Do it properly!

[Nick W]

Some months ago I received a commission for a bookcase, in Beech, for which I quoted. The customer then decided that Oak would be better, so I changed the price per cu. m. in my spreadsheet, and got a new price for the job, which he customer agreed to.

A few months then passed until the time came to order the timber, so I printed off the cut-list part of the spreadsheet and sent it to my timber supplier, as per usual, let the timber settle after it had arrived and made the piece. Last night I came to print out the invoice for the balance (delivery scheduled for today), and looked back at the deposit invoice, and saw the word Oak which was a great :shock: to me.

Can you guess what I had done wrong?


Didn't change the word Beech to Oak in the cut list. ](*,) With the passage of time between taking the order and making it, I had forgotten about the material change, and carried happliy along with the Beech 'cos thats what it said in the cut list. So now I have a Beech bookcase with no home to go to, and another bookcase to make, with con-commitant slippage to explain to the customers still on my waiting list. B*gg*r.

Moral: When making changes to a document, change all the relevant parts at the same time.

I make this confession in the hope that the public humiliation will help me to remember not to make that mistake again.

 

[Adam]

Oh dear... well it its any consilation everybody makes a boo-boo now and again. Have you told your customer exactly what happened? After a laugh I'm sure they'll understand - can you flog it to them as a matching "sister" pieces in a different wood? :lol:

Adam

 

[Nick W]

Unfortunately it is a fitted bookcase complete with cunning inserts to fit round boxed-in plumbing, and quite large - so no, not much chance of finding an alternative location in the customer's house, or another buyer. :roll:

 

[Alf]

Oh Nick, what a total bummer. And a painful lesson indeed. You sure you can't persuade them to the glories of beech...? Woefully neglected timber, IMO, and due for rediscovery outside the pages of veneered flat pack.

Cheers, Alf

 

[JFC]

#-o Try putting it on ebay . Theres always someone that will be able to use it .

 

[Anonymous]

Oh dear, that error makes me wince, as I can just imagine the horror and heartache you experienced when you saw the word oak.

If its any consilation everyone makes mistakes, some big some small, I have a pile of doors in my workshop(the odd wrong one here and there) which I hold onto in the hope of using them in other jobs, but it never seems to happen the pile just keeps getting bigger.

 

[Jake]

I'm no professional (at ww), but I'd be tempted to 'fess up and see what they say. Even if you had to discount it by 50%, wouldn't you be better off than buying all the oak and spending the time to build another? Obviously, if they not interested, well, you're stuck with redoing it - but at least they'll know why its late!

 

[matt]

I'm no professional (at ww), but I'd be tempted to 'fess up and see what they say. Even if you had to discount it by 50%, wouldn't you be better off than buying all the oak and spending the time to build another? Obviously, if they not interested, well, you're stuck with redoing it - but at least they'll know why its late!

This is the approach that I'd take.

 

[Nick W]

Yeah, chaps, been there, done that, but at the end of the day I have to deliver what they want.

Anyway Mrs W is happy to have a new bookcase (if not with the cost) - been nagging me for one for ages, so its not all loss. :?

 

[OllyK]

Oak stain is the way to go

 

[gidon]

Nick - what a pain! Glad you've found a use for it.
Cheers
Gidon

 

[Shady]

In the interests of cheering you up: I've just spent about a week putting off one of those jobs you just know you're going to screw up... I have a router, and an aluminium table. I needed to drill the holes for the machine screws to go into the router base through the table, so as to hold it in place... But the holes for the screws in the router base are blind, so I couldn't 'see' them when I offered the router up to the table.

I spent ages trying to work out how to lay them out: dividers and rulers?, transfer punches? Nothing offered the precision I knew it would need.

Then, suddenly, out of the blue, a Eureka moment: put a piece of paper over the router base, pierce the holes, and use it as a template.

Well, it worked reasonably, but afterwards, as I was tidying the workshop, I found myself holding the plastic routerbase I'd removed, so as to minimise the lost depth when I mounted the thing... Oooh - look - four holes for the screws that fix the base to the router... :roll: :roll: :roll:

We all do it - but only once, with a bit of luck...