Are you as careful with everything as you are with your woodworking?

[Brian Henderson]

I was thinking about this last night as I was wrapping my daughter's birthday presents.

When I'm woodworking, all of my measurements are very precise, all of my cuts are dead straight and I worry about being a few thousandths of an inch off and everything has to be perfectly square. Yet when I was wrapping, so long as I cut the paper reasonably straight and kind of square, I was happy. The corners were sort of tight and as long as it looked decent, I had no problem with it.

Is there anything else in our lives, as woodworkers, where we're as exacting as we are when we're out in the shop?

[brianlanning]

I write financial software at work. I also pay attention when I do my own auto repairs, especially brakes. Other than that, I let a most things slide.

brian

[Joe Barta]

Well, it's all about context. If you were in your woodshop cutting to length a bunch of tomatoe stakes, I don't think you'd worry about a few thousandths either way ;-) If you were a professional gift wrapper then I'd suppose neatness and squareness would be a high priority.

Joe Barta

[Dave Balderstone]

I work to realistic tolerances...

[noonenparticular]

Funny you should bring up wrapping presents. I'm well known in my family for being positvely precise when wrapping, to the point that over the course of several Christmases, I've now been given 100% wrapping duties for pretty much anything. I never use scissors to cut the paper, rather, I run a marking knife down the inside of a square crease, all tape is double-sided and hidden.... etc etc etc...... The family thinks I'm sick. They may well be right.

jc

[Joe Barta]

Yes, you're twisted... but it's a wonderful thing.

Joe Barta

[Joe Barta]

"Realistic tolerances" is very subjective and very relative. In that light, EVERYONE works to realistic tolerances.

Joe Barta

[Chris Friesen]

I write software to run phone systems. You generally want 911 to be reliable...

Chris

[Lee Michaels]

When I got married at the age of 32 (many years ago) my wife made certain that I learned some essential skills in living with her.

One was that cheap chocolates were an insult. The more exensive the chocolates, the more they are appreciated.

Two, flowers perform some kind of magical function. I don't understand it. But flowers can work wonders.

And HOW TO WRAP A PRESENT!! This is a big deal. And no matter how hard I try, my best efforts only produce perfection on a maximum of three quarters of a package. Usually it is only half.

I gave up on that. Now I use gift bags, big bows, gift cards and special cards desgned to hold money. And If I get a complaint, I ask for some money back so I can get the damn thing professionally gift wrapped. Nobody has taken me up on that offer yet.

[Frank Drackman]

I can tell you some great stories about developing TAPI for Windows 95. The Redmond WA police were so fristrated with Microsoft testers for forgeting that their lines weren't behind a PBX and dialing 9 to get an outside line and double 11s...

[John Thomas]

Brian Henderson wrote in news: [e-mail]:

One of my job functions is mask design. Let me tell you about tolerance...

[S R]

I used to sweat about being "precise" in my woodworking. Then it dawned on me that when you work on something, you get to know every defect very well. But when someone else walks up to a piece of furniture (if that is what you make), they see it, touch it, and sometimes admire it. But, they usually never scrutinize it like the person who designs and builds it. So when I completed our coffee table, I was so upset that I messed up the corner round along the main edge of the table. I thought the indentation was so obvious, and everyone would laugh at it. Well, after 4 years, till this day nobody noticed the defect.

Now, woodworking is so much more enjoyable since I realized where it counts to be precise, and where you can be a little less so.

Stephen R.

[John B]

Yep, the hardest thing to learn when woodworking is to know when to leave well enough alone. regards John

[B a r r y]

Flying. I check my flight planning more than my cutlists, and put up with comments about "anal" preflight inspection.

Barry

[B a r r y]

Nortel?

[Bob G.]

========================================== Lol... Yea Brakes should get maximum attention.... However I do not think too much when I am only replacing the pads... I just do it...

Bob G.

[mac davis]

probably the same degree for most things, but I don't consider myself a good woodworker... I do tend to have more patience in the shop than on a lot of things, but that's probably because I got into wood to relax..

In my experience, the folks who's work I've really admired are basically pretty anal in their wood and just about every facet of their lives... I'm not saying that being a perfectionist is good or bad, just what I've observed.. Mac

[mac davis]

That is how my life is, Joe.. but we might be the exception...

People that do really good work tend to apply it to everything... An example of that would be guys like Ken Vaughn... ever been to his site?

jigs and fixtures are nicer looking and more precision than any project that I've been able to do so far...

I think that some people just like to do it "right".. and I know in Ken's case, he makes his tools and jigs into woodworking projects... and maybe that's what it's all about..

Mac

[mac davis]

JC.. forget the double sided tape... I've used a glue stick for years and it drives them nuts trying to figure out what holds their "tapeless" wrap.. Mac

[Brian Henderson]

Sure, but you don't place the brake pads with accuracy to the thousandth of an inch, you slap them in, reinstall the caliper and away you go.