Time for some humble pie

I just deleted a post I wrote when I thought I was past the point of major screwups. So I thought telling people my lofty thoughts would be a contribution. Wrong.

I always wondered why Eric didn't use power tools for a lot of jobs - opting for long boards, hand saws and eyeballing things instead of cranking up the router, belt sander or whatever instead.

I took a break from real work today for a few minutes, went up to the garage and decided I needed to put the desired perfect radius on the outside of the rail of Thomas' boat. I have a monster four horsepower Bosch router that has more guts than my Toyota Tercel. I put in a half inch radius round over bit and set the depth. Didn't bother doing a trial cut on some scrap - I'm a woodworking genius!

This is a very cool tool - it winds up like a turbine till it reaches the set RPMs. It would take me five or ten minutes and all the rails would be perfect. Started at the bow port side and worked backward towards the stern. It felt a little funny. I hate stopping because it can make a rough spot in your work, but I didn't like the feel, so I stopped to look.

The router depth setting had slipped, and the router had happily slowly plunged and kept on going without me noticing the serious damage going on. The router was so powerful it sent the round over bit deep into the sheer clamp and let me move it about four feet while way below the expected depth. The rail was ruined. All that gluing and clamping. Days of work gone.

I carefully put down the router and the revelation hit me that if I had been using a long board with 60 grit on it to do the round over I would not be in the very dark place I was now.

In my panic I thought, maybe I can layer some thin pieces of oak on the damaged area and glue it, clamp it and hide my stupidity. My brain abandoned me and I was like a 16 year old slapping Bondo on a freshly dented car.

It looked like crap. I had that ugly empty hollow feeling like I'd been caught dead to rights doing something really bad. I went back inside to do some paying work, wondering how I was going to explain the section of rail that looked like a rabid beaver had attacked to Thomas.

After a couple hours of work, I calmed down and my brain started to function again. Took a break from real work and went up to see if my horrible nightmare was actually true. It was.

Asked myself, what was the RIGHT way to proceed to recover from my temporary insanity. First, I mentally thought of Eric and how he gently deals with boat repair work clients to get rid of the negative blame and self flagellation. Next, I thought of how a professional would deal with the problem. Decided on a course of action that would involve carefully removing the damaged section of the rail, meaning two whole laminations would have to be completely removed for a four foot section, and then I would replace the damaged area with completely new laminations. It took me a while to section out the damaged area (using hand tools - a sharp chisel and back saw), but it eventually came out clean. The first new layer is clamped back in place drying as we speak. I'm sure it will be undetectable when it is done, and you can bet I'll be using a long board to round over the "new" rail.

Humble pie. Could use a glass of milk - it tastes a little dry and sawdusty.