The first main mistake was making the shovel walls too thin. The concept was good but the execution was very flawed. When sanding it smooth I sanded through some of my alignment holes. The alignment holes were also close enough to the edge that it weakened the part when I drilled them.
This leads me to the second error. All the parts were made out of 1 1/2" thick lumber. I thought the 1/8" drill bit would not walk on me when going through. This was an incorrect assumption. This caused a lot of grief. It was also a pain to cut out on the scroll saw. I admit, I was probably using the wrong blade. but a #7 should not have had a problem cutting the part out. Well the blade did not cut straight. No problem, that is why I have a sander.
Third problem was not checking the parts before gluing them together. Yes I did a dry fit. I have two parts that are close in size and important difference is the hole is a different size by a 1/32" for an fixed and movable joint. I mixed them up. It will not affect the end result, just a little inconvenience. So I have made changes to the drawings and will see how the changes work.
Saturday was also the day that I really felt the heat in the garage. It was tough doing glue ups. It felt I like my open time for the glue was less than a minute until it skinned over. That is not a lot if time to spread it and put the pieces together.
All in all it was a productive day. I hope to finish a lot of these projects labor day weekend.
