Spent 3 hours hunting for a grain direction I marked wrong on a stack of 50 pages

I was trying to figure out why my fore-edge was curling after sewing, and it turned out I had mixed up the grain on a whole signature from last week. Has anyone else wasted a full afternoon over one little marking mistake?

2 comments

2 Comments

alicebarnes26d ago

Oh man, the "whole afternoon over one little marking mistake" part hit way too close to home. I used to think grain direction wasn't that big of a deal, but after one bad batch where everything warped, I'm now checking every single sheet like my life depends on it.

amy_reed7926d ago

Is it really that serious though? I mean I get the frustration of things going wrong, but I've been woodworking for like 8 years and I honestly think grain direction gets blown way out of proportion by some folks. Most of my early projects I didn't even know what grain direction was and they came out fine. Maybe if you're building furniture that has to hold up for 50 years in a humid environment it matters, but for a weekend shelf or a picture frame? Probably not. I've even purposely used cross-grain pieces for small boxes and never had a single warp or crack. Your mileage may vary, but I think people overthink this one.