A short treatise on why the Festool Domino is the most useless tool ever invented
and
Why Roy Underhill is the smartest woodworker in the world
and
How man relentlessly pushes himself forward, not because of some noble motivation but because he grossly underestimated the effort
and
Why Roy Underhill is the smartest woodworker in the world
and
How man relentlessly pushes himself forward, not because of some noble motivation but because he grossly underestimated the effort
Like any respectable woodworker, I have a lot of scrap. Pieces too small to be really useful, but with too large a perceived value to throw away. In my case, this problem is compounded my by Dutch heritage. My [STRIKE]cheapness[/STRIKE] frugality is matched only by my delusion about actually using all this scrap within my lifetime.
(walnut, Brazilian cherry, purpleheart, and maple)
In September I started thinking about making some Christmas gifts. Why clutter up the houses of your friends and family with cheap, useless store-bought junk when you can clutter it up with cheap, useless home-made junk? Given my shocking lack of talent and busy travel schedule, I decided to keep the project simple. I don't recall the exact inspiration, but I remember seeing it at a store somewhere: A set of wooden party trays that can hold a wine glass. Because life is difficult enough without having to set your glass down somewhere before you can munch on a cube of cheese. Fancy descriptions aside, these "party trays" are essentially small cutting boards with a hole in them. No fancy joinery, no end grain to sand, no juice grooves or handles. A plank with a hole.
So the plan was perfect. I should have stopped at the planning stage, because from here on out, everything got worse. You see, the biggest mistake I made was trying to be efficient. I figured that this was a great project to make multiples of, since most of the work goes into setting up the drill press, aligning the fence, chucking up the round-over bit etc. It doesn't matter whether you make three or thirty boards, it's just a matter of lather, rinse, and repeat. Imagine all the time I'd save making five sets instead of just one! There is some truth to that, but not all tasks are logarithmic in nature. Many are linear, like drilling holes. Some are even exponential, like doing multiple glue-ups. You end up with so many clamps everywhere you have to tidy up constantly just to maneuver around the assembly table. Finally, there is sanding. Objectively, this is a linear process, but if you ever truly want to experience the theory of relativity, just spend a few days sanding. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why the Festool Domino is the most useless tool ever invented! It makes strong, repeatable joints quickly and accurately, projecting a false sense of productivity and causing many days of lonely, miserable sanding. Roy Underhill doesn't have this problem. He has to chop every mortise by hand, plow every groove with elbow grease, and the only thing that comes close to sanding is burnishing with a handful of wood curls. He knows that savings you get from grooving ten boards instead of just one is irrelevant if you have to joint, plane, rip and crosscut all ten boards first.
(30 blanks all glued up)
One thing I quickly realized is that I didn't have enough scrap for 30 trays, so I went to Klingspor for some more maple. After resawing, surfacing and cutting everything to size, my original scrap turned into smaller scrap, and the maple wood I purchased has turned into new scrap. Scrap is eternal. Another problem with scrap is that I ended up having to glue every tray individually, since the pieces were so short. If you start with longer stock, the glue-up becomes a lot simpler. But all this is irrelevant compared to my biggest mistake. A mistake that went completely against the original plan, and violated everything I had ever learned about woodworking: I decided to make stands for these trays. Again, taking inspiration from the setup I'd seen before, I decided it would be really cool if you could show off these trays. Granted, it involved making angled dadoes, but after all that sanding, I was ready for some real woodworking! Fiddling with dado shims, creating a jig, using brass setup bars to measure depth, that's the fun part. I completely forgot I'd have to break the edge of each of these dados with sandpaper, and deal with all these tiny areas of end grain. My fingers were so raw after getting everything sanded to 220 grit that the fingerprint scanner on my phone no longer recognized the pattern. For days I had to type in the access code manually, alternating between feeling like James Bond ("look, no fingerprints, I'm a spy") and an idiot ("insert dumb quote here!").
(simple face frame biscuits for the joinery)
(making the angled dadoes in the sides. the two boards in front are plywood, for testing purposes)
(front view of the jig, not unlike a finger joint jig)
In the end, it all got done. The project didn't have too many disasters, the shop can be tidied up with just a couple of vacation days next year, and nothing motivates you to experiment with spray lacquer than an approaching deadline. In a few months, I'll start thinking about another Christmas gift, maybe a jewelry box with inlays, hand-cut dovetails, and veneered sides.
(three coats of salad bowl finish on the boards, three coats of Deft lacquer on the stands)
You know, veneering is one of those jobs where doing multiples is so much more efficient....