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Failing to plan, you DO plan to fail. That truism covers way more than just life in general. It applies to our woodwork as well! I went out bright and early this morning to commence replicating a very simple knick-knack shelf that I had built ages ago. The poorly done butt joints, gaps, and visible screws had finally gotten the best of me. Since it had been built for some very specific items, I really didn't have a lot of room for error. It had to be the same. I wonder how many projects have failed due to those few words, "it has to be the same"?

My tail of woe begins with cutting some stock. I had a small assortment of tongue and groove left over from some roofing work. I ripped off the tongues and grooves, tweaking down to a real four inches. I figured a little extra meet for the shelves would work just fine. I cut the tops and sides to size, allowing a bit extra on the sides for my joints. Multiple passes on the radial arm gave me a decent cut out for gluing my tops in place and looking better than butt joints. A dado to insert the first shelf and things began to go wrong. The little extra on the sides could not make up for the exactly one board thickness error on my location. The next location hinged on the first and so it went wrong. Hoping to salvage a bad job, I tried to compensate on the other joints with disasterous effects. The compounding error produced smaller and smaller spacing for the shelves rendering them useless for the specific items they were built to hold.

Frustrated at my own ignorance, I came inside and decided to jot this lesson down for all to see. I wasted a couple of hours because, I FAILED TO PLAN. I jumped on this project with a winging it attitude that gets me by fairly often. This time, it jumped up and bit me. I KNOW better. YOU should know better too. PLAN your projects with care. Failing to plan, you plan to fail.