BAD ROUTER!

Gosh almighty! OK, new rule: no operating a router after a couple of beers. This is what happens when you do:



Or at least, this is what happens when I do. In case you were wondering, that big ol' divot isn't supposed to be there. That's what happens when impaired judgement makes you think you can rout a 3/8" roundover on a 1 1/4" wide cutting board. It just plain doesn't work.

One of my coworkers told me today that the difference between a good carpenter and an excellent carpenter is that an excellent carpenter knows how to hide his mistakes. 'Bout the only way to hide this one is to put the whole thing in the woodstove... I'm going to take 1/4" off each side, and re-rout (using a router table this time), and hopefully it will still look OK. Here's what the top looks like after a rough sanding:



Yeah. I know better than to try to rout an edge like that by hand, but the table I have doesn't fit the router I have. Long story. I'll have to borrow a router again, as I did when I was working on the crib.

I'll have to see if it still works as a gift after I get done hacking away at it. I'm not so sure....

That thing is going to last forever, though. With the top all being end grain, I had to sand for almost 10 minutes with 50 grit on my belt sander to even out the spots that were sticking up less than 1/16" above the adjacent strips!

OK. Lesson learned. It was a painful one... I hate routers.

-m