middle!

I'm supposed to be delivering them on Friday.

Ah well, who needs sleep?
 
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