Your Most Difficult Task

For me it is sanding and finishing.
I am getting used to it but it’s a step that I dislike to say the least.

In my case it is if I run out of material and have to stop every thing to go to store to pickup more . It’s just a waste of time .Course it’s my fault for not keeping up with inventory .

Finding the time to get into the shop!

Lanwater, I’m not very fond of sanding either, I just yesterday had a visitor from a woodworker club member and he gave me in great detail on how to sharpen and use a scraper that I already had but had no knowledge in, I discovered a huge difference in the smoothness between sanding and a scraper.

Wheaties, yep I use my smartphone note option to make list of everything I’m needing or missing so that when I’m ready to go I get it all at once.

Brian, I don’t have that problem, <———— Retired at the early age of 50 after 25 years City Electric Department, now 56. :)

Keeping the shop clean. :-( My shop time is so limited that the very last thing I want to do is waste my precious time cleaning when I could be building.
This is why my shop is an ongoing disaster pretty much all the time. :-(

My problem area or what I dislike the most, the dead time between projects. My mind works overtime to try and think of something new and different. Drives me crazy, rather be working so my mind is focused on actual tasks on an already started project. Sound weird but, then again, it is what I dislike the most.

Like Jeff B, keeping the place clean. It’s my nature not to be a “neat freak”, and so I’m constantly reminding myself to at least vac the dust off the traffic areas so I don’t track it into the house. If that doesn’t count, then my undisputed biggest problem is designing something. When God passed out the creative genes, he completely withheld any I may have been slated to get. Show me a picture and I can usually build it, but ask me to do so without a starting point and I go into brain lock, unable to cut the first piece of wood!

Cleaning is certainly my least favorite task in the shop. I have a lot of tools in a relatively small space so I have to move everything just to sweep the floor. I do have just about everything on wheels, but it is still a pita. I don’t follow normal good practice and clean up at the end of each day as I am usually too tired, so I do it the next time in the shop before starting work (usually). Yes, I know this is backwards, but it fits my lazy disposition best.

For projects I guess it’s sometimes having to do things over because of my dyslexia tendices many times making a piece backwards, upside down,mirror images.
I also like to finish one project before starting a new project but I’ve found that I have a number of projects that are 80%-95% done due to my work schedule or Just being lazy when I do have time off.
another thing that bugs me is just getting all of the parts ready for a glue up ,with glue on all the parts and the phone rings,since I’m in business I can’t let myself let the answering machine get it,so I answer , you guessed it a solicitor, ERRRRRRR that’s a super pain.

It isn’t necessary to have dyslexia to mess up on parts orientation Jim. I do it pretty often too.

Oh yes the solicitors, luckily I’ve not had any on either in the many years of having my cell phone and my magicjack home phone, but I do get the junk mail in my mail box and the one that earks me the most are the ones that want to buy my house, I have a good mind to setup a meeting with one and giving them an outrageous price just to waste their time like they do mine.

I guess I’m not alone in both of those categories guys.

My hardest task is negotiating the three steps at the back door of the house to get to the workshop. It can take me up to five minutes sometimes to descend those steps, (paratrooping is fun when you are young), the legs and back won’t move sometimes, too many injuries as a young one. I too suffer from dyslexia Jim, I take a lot of pictures that helps…

Thanks Chris that’s a good idea.

I’ve recently obtained a new shaper, my biggest problem is my breaker box is full so I have to replace it with a larger one. Not very excited about it. Every so often I am faced with this sort of work in the shop and I’m not the happiest person when it comes up.

Thorreain , I too have steps front and back of my house . My Dad and my Daughter Veronica and her friends and I built wheel chair ramps . I will need them some day any how . It makes it so much easier . I have to use a wheel chair to make lunch because I can’t stay bent over long enough to find things in the refrigerator . Also I can’t pull a regular chair up to the table.

Pattern alignment. Particularly with a pattern on both sides of a board or box side.

I am afflicted with the terrible habit of never putting anything up or back where it belongs as I work. That means at least an hour or two at the end of the day putting things back. It drives me nuts!

Mine was aligning a jointer. Sometimes i would get lucky and all four corners would align while other times it would take me hours