Ever have a bad day in the shop?

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firedkm

Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2011
Messages
89
Location
Medford, NJ
I am new to turning and only have a 6 pens and one bottle stop under my belt. Up until last night I have been really lucky and have had no real problems:roll eyes:

Decided to turn an letter opener for the first time. Drill a cedar blank and it went wrong from there. The hole went were is wasn't supposed to go. Think I was to anxious in drilling:big grin:. Well what the heck....decided to turn it anyways. After turning I noticed at soft spot. Decided to "fix it" with some ca glue. While that was drying I went to turn a Vertex click with cedar.

Well.......finished turning the pen and finished looks really good. Went back to the letter opener and finished that up. No good now I see the brass tube. Start from scratch! Turned the wood off the tube to reuse and started on a new blank.

I recently got some tbc bushings from johnnycnc and figured hey let use these! They worked really good and I even made a fancy design in the the handle instead of turning bushing to bushing. Now I am happy how this is turning out.

Put together the click pen the fit is perfect.......the clicker doesn't work right. Time to call PSI for new one:roll eyes:

Started to put together the letter opener........Wrong Bushings!!!!!!!!!!! :eek:
So now the handle is to small
I guess today is another day.
 
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I have used the wrong bushings and almost caught it in time - was not to bad all I had to do was take the center band and bevel one side and made it fit - actually looked good. Now I pay more attention to the bushings - at least for now ... lol
 
I expect this has happened to most of us. You can either toss the blank and start over or consider it a learning experience and try to recover the blanks. Be creative! Maybe you can turn down the ends of the blank and add a segment of a contrasting material, then turn the new material to the correct size. This would commonly be known as an "OOOPS" band.
There are most likely numerous ways to recover from this mishap.
 
I have those types of days. My best advice is to put the tools away and come back tomorrow. One mistake leads to frustration which leads to more mistakes or trying to "rush" a project. This never ends well. I learned that lesson after destroying 3 blanks in the turning process.
Now, I have learned that if something goes wrong, I just put the tools away and turn off the lathe till another day.
 
We all have had those kind of days....it's what you do to get past them and keep turning that matters!



Scott (don't sweat the small stuff) B
 
I have a policy in my shop: I'll fix the first mistake, if it happens again, I put everything down and go in and quit for the day. Come back tomorrow and start over. This works every time.

:smile-big::smile-big::smile-big:
 
I have messed up w/ Bushing so many times. I actually have a box w/ these mistakes in them waiting to have their brass recalimed one day. The ones that really get me are when I use the wrong side of a double sided bushing and finish the entire pen before I realize it.
 
This may be the "first time" this has happened to you, but as ALL of us will/can admit... it won't be the last time :smile-big:. Tomorrow is a new day :cool:
 
If you got to six pens and a bottle stopper done before this happened, you're doin' good. I have thrown some of my oops blanks away to keep from being constantly reminded of my error. I double check the bushings now, but I know it may happen again.

You will have these moments, walk away and do something else. Come back later to finish it into a one of a kind item.
 
You still have all your fingers and toes and none of them are bleeding, it's still a good day. Things happen, take it as a learning experience and one that didn't cost too much.
 
im having one of these days today.. decided to go out and turn a bit over my lunch hour and blew out the end of two nice almost complete sketch pencils while parting the tenon for the final... one of the blanks was also a spectacular red mallee burl... a bit of good luck however, both times a rather sizeable chunk flew off and i was able to find them and glue them back to the tube... hopefully with a bit of luck you wont be able to tell when finished... :wink:

after the second one i got the message loud and clear... time to put down the sharp pointy stuff and call it a day.

--Dave
 
ooops

Yup...am in your boat..just started penin and got the first 4 done without any probs...three days later..have done 12 total..6 are pretty good..the others are future spare parts...went 4 in a row...from splitting the blank on the lathe...to breaking one in assembly:eek::biggrin::biggrin:...still having a lot of fun though..Geo
 
I have been turning for over 4 years and there are still days when everything seems to go wrong. I clean up, put things away and go do something else. Later I go back and look at what happened and figure a new way to do things or learn that I was distracted and it was not a good time to be turning. I have also learned to never try to do anything if tired, hungry, upset or out of sorts.
 
Hopefully I will get back in the shop tonight. I guess making mistakes is really a good thing because your actually learning something:smile-big:
 
My worst day in the shop is far better than the best days spent doing a lot of other things. That doesn't mean I haven't bounced a few things off the wall in there in frustration. Usually I take a long break and go back the next day and try again.
 
I think we all have had days like that. I usually just turn the wood off the tubes and start over. Just wrecked a bullet pen this afternoon I was working on for my son as a gift to his boss. Start over from scratch.
 
I have several twisted 2x4s in the shop. When I get really frustrated, I chuck in piece and turn it into wood chips:biggrin: Once I calm down, I start another project. If that one goes well, the I will go back and fix the one that was an issue.
 
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