One of my biggest challenges in woodworking is not doing things that I have to go back later and FIX ... I hate having to re-do things because "something" went wrong ... and that something is ME ... nobody else to blame, so how can I do better??
The first thing is having equipment that works the best it can. I often don't have expense equipment and some of my limitations are the tools, but it's up to me to get them working the best they can ...
Lubricating Table Saw Mechanisms
My poor old table saw is something over 20+ years old now and the manufacture has gone out of business, so parts are hard or impossible to find, but the saw is working OK generally .. EXCEPT the elevation and angle setting of the blade. Elevating the blade is critical because you MUST adjust the blade of the saw to be about a half tooth over the top of the wood you are cutting EVERY TIME. This is THE MOST IMPORTANT safety rule of using a table saws behind wearing eye protection.
My elevation mechanism has been getting worse and worse in the recent past, until I dug deep into how to fix it. Turns out the solution was MUCH easier than I expected. Many on the internet said to "never use WD40, it will gum up the mechanism" ... not so, I tried after clean all the table saw mechanism with a brush, then vacuuming out the dust. I sprayed the area with a modest amount of WD 40 and was astounded how quickly and efficiently it work ... and ... it does appear to "gum up" the mechanism in any way, and so far this fix has lasted 4 months and still my saw is working better than new. For the time it takes to UNPLUG the saw, brush and vacuum dust and re-spray, it makes all the difference in the world.
Re-Setting Corners
I often find myself rounding corners of wood for many reasons, making jigs, setting up temporary holds and even for some furniture. Rather than try "find" the best circle to use, now I use the square to find the center point for compass and make each one exactly what size I need. Simple, simple, simple ...
Marking Wooden Legs and More
When making tables, chairs, stools and so on, the fist thing I do after cutting the legs to rough size, is to examine them to find which is the best side of the leg to mark as the face side. When I get all the legs examined, I will later want to apply some sort of joinery and sand and maybe even wood dye them, then of course put them all back together in the same pattern. This trick works super well, quick and easy to do and makes life easier as I progress through the build ...
Preventing Glue-Up Cracks
Nothing is more wasteful of time then having to re-glue boards together because you find a small gap between the boards, which or course shows up like a red flag. In the past, I had this happen a LOT when I was using a biscuit jointer because with many woods, the act of cutting the slot almost always leave a bit of a "flap" of wood at the end of the cut, and if you don't notice is and cut it off you can never get the boards to come together flatly ... same started happening (infrequently) with silicon brushes I use for spreading glue .. then I found it was ME not cleaning them well enough between glue ups and causing my own problems ... fixed by immersing brushes in water, MUCH easier and quicker and more thorough cleaning them now.
Re Using Discard Materials
... Like plastic laminate or what is often still called arborite and still used for making counter tops, a great product the produces a LOT of waste, and we can use the waste for many other things, like mixing 2 part epoxy, small amounts of wood fillers, mixing small amounts of paint, shims for countless things, water proof base for mixing paints and wood finishes ... so many things, and you can probably get it for free at your local counter top dealer who is happy to get rid of a few sheets. I get some every couple of years or so, I used to offer to buy it but they never took money, so NOW ... I walk in with a small box of donuts to give them and they can't wait to grab a few cut-off pieces to give ... they love it every time they see, I'm the donut man :)
Lots of different things we can do prevent re-doing work, and I need to learn every one of them.
Colin Knecht
woodworkweb
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