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My hand-cut dovetail marathon on a small chest
I built a small chest and chose to hand-cut all the dovetails for the drawers. Rushing the first few meant they were loose, so I had to redo them, which added days to the work. How do you handle the urge to speed through tedious parts?
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abby6984mo ago
The same thing happens with anything you do repeatedly - your brain thinks it knows the steps so it wants to skip ahead. It's like when I'm sorting mail and start grabbing bundles by feel instead of checking addresses. That always ends with me backtracking. Sometimes you have to remind yourself that the boring slow part is actually the part that keeps you from having to redo everything later.
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oliviabarnes6mo ago
Read an interview once with a furniture maker who said he sets a kitchen timer for small tasks. Like, he'll give himself twenty minutes just to mark out the lines on one corner, then he has to stop. It forces you to go step by step. I tried it when planing some boards last week and it worked. You stop fighting the clock and just focus on the one cut you're making right then.
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