Spent 3 hours building a jig for a cut I could have done freehand

Last Tuesday I was building a set of floating shelves for my sister's living room. I got it in my head that I needed this super precise jig to cut some 45 degree miter returns. So I spent my whole afternoon measuring, cutting, clamping, testing, adjusting. Finally got it perfect. Then I realized the actual cuts took me like 5 minutes and the jig only saved me maybe 30 seconds per shelf. My sister came down and asked if I was making a spaceship. Has anyone else put way too much effort into a solution that barely helped?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_mia11d ago

My buddy Tom once built a whole custom router sled to round over the edges on some cutting boards for christmas gifts. Took him like two days to make the sled, dialing in the rails and the stops. Then he ran all six boards through it in maybe 45 minutes and realized he could have just hit them with a sanding block in the same amount of time. He still has the sled, it's just sitting in his garage taking up space. We make fun of him about it every time we see it.

joseph44811d ago

That sled is basically Tom's monument to overthinking things lol