from cutting a straight line to create any edgy curving style every woodworker has to face a lot of issues. To smooth ride, every beginner woodworker would have to overcome several awe-stricken moments. To make a minimal wooden product beginners have to go through different mistakes that can be really frustrating for the beginner woodworkers. Most of the beginners use to start working on their projects inspired by online DIY woodworking mistakes videos. Though those seem easy to watch at but really complicated to execute. So they face problems again and again. There is a saying that to correct your flaws you should figure out your faults to make your projects flawless.
Therefore, in this article we will enlighten the readers about such few woodworking mistakes that every beginner runs into and how to avoid those pitfalls. Additionally, overcoming mistakes in woodworking would save your valuable time that could be utilized in your further projects and further enjoy your work without any interruption.
Here we will list up the woodworking mistakes according to before, during and after work basis.
Table of Contents
1. Misconceptions about the woods
The types of the woods you would work with depend on the region and the weather of that place where you live in. According to your environment you may have to work with several different types of woods. You need to be aware of the distinctive features of the woods like thickness, texture, grade etc. You can not differentiate things from the same wood, like the wood can use for making dining tables and not for making cabinets or bookshelves. So, consider yourself to research different woods and the essential features along with their usage before stepping into the world of woodworking mistakes
2. Not having adequate safety precautions
Once you have set your mind for woodworking, you should think of taking safety precautions while you start building woodworking workshops as well as wooden projects. Most of the woodworkers never consider their own safety during working with power tools. Woodworkers must wear proper uniform, face-shield, mask, safety goggles, gloves and steel-toed boots to protect from getting hurt by sharp and fast electronic woodworking tools. Moreover, arrange adequate lights, air-circulation system, moisture controller inside the workshop to make your projects flawless.
3. Being hurried up due to excitement
Beginner woodworkers become very much inspired towards new and unique by watching the online DIY videos by different professional woodworkers. Beginners forget that those can be edited and most of the time not teach you accurate techniques. Though, the making processes seem very easy yet those really hard to follow without adequate practice and knowledge. So, do not be in too much hurry for becoming famous. Otherwise, you will suffer in the long run with half knowledge.
4. Incorrect measurements
Measurement takes a prime place in the world of woodworking. Accurate measurement is the key factor for successful woodworking mistakes. Therefore, you must choose the best quality measure tape to maintain the accuracy. Tapes that are made of cheap plastics do not provide exact measurements and moreover can not be laid flat or pulled easily to measure. Use steel bladed measuring tape that remains rigid measurements and ensure the accuracy.
5. Being perfection freak
Do not try to be too much perfectionist while working on wood products. It is that in any woodwork you must face some kind of issue. Try to fix them once, if it is not possible let it be as too much reframing can ruin the entire creation. It is ok to make mistakes because faults make a man perfect. Every time you start working on a big project, try to make a sample first and figure out your flaws to fix them in your next project.
6. Lack of maintenance of the router
As a woodworker, you must know that sharp saws and flat blades may create burn marks on the routers because of continuous frictions. You can also take help from theedgecutter where you can learn about the best CNC routers. It is well-known that high-intensity electrical tool force and resistance can burn the woods gradually so as the wooden routers. If the burn mark is small, it can be removed by rubbing with the sandpapers but burns on the router bits can be difficult to wipe off or irremovable. To save your router bit from burning you should take breaks from time to time while working on longer projects. Additionally, you should clean the router bit after every use as most of the time heat is produced from accumulated dust.
7. Using wrong tools or same tools for different projects
Like any other work, woodworking also becomes successful if the tools that are used in the projects are perfect according to the projects’ requirements. There are a lot of woodworking mistakes tools such as router bits, saws, motors, hammers, clamps etc. Before entering into the woodworking profession every woodworker must know the tools and the techniques of their usage. You should work under a mentor in the beginning otherwise, it would be fatal to handle the complicated woodworking machineries.
8. Using dull blades
There is a myth that most of the woodworkers use dull blades for their projects as they don’t care about their tools after the work is done. In the beginning every woodworker becomes very much excited about making new things using cutting tools but as the times go on the blades of the tools become blunt and dull. The blades become resistant to work on swiftly. Therefore, it is advisable to sharpen your saw blades or replace them while needed. Otherwise, dull instruments and equipment may become to your enemies as they are expensive enough to buy again and again. So, you should replace and repair them in time.
9. Not taking proper care while ripping
Cutting wooden planks across its length is called ripping. Most of the cases ripping is done by using table saws. In some cases you can use free hand tools, rip fences and circular saws too for ripping. It will result in the wastage of the wood chunks if the ripping is not perfect. To avoid such errors you should practice ripping over and over on sample works and by that time you will be efficient enough to make perfect ripping.
10. Improper joining of the gaps
Remaining gaps in the joints are a common fault that the woodworkers face in the beginning of their works. Clamping and gluing without inspection may lead to an improper product. So, woodworkers should be careful while doing the alignments and then adhere the wooden pieces together for making bigger projects.
11. Understanding the stain colors
After final measurements of the wood pieces and cut, clamped, screwed and glued your project together, the very last job is to make your project stained properly. A perfect product without matching stain color is totally unacceptable. Sometimes, it happens that it seems the stain is matching to the wood but after drying up it won’t match at all. This is the inevitable error that every beginner woodworker must have to face. To avoid this problem, you should make a small sample piece before executing the bigger project and give it the same finishing and apply potential stains and topcoats on it. Verify the accuracy of the finishing and if you are satisfied with the matches then start working on the real product.
12. Usage of wrong fasteners and glues
Every different woodwork needs distinctive types of fasteners and glues. Choosing wrong adhesive and pins, nails etc can ruin your entire work. Though nails are easier to work with, screws have more grips to hold heavier wood pieces. Therefore, your project would be more sturdy if you use screws for framing the structure and use nails for exterior joint ups. Only drawback of the screws is that those are really more expensive than regular nails. Carefully examine the screw heads before investing in them. Always choose washer head styled screws if you want powerful grips, bugle head screws for flush finishing and smallest trim screws for interior joinings that can be covered up by using wood putty so for the nails too. Choose bigger headed and diameters of nails to ensure great strength while fastening. Know the depth of wood pieces that you are working with and choose nails according to the lumbers’ depth. So that those won’t stick out from the other side of the lumber.
You should be very much careful while choosing adhesives for woodworking projects. There are priorly two types of glues for woodworking. Construction adhesive for framing project structures and carpenter’s glue or yellow glue for trim and cabinetry projects. The former can be applied to join any kind surface whereas the later one needs a competitive smooth surface to stick on. Both the glues come in squeezable bottles. Additionally, you must follow the manufacturer’s instructions when using the adhesives and must follow the temperature level. Do not apply glues on wet and untidy surfaces. Otherwise it will lead to a worse grip or weakened joint that can be dangerous for bigger wooden products.
13. Sanding issues
Any woodworking project requires proper sanding to get a polished finish. If any woodworker skipped this step before applying stain color on made-up wooden products, the uneven and defective surfaces would bump up and prominently visible. Sometimes most of woodworkers make big mistakes while sanding large pieces of wooden product. They just sand up the defective surface rather than the whole piece in order to save time. Therefore, the affected areas become more appropriate after staining the color on wood and the colors don’t blend properly. Along with that over-sanding can also affect wood finishings as too much smoother surface or sealed grains of the woods won’t take stains perfectly. Additionally, you must sand the wooden products into the proper direction to minimize the scratches of the woods.