The trickiest job.....ever

[woodbloke]

Just wondering what you guys and gals would nominate as the trickiest, most difficult, downright awkward, swearworthy project is that you have ever :shock: tackled...and completed :lol: . I know what I will nominate personally but I will hold fire until others have had a say. Pics appreciated, if possible. Marks out of 10 awarded - Rob

 

[Shultzy]

I don't know if this counts. I have just finished felling a 40ft sycamore tree. Its taken me a month. My garden is quite small so I had to take it down branch by branch, the lower branches were 6" thick and the trunk 12". The **** bit was cutting through the roots with a 1" chisel, as its a no no with a chain saw. After an hours work, every part of my body ached so I had to spread the work over as long a period as possibe. AND I still have to get the roots up before I can start to put the base of my new shed down.

 

[CHJ]

I don't know if this counts. I have just finished felling a 40ft sycamore tree. Its taken me a month. My garden is quite small so I had to take it down branch by branch, the lower branches were 6" thick and the trunk 12". The **** bit was cutting through the roots with a 1" chisel, as its a no no with a chain saw. After an hours work, every part of my body ached so I had to spread the work over as long a period as possibe. AND I still have to get the roots up before I can start to put the base of my new shed down.

What, :shock: No friendly wood turners nearby, you need to shout louder. :roll:

 

[Shultzy]

What, :shock: No friendly wood turners nearby, you need to shout louder. :roll:

There might be, but I'm going to use it myself when I figure out how best to cut it up.

 

[CHJ]

What, :shock: No friendly wood turners nearby, you need to shout louder. :roll:

There might be, but I'm going to use it myself when I figure out how best to cut it up.

First priority, seal the cut ends well.

 

[gwaithcoed]

You mean there are jobs that aren't awkward, swearworthy, and a downright PITA . :shock: :shock: :shock:

Alan.

 

[ByronBlack]

See my workshop build for swearworthy moments and plenty of real PITA moments!!

 

[Colin C]

For me one of the bigest PITA jobs I have had saw this

But boy was I happy when I got it finished

 

[Evergreen]

Oh nice one, Colin. Restoring arms! You've done a job there that a trauma surgeon would have been proud of!

My nightmare job was much, much more mundane. Laying B&Q's cheapo laminate flooring in a kitchen where no wall was straight, no corner was square, heavy machines had to be moved and I hit my head repeatedly on the underside of worktops! That mdf laminate with the green core is foul.

Regards.

 

[Colin C]

Thanks Evergreen

As I am not a fully trained carver ( just one of the things I have picked up but I was tought the basics ) and I am getting to do more polishing ( did the cabinet making most of my working life ).

I was over the moon with it

 

[dedee]

I do not have a vast back catalogue of projects but the one that caused me the most sleepless nights was a mini greenhouse.

I had to rely on someone else's measurements of the glass that was to be used, make it all in a knock down format, transport it in the car with the rest of the family and then fit it all together using someone else's tools.

It was made with cedar which was very soft and dented just by looking at it.
I wrapped each joint with masking tape and wrote a whole load of characters, numbers and arrows to show me where each piece went.

The end result was well received so all the fretting before hand was worth it.

Andy

 

[Colin C]

I do have one thing to add about that carving :roll:

I did take 9 months of looking at it to get the arms looking like they where in the right place, much head :-k and ](*,) (lucky it was for a friend )

 

[Buckeye]

The colour match on the new arms is excellent. How did you match it that well?

 

[Colin C]

The colour match on the new arms is excellent. How did you match it that well?

How can I put this :-k

Alot of luck as I did it in my living room at about 5 am before taking it to my friend ( I did a carboot near me ), I does house cleanranses ( sp ).
That was how he got it

If you dont know what you colour match, it should be done in good light, which I did not have.

So believe me when I say you could have knocked me down with a feather when I took that pic

 

[Colin C]

Or did you mean what did I use ( now thinking about that you wrote :?

 

[andys wood shed]

A hip roof on the single storey extension i added to my home.
bought a book didn't help (well i didn't understand it really :? )
made a few errors, went back to the book (which now started to make sense) and managed to complete the roof framing and got the approval from the building inspector :shock: .

success

Andy

 

[Paul Chapman]

It was 1971, my wife and I had just bought our first house so we were broke and the kitchen in our new house was awful. I hadn't done woodwork since school but I reckoned I could build a kitchen. Looking back, I must have been mad :shock: I had a Workmate, a Record #7, #4 and #60.5, a Black & Decker drill and a Record Corrucut. I added a Black & Decker HD1000 circular saw and a Record 148 dowelling jig.

I spent most lunch hours peering inside kitchen cabinets in the Tricity showroom (Tottenham Court Road I think) and reading all the DIY magazines I could. Well, it turned out OK. Built-in oven and hob, inset sink, frame & panel doors, Formica worktop. The family thought it looked marvelous :? They obviously didn't look too closely :lol:

Just as I got it finished we sold up and moved and then I started on the next one. I was obviously still suffering from the madness :lol:

Paul

 

[nickson71]

Doing anything for my sister ..................... in one day me and a friend installed an RSJ and a wooden beam to take the weight of the kitchen roof and stopping it resting on the window frame. We then removed an old beam took the reset of the ceiling down ...... followed by insulating and reboarding the roof. We also managed to get cleaned up before she arrived ........................ and then she asked what we'd been doing all day!!!!!!!!

so after about 15 hours of hard graft I was not best impressed

First time in years that my Mum told me off for swearing

 

[Pekka Huhta]

First thing that came to my mind was a transom on a mahogany boat. I fitted, filed, scraped and smoothed it out for a week and a half. For the last cuts I measured, marked, re-measured... and finally sawed it 2 mm too short.

The second transom fitted quite nicely :-D

Longest project was my kitchen. I was planning just to put on new insulite boards on the walls, cork on the floor and cabinets to the walls. Well now. The floor was a bit drafty and after closer inspection the insulation had disappeared. There was some rot under the floor, and unfortunately on the lowest timbers of the log wall as well.

Something along the progress:




Here are a few pictures of the end result:



The whole story is at http://www.liukuma.net/sihistin/ . Unfortunately the text is in Finnish, but the pictures are "nice".

I designed the cabinets myself, but as my workshop is so small I had a friend of mine to build the cabinets. And looking it now, it would have been another 2 months more. I already lost 7 kg during that renovation

Pekka

 

[Scrit]

I like the way you've doubled-up the cupboards. In a small kitchen that can make a significant difference to how much storage you have and whilst I've seen that used in Victorian laundry roooms and the like it's refreshing to see it being used in a modern kitchen

Scrit