Ponderings #29: Taking setbacks in stride.

I can relate to your feelings, I often have felt that I have two left feet and unfortunately transplanted to where my hands should be…

I can tell you from experience that I left more than a few projects unfinished because I couldn’t bear to deal with the lack of progress. I have since learned that not finishing the project leaves that confidence roadblock that prevents further ones from being developed. Good to walk away when frustrated, not good to leave it so long :) Glad you are back to it, good luck on the furniture.

David

-- There is little that is simple when it comes to making a simple box.

happy days are here again !

congrads on the ‘new addition’
to the family

and welcome back to the woodworking

we are all beginners every time
we walk into the shop

-- david - only thru kindness can this world be whole . If we don't succeed we run the risk of failure. Dan Quayle

congratulations and welcome back

-- Emmett, from Georgia

We missed you. You can get good at woodworking. Build simple to start, and upgrade a bit each time, you will get better and better.

Thanks for coming back.

-- Make furniture that lasts as long as the tree - Ryan

Looks like it’s time to do a search for cradle ideas. Best of luck with your new addition and welcome back to LJ’s.

-- Beth, Oklahoma, Rambling Road Designs

Congratulations on the futur new fmily addition. Your son or daughter will be a great wwoodworker and will therefore need your help to learn stuff. How is that for a reason to start practicing?

Very good advice! Thanks for your story, and I’m glad to hear you’re back at it.

-- http://barbsid.blogspot.com/

So what kind of wood are you going to use?

I used spruce for a table and chairs that I built for a friends kids. However I had to use a planer to get it into useable form. So I’m guessing pine or poplar. I would recommend poplar as it is generally less aromatic and it takes paint well.

-- BLOG - http://www.colorfulcanary.com/search/label/Zuki

congrat´s with the future event :-)
and welcome again we need all the help we can get to move the next several hundred roadblocks
so start working :-)
but remember to go easy and hurry sloooowly

Dennis

Congrats, and life can be full of problems.

Thanks folks. I’m tickled to death with the new addition. It wasn’t planned, but I suspect the big man upstairs knew what we needed. That’s how our first one came along. He wasn’t planned either, but he was what we needed.

Zuki: I’m looking at just that, pine or poplar. I have yet to find a source for lumber besides either of the large home centers, so that’s what I’m going to be using. I’m leaning heavily towards poplar because, like you said, it takes paint well. I’ve come to grips with painted furniture. It definitely has its place.

Beth: Yeah, I’ve been looking at some, and will continue to look. We’ll see how far I can get :D

It’s great to be back folks. The people are what always made Lumberjocks so special, and I see that hasn’t changed one bit! :D

-- "Give me your poor tools, your tired steel, your huddled masses of rust." Yep, I ripped off the Statue of Liberty. That's how I roll!

Good to meet you!

I think too often we become too fixated on the end result and aren’t willing to do all the leg work to become really good at something. I think this is the reason why everybody seems to suck at (or hate) finishing. There’s so much science and art and methodology and practice and failure and success that is required before you gain some confidence in it. At that point you begin to truly enjoy that aspect of it. Not only finishing, but tool sharpening, or perfecting a joinery technique, or tool setup, or whatever.

I’ve been working on my kitchen for well over two years now, but I took it as an opportunity to really learn certain things along the way. While it’s frustrating that progress is slow, I do manage to mix in enough variety so that the tedium of things isn’t paralyzingly.

I think it’s too easy to suffer paralysis by analysis in this hobby. You encounter a road block and then impatiently seek quick solutions because you feel like you have to maintain a certain pace. Truth is, certain things take longer than others…and certain things require more money than others. In other words, it’s quite normal to make lots of firewood.

Hang in there. I think we are always better after learning a lesson or two.

-- jay, www.allaboutastro.com

Oh, and congrats on the newest baby!

-- jay, www.allaboutastro.com

Thanks Jay, and you’re right. A lot of the time it was the leg work, for a lot of folks anyways. For me, I knew the theory on building all kinds of stuff, but not the muscle memory of actually doing it. That’s the next step :D

-- "Give me your poor tools, your tired steel, your huddled masses of rust." Yep, I ripped off the Statue of Liberty. That's how I roll!

Tomcat, Congrats on the coming addition!!! Good to see you pondering here again, look forward to seeing what you come up with for the furniture.

CtL

-- Chris L. "Don't Dream it, Be it."- PortablePastimes.com (Purveyors of Portable Fun and Fidgets)