Mike Berger wrote:
It's not just the precision that's different! I used to do a lot of
metalwork and recently started working with wood. One thing that I
noticed is that, with metal, the piece usually is held tight and you
move the tools. With woodwork, the tools are stable and you move the
workpiece!

It still feels strange to work with tolerances of more than .001".
When I worked for a company that built precision gages, we had
tolerances of 10 millionths on some of our equipment!


Yes, this being my first major project it was really hard for me to do
this job with a tape measure. I found I kept looking around my garage
going "Where the hell did I put that caliper??" Then I'd remember that
if I tried to measure and cut everything that way I would go insane.
I'd also catch myself thinking about how to do something like make a
cut or a dado, but in terms of the machines I have at work, not in the
garage. Once I got over all that and remembered that a little putty can
fill a little gap and its ok, everything got easier.


Jim