LumberJocks Woodworking Forum banner

A hair pulling "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO" moment !!!

11K views 31 replies 21 participants last post by  Paultreviddick 
#1 ·
A hair pulling "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO" moment !!!

I have been taking some pics of some of my carvings to post…and since I finally got my desk top repaired and saved most of my pics…I am going to start posting some of my work. BUT…my most favored piece I EVER carved was destroyed today.

I posted a picture of a fruit bowel the other day that showed how I carved through the wood to help the animal carvings stand out. I have done this on a few pieces I have done…and my most favorite "WAS" a chess table.

I am a avid chess player…and wanted something special for my office. I made a round table top out of a huge piece of slab mahogany cut out of a old tree I had been saving for years…hand carved around the edges several scenes of chess pieces doing battle…and carved through the wood to set off each scene. For a table, I got a log of mahogany and carved a tripod leg that folded…(Every seen a chain carved out of wood ? Same principle) It had three legs top and bottom with a "Knuckle" carved in the middle…..so when folded out….it had three arms holding the table and three legs holding the whole thing up.

I then hand carved all the chess pieces. This piece was by far my most favored piece I ever carved and spent literally countless hours of work on it. Working in my spare time a few hours here…a day there etc etc etc. I probably took over a year of just "Playing" with it before I was satisfied with it.

It has sat in the corner of my Den/office for a few years now….and me and my son have played countless games of chess on it, and had more "man to man" talks over it than I can remember.

Well today my daughter and a friend of hers were playing on my desk top..and the story I was told was this…her friend was sitting on the corner of my desk and when she hopped down she stumbled and fell onto it….luckily she was not hurt…but the chess board was shattered into dozens of pieces and the tripod folding legs all snapped off at the knuckle. Over a year of spare time went into this…and it was gone in a moment.

As mad as I was…it was just a accident…so I just bit my tongue and said "Don't worry about it".....Right now it is sitting in a pile on my work bench…."MAYBE" I will be able to glue it all back together….but it will never look right or be the same again and right now I don't even want to look at it.

As I said…"A hair pulling NOOOOOOOOOO" moment

Here is the wreck



 
See less See more
2
#2 ·
yep, that truly sucks, but how's that song go, "sounds like life to me".

I've felt your pain, and having been a male child likely caused plenty of the same pain to my father. Whether it was the first time you wrecked your dads car, or twisted and delaminated his handmade bow, or was fighting with your brother in the house and slammed him up against a drywall wall and busted a full 6 foot by 6 foot section out of the living room wall. Or maybe it was the time your kid left one of your power tools out in the rain and you didn't notice it until it was ruined or any of a myriad of other of lifes "catastrophies".

Maybe none of these compare to a lost labor of love of the magnitude you're talking about but it sounds like no one got hurt and you still have enough hair you can pull some out :). Pick your blessing where you can, even amongst the wreckage.
 
#3 ·
Oh I agree coloradoclimber My daughter knew how much I loved this piece…and I could tell by the look in her eyes as she told me what happened that she was really upset. It was a accident and no reason to make her feel worse…hence the "Don't worry about it" I told her and her friend.

I couldn't "Vent" to her…so I am cutting loose here…lol
 
#4 ·
Don, I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of such a piece of work! I wish we could have seen it. I had a similar disaster to a cherished piece happen in much the same way. One day I am determined that I will do it again, only add in all the "20:20 hindsight" I learned from the first go around to make the second one even better. I haven't tackled it yet but I intend to.
 
#6 ·
Greatly feeling your pain, and your loss over here in LA. Maybe it's fear of these moments that keeps me from ever making anything really beautiful and elaborate. I hope gluing it back together will work better than you expect.
 
#7 ·
don this is when you go to the store and get a dozen dounuts, and some chocolate milk and watch your favorite movie…..of coarse i understand your feelings…almost every piece of furniture in my house has been made by me…ive thought about what would it be like if in a storm or fire.i were to loose it…..it would be hard , but at the same time..its just stuff….and of coarse your a good man and didnt loose your temper on your daughter or her friend..very admirable….they can learn from this too…they can see the value of a person and there feelings is not worth a piece of furniture….and she knows how much you loved it….just watch and see now what becomes of this….now as long as you can vent here and i can here your nooooooooooooooo…all the way in alabama..i know how you feel…..you can find a way to use what you have into another project…...just put it away for now…and move on into your projects…and think on it…you will have a idea come that your happy with and it can be even better then it was before…..maybe into something that when seen…makes everyone laugh…....grizzman
 
#9 ·
uuuuggghhhh….

it really depends and is up to you, but another option is to salvage that piece in a picasso sort of way - keep the broken pieces broken, but make it functional, in the form of an art exhibit (yet functional) ... this will add another aspect to the history and the story of the piece in a positive way, as opposed to trying to fix it to it's previous state, but never really forgetting the tragedy in a negative way…

just a thought… I'm not a big fan of accidents…
 
#10 ·
I'm sorry to hear about it. You certainly handled it right though. Kids can really do damage to your favorite possesions. MAybe this little story will cheer you up at least.

When I was 2-3 yrs old my family didn't have much money (so my dad was trying to save some money by doing some automotive repairs/maintenance himself. While the car was on ramps and my dad was under it, I was "helping" him. Apparently, my idea of helping was poking a screwdriver through the grill and ruining the radiator coils. I guess his savings went up in smoke pretty quickly.

Now I know its not the same as a handbuilt masterpiece. I just figured it might make you laugh.
 
#11 ·
Ouch!!! That has to hurt. There's nothing worse than to see all your long hours and commitment to a project go down the tube so quickly. Not having seen the piece, I would urge you to repair it. I know at this point your frustration probably says noooo!, but maybe as time goes on, you can be a little more objetive. I've done lots of extensive repairs over the years--Maybe, just maybe, it's not quite as bad as it seems, and even if it is, it might still be worth the effort.
I feel your pain--wish I could physically help you with it.
 
#12 ·
Thanks for the kind words everyone !!!!

And HokieMojo…. It did make me laugh, and like coloradoclimber did…you reminded me of ALL the hair brained stunts I pulled as a kid myself. Your story reminds me of one very close to yours. Like you..we had no money growing up…but my Dad was and still is a true craftsman…he could fix,make or build anything…and I wanted to be just like him….I was ALWAYS trying to fix something by taking it about (and had NO idea how to put it back together lol) always leaving his tools laying in the yard only to be found later by a lawn mower or after a hard rain.

But the icing on the cake was his truck….like your dad, he never hired a mechanic and did all of his own work on the ranch…he had just bought a engine for his pick-up truck from the salvage to replace his old one…and I was "Honored" because he let me help him put it in…(I was around 6…so I got to hand him tools…lol) but when it was all done, the next day I still wanted to be a "Mechanic"...so I lifted the hood…climbed up on the fender and messed with everything….when I got done I put the hood back down and went off to play.

The next morning he got up to go to work…got in in truck and took off. About 20 min later he showed back up with a mangled hood on his truck…Seems I did not shut the hood hard enough to latch and when he left it was still to dark for him to notice….when he got off the dirt roads and hit the paved roads and got up to speed….the hood flew open and wrapped around his roof top !!!! To say he was mad would be a mild understatement.

He was mad at "Himself" because he thought he had screwed up until he got to looking under the hood and saw all the Little things I had messed with like the air-breather being loose etc and came and woke me up asking if I had been playing on his truck.

So…thanks for the reminder guys…if my kids had done HALF the stunts I pulled as a kid…wll…lets just say I would have NO hair to pull out by now lol.
 
#15 ·
wow, sounds like a beautiful piece, I'm sorry to hear about it's unfortunate demise. I pulled many a stunt that made my Dad's hair turn grey. :) (and ruined many good tools, usually his best chisels)

Kent.. I keep asking my wife to come up with better projects so I can get more (better) tools. Ha!
 
#20 ·
Sorry to hear about your problem Don. I guess we have all caused a few problems when we were younger, and we have lived to a ripe old age where we get to see the wonders happen to others.

I also think that the piece should not be restored but put back together as an explosion piece with all of the parts seperated. You can then spend your free time making something better with a hook to hang it up when not being used.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top