Just drop what you’re doing

Nothing wrecks a project more than, well, wrecking it. Literally.

I’ve spoken here many times about the mistakes I’ve made on projects over the years. Usually, it’s something I misjudged, a bad measurement, not paying attention or any number of understandable things we’ve all done while working. We try to avoid all those things, but we’re only human.

And, in my case, clumsy.

Just finished up a project for a new book, and it came out quite well. (Well enough that my wife immediately started thinking about who we could gift it to this Christmas and, oh, if you don’t mind could you make several more?) The last thing I do when wrapping up a project for a book is what we call the “beauty shot.” All the other step-by-step photos are done, but this is the staged photo that opens up the chapter or the project article, usually showing the project either in use or in its intended setting.

But before I could get to that point, I was clearing some stuff away to prep for the next project and knocked this one onto the floor. It was one of those just-right things – 99 times out of a hundred similar falls it would have been fine, or may have had a slight easy-to-hide or repair blemish. Not so. This hit perfectly and not only cracked it at a key point but also ruined a nice sharp edge.

The damage itself is repairable, and it would still be serviceable. But to do so would require rebuilding part of it, plus making it shorter. I can do that, and probably will just to get use out of it, but there’s no way the beauty shot I have yet to take will match all the other photos I took during construction.

The only real solution here is to build another one that matches the original.

And tell my wife I suddenly have more.

A.J.