re: Helping Amateurs Cultivate Professional Habits

Everyone — Thanks for your comments.

I’m building a rocking chair – a Hal Taylor rocker, requiring precision that is currently beyond my skill level – but this is what it’s all about. Yesterday, I realized that my jointer fence was 0.3 degrees out of square to the table: that’s 90.3 degrees; which resulting in my headset not curving properly: there are 10 edges in the headrest, meaning that it’s (10 × 0.3 =) 3 degrees off of a required 40 degrees – that’s a 7.5% error. There is no way on god’s green earth that my headrest will fit, if I leave this, as is. Last year, I wouldn’t have measured the fence to that precision; yet, I would have cursed the headrest when it didn’t fit, not knowing what went wrong.
What I have found is that you need to work the details at each stage of the build – the mechanical component of a project is a sum of its parts. The key, for me, is to enjoy working the details at each stage.
Great comments from the group – please continue to vent your thoughts. MontyJ, great comment “I don’t know about the details until after the fact” – this speaks volumes about the need to plan, and execute the plan…
MJCD