[TheForge] Big mistake

[Bob Ehrenberger]

Well after I finished putting a railing together today I discovered that I
had put the bottom horizontal bar in upside down.  What a sinking fealing.
Once I came to grips with the idea that I had really screwed up, I had to
fix it.  The railing is made up of balisters that are in a genreal "S" shape
with a square tennon on top and a round tennon on the bottom.  So I have a
lot of work invested in this railing, and wanted to salvage as much as I
could.

At first I thought that I could grind the expanded part of the rivoted
tennon off and drive the bar off what was left. Well that didn't work
because the tennons had expanded to fill the holes and the chamfer, and even
though I tried to be carefull I had made a lot of grinder marks on the bar.
So with a cut off wheel in the angle grinder I cut the bar on either side of
each tennon and broke it off piece by piece.  I then laid the railing on the
floor and re-swaged each tennon using a torch and my spring tennon swage. I
then made a new bottom bar, reassembled the railing and rerivoted all the
tennons.  The heads weren't as large as originally but got the job done and
looked pretty good.  So instead of having all afternoon to make adjustments
and get the first coat of paint on, it took me until 6:30 to get back to
where I thought I was at 1:00. I'm glad I was able to save it but hated
wasting my whole afternoon on it.

I will be a lot more carefull next time before rivoting the tennons.

Bob Ehrenberger
Shelbyville, Mo