Stories

I have added this page to relate to you good and mostly bad happenings in the process of working in my shop.

	July 2003 Tape measures don't all measure up - Spent $4.99 on a tape measure, it lasted 3 months before the end finally gave out. of course, I didn't notice and laid out an entire 4x8 sheet of plywood cuts. During the cutting is when I noticed things didn't look square, they weren't... took awhile, but looked at the tape, the "double riveted" end had come loose, allowing for more than 1/8" movement in the tape. Bought a new tape, and made sure it was a good one.
	June 2003 Routing small bits on the router table - I had to do some rounding to repair a doll bed for my daughter, the pieces were 1/4x1/2x11. I did realize that doing it with my fingers could possibly mean the end of the fingers as I know them. I did a little research, and found a few plans for small part holders. I took the plans and built something with what I had in the shop, basically a piece of 1x2 on a plywood base with two end pieces that slid in a dado in the 1x2 that I simply used a clamp to hold the two end pieces with the small piece clamped in the middle, seemed to work great in practice, tried a few test pieces and seemed great. I also thought the end pieces would work great to stop any chip out. I routed 1 piece with no problems, locked up the second piece, started to put it through the router, the downward end piece broke off, the piece being routed flew out of the jig at about mach 1 and flew across the garage. I checked for injuries... there were none thankfully. I checked out the end piece... it was too thin and cut across the grain, the piece simply broke along the grain when I applied pressure to it. Rebuilt the jig, used 1x2x3 end pieces. Live and learn.
	August 2003 I dropped the router while taking it out of the table that came with the router, I broke the handle off and the depth gauge for the plunge. I walked into CT with the router, asked how much to order these parts to replace them, the clerk walked out back, came back with a router someone else had returned, took the parts off and gave them to me no charge, and an extra handle to boot. That is customer service at it's best, and I will go back... but take a look at my tools and I think that was inevitable.