The project I've been working came to a halt the other day. The first drawer - which was verified to be square and straight - would not close into the carcase. A little "forensic investigation" showed that a series of accumulated errors in the carcase caused the drawer runners to be out of square sufficiently to cause the drawer to bind.
The "fix" in this case is a new carcase. This time instead of everything being dependent on one component, I will build a series of subassemblies, the accuracy of which I can verify before the final assembly. It'll be about $40 for the new materials.
That's a good thought...thanks...but the carcase is for a custom 3-drawer unit that fits under a cantilevered fireplace hearth...five feet long, 15 inches deep and ten inches high. Somehow I don't think there'd be much action on that - especially since it's out of square.
You haven't seen all the crap on ebay? I'm totally serious. The more creative you are in telling everyone what a (unfinished) piece of crap it is, the better...
How badly out of square is it? Even if you do make use of your lessons learned, you aren't necessarily going to get perfect. Can you tune the drawer or runner?
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough
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Every time you make a mistake and learn from it you have made a wise investment. In the future you are wondering if you could save a little time and cut a few corners you will remember the $40, the second trip, and the time you had to spend doing the project over.
It is amazing how finicky some of these things can be. On the project I am doing how, a 6 drawer table, I thought my stock was fine until I had trouble with some of the dovetails. The bad pieces were a hair cupped, and that just isn't good enough.
Live and learn. Yeh, a $40 lesson is really cheap.
Yes, I could "tune" the carcase but close investigation revealed that it is full of small flaws that total up to a poorly built piece. And the design was not well thought out to begin with. I started with one dust frame which measured almost perfect (the operative word being "almost"), attached a couple face frames (each of which had its own tiny errors).and added supporting structure. Everything was referenced to the dust frame. Ergo, all of the errors of each step (a 16th here, a 32nd there) accumulated into an angle being off by a couple degrees and an opening being significantly out of square.
I'd rather redo it. The new design is based on several smaller subassemblies, the accuracy of which I can better control individually. In final assembly, I can make allowances for any errors rather than allowing them accumulating to become a major misalignment. That will give me additional practice and -- hopefully -- the final result will be a better drawer unit.
I'm not seeking absolute perfection...just much better than I achieved on the first try.
Chuck.. the $0 was a good investment, because it seems that it helped you realize that you've reached the "next level"... I think I hit that about a year ago... can't remember what the project was, but I remember thinking something like "the difference between now and a few years ago is that I have the patience to go back and do this right instead of mickey mousing it"...
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