Bob:

There are several traps woodworking instructions fall into.

The first is that the person providing the process has probably
been woodworking, or turning, for many years rather than
being relatively new to the subject. So it's easy to fall into
the Common Knowledge And Not Worth Mentioning trap. While
that may be true for experienced woodworkers or turners,
it ain't for newbies. So critical details are overlooked.

The second pitfall is that the person who illustrates the
instructions probably hasn't actually done, or even seen
done, the process to be illustrated. At best he/she may
be working from photos of SOME of the process.

In the case of this rim inlay process, I actually watched Cindy's
demo - in person, took scribbled notes - and had a bunch
of photos of the demo, taken by two different people.
What one missed, the other usually got. Extracting the
info and doing the annotated illustrations was about
16 hours, spread out over a week. When I had a set of
instructions I "thought" was complete I actually followed
them and turned an inlaid rimmed lidded box to test them.
That caused some minor revisions and that's what got
put up on the web site. I still need to get a better photo
of the test piece and include it with this stuff.

Since I jump around a lot with my woodworking, as I try
something I've not done before, I try and document the
process, adding notes of details for steps I had problems
with - or screwed up. And since I have the ability to lose
a lit flashlight in a dark room,k I store stuff on my web site
where it's less likely to get "misplaced".

If stuff on my web site makes things easier for one or
more folks, or gets one or more to try something they
were otherwise hesitant to try - well that's icing on the cake.

If you use these instructions and find a hole in it, or
have suggestions for improving them - PLEASE e-mail
me.