What's a jigsaw for?

My new motto is 'power tools allow you to make bigger mistakes faster' after I nearly destroyed our brand new front door with the very first cut.

I find woodwork extremely therapeutic and rewarding. If you've never tried it, I'd recommend signing up for an evening course at your local college to learn the basics.

Wood is satisfying and easy to cut, and forgiving of small mistakes. It's great to use a piece of furniture that you've made yourself; I've made benches, tables and boxes over the years and each one has a special place in my heart.

Our old front door (left) was falling apart, six years of Cornish rain and wind wrecked it, especially since we didn't treat it properly when we fitted it.

So we bought a new bare timber door and I set up the saw horses in the lounge to trim it to size. My favourite part is cutting the holes for the lock with a chisel (I love chisels), and my least favourite is the letterbox  because it's a pain to cut out such a big hole.

The siren cry of the jigsaw was what nearly wrecked the door: "Use me, use me! I can make a nice quick, clean cut for you." But it lies.

In my hands jigsaws are no good for cutting any depth, because the flexible blades wander all over the place - I trimmed 2cm off the top of the door, which looked fine on the top side, but on the underneath it wandered between 2cm and 4cm!

I nearly cried.

Luckily we had some room at the bottom of the door, so when you come around don't mention that it looks a bit thin at the top. Everything else went smoothly once I'd abandoned the power tools, and it fits perfectly.

Now my jigsaw has a warning on it.

Do you have any power tool horror stories? Share them below...

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