What is the top 3 frustating thing that you're encountering in your woodworking lifestyle ?

[RiadhWooder]

Hello Guys, I'm new to this amazing Wood Forum, as I just discovered it in a Reddit Sub, as I'm new to the woodworking industry, hobby,

whatever, you may call it, what is the main, the top 3 frustating that you're/may encounter in your woodworking journey, whatever it may be,

as all of us are different, and we have something special. 

 

For exemple : The frustating thing that you're probably having with the woodworking plans, guides, ...

[Ronn W]

1.  Not being able to open a partially used Titie Bond glue bottle with my hands.

2. Not enough space in my shop.

3.  Forgetting to think 3 or 4 steps ahead (maybe that's age related.)

Never get frustrated with your skill level - you can fix that!

[legenddc]

1. Not enough space in my shop (it's 12'x13.5')
2. Always having to move things. Whether it's tools out to the middle and hooking it up to the dust collection or parts I've put in the way of my next step
3. Deciding which one of the many different ways to do something. (i.e., should I just mortise and tenon, dowels, screws/plugs, pocket holes, biscuits, go buy a Domino)

On 4/22/2024 at 12:21 PM, Ronn W said:

1.  Not being able to open a partially used Titie Bond glue bottle with my hands.

2. Not enough space in my shop.

3.  Forgetting to think 3 or 4 steps ahead (maybe that's age related.)

Never get frustrated with your skill level - you can fix that!

I use pliers to open my glue bottles far too often.

[gee-dub]

For nearly 20 years my complaint was lack of space.  I had a long term plan and solved that when I retired.  For those a little earlier in the curve, space is almost always an issue.  Embracing reality is a good cure for any shop frustrations.  The room you have is what you have.  The nosy neighbor will not move away, the amount of time you have is what you have.  Your budget is your budget.

I try to make sure I have more than adequate time, space, or material for what I am trying to do.  If I try to squeeze something in before dinner or before putting the kids to bed . . . that road leads to madness

 

[wtnhighlander]

1. Dust

2. Dust

3. Dust

4. Running out of clamps in the middle of a glue-up.

[Von]

1. Dust

2. Figuring out if I'll really use a tool or if I'm just suffering from "tool acquisition disorder."

3. Figuring how to judge what on YouTube is complete crap, partial crap, or the rare actually useful video.

[Coop]

1. Space amplified by lack of organizational skills.

2. Ditto

3. Ditto

[William R]

I think space. It doesn’t matter how big your shop is you’ll fill it up. 
The price of wood locally (my area) at one place they’re asking 12-15 dollars a bf for red oak. And more for higher quality. Have to drive 45miles oneway to get decent price on wood (I’m sure others have to drive further.

What to make? Sometimes I find my myself in the shop wanting to build something but have no idea of what. 

 

[Beechwood Chip]

On 4/23/2024 at 8:34 AM, William R said:

I think space. It doesn’t matter how big your shop is you’ll fill it up. 
The price of wood locally (my area) at one place they’re asking 12-15 dollars a bf for red oak. And more for higher quality. Have to drive 45miles oneway to get decent price on wood (I’m sure others have to drive further.

Ditto.  If I want decent wood at a reasonable price, I need to drive for hours "out to where they grow the trees".  I'm going to try mail order lumber for my next project.  Now that I'm retired, I can more easily be home to accept delivery.

And space, of course.

[tperson]

1) Time. I work full time + plus some. I have 5 kids at home, have 4 large gardens, keep bees, am involved heavily in 4-H shooting sports, am too cheap to pay for automotive/home repairs and too cheap to buy something I can make. I'm also known as the 'fix it guy' in my large circle of friends (small engines, vehicles, atv's, electrical issues, etc)...there's simply not enough hours in the day to accomplish what needs to be done, let alone what I want to get done.

2) Accessibility to, well, anything. While I may not live on the edge of the earth, you can see it from my front steps. Amazon take 5 days to deliver, the closest town is 475 people, the hardware store 25 miles away caters to anything except woodworking, and the closest BORG is an hour away. Never fails, get spun up into a project and need XXX; two choices: drive 30 minutes to hope to find it or order from amazon and wait 5 days. Reasonably priced lumber also falls into this category. The local-ish lumberyard the other day (last Friday) wouldn't sell me a 1/2 sheet of 1/2" birch ply because they didn't have a sku for it...they didn't care about me, they were concerned about selling the other 1/2 sheet. Why did I only want a 1/2 sheet? See #3. 

3) Space. This is my own undoing...I have a heated/cooled 20x20 well-equipped, dedicated workspace that's disorganized. Disconnect this, move that, find this...all to perform one task.

4) ...Wait...hold on...one of the kids needs help with their bike...

[BillyJack]

#1… Drawing approval

#2…waiting on material deliveries

#3…Deadlines

#4..Waiting on customer checks to clear..

[Tpt life]

1) Too many hobbies, not enough time. 
 

2) Too many hobbies, not enough budget. 
 

3) Wrong style of house to build most of what I desire to build. 

[Chestnut]

1. Time

Can't really have any other frustrations when my shop time is limited. I will say I've gotten really good at completing projects in 20 min time windows. I just don't get many 20 min time windows any more.

[legenddc]

On 4/23/2024 at 5:26 PM, tperson said:

1) Time. I work full time + plus some. I have 5 kids at home, have 4 large gardens, keep bees, am involved heavily in 4-H shooting sports, am too cheap to pay for automotive/home repairs and too cheap to buy something I can make. I'm also known as the 'fix it guy' in my large circle of friends (small engines, vehicles, atv's, electrical issues, etc)...there's simply not enough hours in the day to accomplish what needs to be done, let alone what I want to get done.

2) Accessibility to, well, anything. While I may not live on the edge of the earth, you can see it from my front steps. Amazon take 5 days to deliver, the closest town is 475 people, the hardware store 25 miles away caters to anything except woodworking, and the closest BORG is an hour away. Never fails, get spun up into a project and need XXX; two choices: drive 30 minutes to hope to find it or order from amazon and wait 5 days. Reasonably priced lumber also falls into this category. The local-ish lumberyard the other day (last Friday) wouldn't sell me a 1/2 sheet of 1/2" birch ply because they didn't have a sku for it...they didn't care about me, they were concerned about selling the other 1/2 sheet. Why did I only want a 1/2 sheet? See #3. 

3) Space. This is my own undoing...I have a heated/cooled 20x20 well-equipped, dedicated workspace that's disorganized. Disconnect this, move that, find this...all to perform one task.

4) ...Wait...hold on...one of the kids needs help with their bike...

I can't imagine being that far away from a store. Home Depot is 2.3-2.9 miles away depending on which way I go. Lately I'll still order parts from them shipped to my house if I can wait 2 days. I'm similar in that I want to fix everything. Trying to get better and farm some things out where I can.

On 4/29/2024 at 3:40 PM, Chestnut said:

1. Time

Can't really have any other frustrations when my shop time is limited. I will say I've gotten really good at completing projects in 20 min time windows. I just don't get many 20 min time windows any more.

How old is your daughter now? Things change so quickly with kids. I used to be able to go down to the shop at night when they were going to bed at 8. Now that's 8:45 and that's hard for me to motivate myself to go down to the shop and get into something besides applying coats of finish. They're more likely to have friends over or go over to a friends house now and that's where I can get a couple of hours in on a weekend.