Wood working NEW Weekly Rotating Topic Discussion Thread. First up: What kind of woodworking screw-ups have you made recently and how did you solve them? Made a mistake you can't solve? Tell us and we'll try to help!

NEW Weekly Rotating Topic Discussion Thread. First up: What kind of woodworking screw-ups have you made recently and how did you solve them? Made a mistake you can't solve? Tell us and we'll try to help!
Everyone is posting pictures of their beautiful immaculate shops and I’m over here unable to get out of my own way. Just the garage, there’s more in the basement
Made a little step ladder so my 1.5 year old can wash her hands/brush teeth/grab sharp things, etc... just plywood - she hasn’t earned hardwood goods yet.
This isn’t a shop, this is my Gramps garage. He’s 95 can still walk, still does odd jobs round the house and has some amazing stories from 50 years ago.
Beech choker. First successful steam bending project.
Made a dart wall from wood from recycled pallets I took from Home Depot! Now I don’t feel so bad for not being able to throw
Making my first desk and piece of furniture in highschool
Sapele blanket chest with copper panels
Here's a walnut serving tray (with brass pins!) that I just finished. Unfortunately I'm too old for anyone to care about my age, and I don't have the skills to produce an incredible build-animation (that really was impressive!). So, uh, enjoy?
My first project complete! A raised garden for my lovely GF!
Today is my wife's birthday and our anniversary! I built this makeup vanity for her. Whatcha think?
My take on a self-sufficient woodworking bench. Couldn’t fit the mini fridge anywhere though.
Coffee table that goes around the corner
A built-in custom desk I made for my home office.
Walnut cutting board with maple inlay
It’s not perfect, but every time I look at it it’s the best feeling in the world. Link to the plans I used in the comments.
Tank let me know today that I need to slap together another doggie doorbell for my shop. He peed on the back of my leg while I was running a board over the jointer.
My first end-grain cutting board. Walnut and babinga.
Two Drawer Dresser
New tool! Craigslist score. Shook so bad it almost walked, now she’s smooth. Balanced wheels, new tires, new blade, new belt, added 1” plywood on top of stand.
A worthy piece of Purple Heart
Live edge pecan table I just finished
Coffee table that goes around the corner
Built my wife her GIANT life edge mirror. Made with some local walnut.
The horizontal re-saw for those asked

NEW Weekly Rotating Topic Discussion Thread. First up: What kind of woodworking screw-ups have you made recently and how did you solve them? Made a mistake you can't solve? Tell us and we'll try to help!

Posted: 06 Mar 2020 03:39 AM PST

Recently a member of the community mentioned that we should have a weekly thread about mistakes where people post their screw ups so others can learn from them. They felt intimidated by the single, finished glamour shots that populate the front page of the sub lately. Myself and the other mods discussed it and determined that, over time, there might not be enough content there for a weekly stickied thread on mistakes alone but there certainly might be if we changed the topic every week. Many of us who have been around the sub a while remember it being a fantastic source of learning and inspiration for new woodworkers where everyone from professionals to wood newbs would chime in and discuss questions, techniques, etc. Big, in-depth build logs used to be more frequent and helpful as well. We'd love to see the sub return more to that ethos and thought a weekly discussion thread, each with a specific topic, led by different moderators, might be a step towards that. So this, in the hopes that it generates more conversation and community engagement, is our first weekly discussion thread and I'm titling it "Well S@#t, Now What!?"...Just kidding, but it is about mistakes and the different ways we all either scrap it, fix it, or make it a feature.

To set the ball rolling, I thought I'd share two of my mistakes from the same project and show how I fixed them. Then it would be great if others showed off their mistakes and their fixes, the more creative the better! Got a current mistake that you're stumped on? Show or tell us and we'll try to provide feedback! Know a way to fix that error? Chime in! I'll be as involved as I can but would really like this to be a community powered discussion as well.

So here's two of my many, many goof-ups. In 2016, I was working on a re-creation of a board game I liked as a teenager, Cathedral: Game Of The Medieval City. The playing board is simply a square mitered frame with a panel grooved into it. Mitered corners that are just glued don't tend to be very strong so I wanted to strengthen them with hidden splines. The trouble came when I forgot the splines were in there and cut a deep chamfer around the perimeter of the frame. Too deep, in fact, and I revealed the splines underneath. That might not have been so noticeable if I hadn't used some maple splines under the mahogany frame! At first I thought I might dye them for a color match but then settled on a discarded design idea I'd had earlier, capstones. I cut a twelve inch mahogany scrap and then profiled one side to perfectly fit over the profile of the chamfered frame. I then cut that into four mitered pieces and glued it together as its own little frame. When dry, I cut off each corner and was able to glue it over the corners of the bigger frame. Viola! mischief managed...or at least covered and it ended up looking more, uh castle-y?

The second mistake I made was in carving the title into the panel that fit into the lid. That too was a simple mitered box with a veneered panel in a groove. I'd spent plenty of time gluing up the panel, cutting my own veneer, veneering it, then having the rules laser etched into the bottom side, so of course this was a perfect time to screw things up. I'd made plenty of practice runs carving the logo with my CNC but they had been on stock that was slightly bigger than the work piece ended up being. I conveniently forgot that and carved away. It wasn't until I was done that I noticed that the logo wasn't centered as it was supposed to be and it was obvious. I ranted and raved for a while, toying with the idea of scrapping it and starting over but that had been a fair bit of work. After a day or two of sleeping on it, I realized that I didn't have to center it. I just had to add a little "weight" to the other side to make it look like it was centered. Thankfully, I have artistic friends. I showed one what I'd done and how I needed to add more visual weight to one side to balance it out. He designed a few flourishes for me and I chose the one I liked. As soon as I carved it, I knew I'd not only solved the problem of centering the logo but added a little something to it that made it much better than my original plan.

Maybe it's just the pride of overcoming a problem with a little ingenuity but I often find that the design changes I'm forced to make due to mistakes end up being nicer than the original plan was.

So we all make mistakes, all of us. It's part of the process. So let's hear about your screw-ups and the ingenious way you fixed them or bring us your unsolvable mistake and we'll discuss it!

submitted by /u/Squeazle
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Everyone is posting pictures of their beautiful immaculate shops and I’m over here unable to get out of my own way. Just the garage, there’s more in the basement

Posted: 10 Mar 2020 10:17 AM PDT