Fixing the mess

I decided to remove all the “dividers” and regroup. After chiseling off a couple in the middle, I used the router plane to level off the surfaces. I then grabbed my ryoba Japanese saw and used the ripping side to quickly remove the rest of the wood. I held a piece of wood against the blade to keep it dead flat. This gives a very good surface, but it is not exactly dead flush as there is a bit of set to the teeth.

I then planed the surfaces to make them even and coplanar. The 3-in-1 shoulder plane made quick work of squaring the edges.

When this was done, I spent a few moments contemplating the situation. How did I mess up this badly? I concluded that the reasons were that I did not have any plans – not even a simple sketch – to work from, I did not plan the job and I did not keep a to-do list. The last point is perhaps the most important one, because I can’t spend time in the shop on a regular basis. Which means that I do forget stuff.

With that in mind, it is clear to me that I have to keep track of what to do next. A simple sketch and writing down what to do next will help me keep track of the tasks.

I have watched countless woodworking videos, and I have read thousands of articles. I have a vast knowledge base, so for example: I knew what to do when I attempted those half blind dovetails. But EXPERIENCE cannot be gained through reading about it. You need to actually do it!

Including making mistakes.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

Taking it to the next level

Perhaps you come across someone saying that being an expert is just to be good at hiding your mistakes well, or something like that? I think that is complete hogwash. FIXING the mistakes well, on the other hand, could be a sign of someone who knows which end of a chisel to grab.

I decided to make new dividers and glue them in, with a bit of space between them. But I wanted the dividers to look a bit posh, so I thought diamonds would look nooice. I started by marking the centerline and a line to plane down to. I set the marking gauge to the depth of the cutouts in the crossbeams.

I planed down to the line while creeping to the center line. Then rinse and repeat for the other side. I scribbled the surface to keep track of where I was taking off material:

After a short while, I had a nice barn-shaped piece of teak!

Chop-chop, and eight divider blanks emerges. I then planed the sides to remove the saw marks.

Time for some diamondization! Resting the plane on the vise jaw, I planed each side until I took a shaving from corner to corner and at the same time kissed the center point.

With all the eight pieces shaped like diamonds, I epoxied them in place using some veneer scraps as spacers.This gave me even spacing across the entire width – four pieces of veneer per slot.

After the epoxy cured, I could test the setup. It worked out VERY well! A bit of cleanup and shaping plus some sanding, and everything should look pretty decent! The diamond shapes actually helps guide the saw blade into the slot, as the ridges draws the eyes towards the slots.

And I think it looks pretty good, too!

For the lower row, I wanted to try something different. I used the marking wheel to scribe the lines around each piece, plus the center line and two lines across. I then planed to those lines to create a chamfer on both ends.

Using a pencil and a ruler, I marked the diagonals to guide me when sawing off the waste.

Sawing to the lines removed the waste in no time – a LOT faster than planing it away. I think, however, it was a lot easier with this diamond pattern, as I had the long center line to guide the cut parallell to the edges. The other pattern would not have been as easy to cut straight, I think.

A quick swipe or three with the plane removed the saw marks. I also cleaned the saw marks on the sides.

One lesson learned here: I should’ve planed the chamfer on the long sides before I cut the pieces. The far right one has a different bevel than the others – in fact, all have slightly different bevels. I will fix that once they all are glued in place, so no biggie.

This is one of the very few examples where I envy the table saw guys a bit. This would’ve been easy to do on a table saw, but would probably have required a jig or a sled of some sort. Oh, well.

I epoxied the pieces in place, taking care to line up the grooves for the saw blades.

Seven pages and counting for a saw till – wow! This was meant to be such a fast and easy build…

On to the next page!