Breaking things

When I'm not working on the guitar, or sewing, or designing this year's fantastical creatures for the Portland Revels Christmas show (www.portlandrevels.org/) I carve things. This is a recent addition to things I make; I got into it when I decided to make the Bridgetown Morris Men's Hobby horse out of wood. (that would be a 'Ooded 'Oss for those of you in the know).
I've been making my way through the basic beginners projects as taught or displayed by the Salem Capitol Carvers Club. You know, team mascots, grumbly little cowboy/clown/old man characters, santas, fish, and so on. I've been trying to select for the ones that light me up, as in, I would actually want to have them in the house after I've made them.
I decided, back the end of August, when I was sitting in the carver's booth at the state fair, to make an endless chain. I wanted to see if I could make up the pattern and figure out how to carve it in a loop (that's the endless part, not how long it takes).
I got out my graph paper and I mapped it out, drew it on an 18"x3"x3/4" piece of basswood, and set about roughing it out. Knowing nothing of course.
The first thing I learned from most of the other carvers is this: If you break it, you have to start over.
Bullshit.
Someday, I will carve a chain with no broken links, but that's not how to learn to carve a chain. That will only teach you how [not] to carve one link.
I broke all but one of the first five.
Then I broke about one in four.
I got really handy at gluing them, and I learned to use wood glue, not super glue, even tho most of the carvers go for the latter. Just like I'm learning from the guitar. If you break it, you fix it. Carefully.

Think about it, look at it while you're getting past the oops moment, the trauma of -- oh dang, I screwed that up. Get out the repair kit, and put it back together.
Then, when I was half way through, one of the carvers told me something really simple about how to keep from breaking the links, and after that, I only broke one. He said, rather than carving out each link sequentially, go down the plank and cut just the inside joint, the one most likely to break. See, the reason that joint breaks is because when you're cutting it, you push against the side of link with the back of the knife -- and it pops off. So if you cut it before you've carved the rest of the loop, the wood is still whole and much stronger. Is that clear?
Shazam.
And then there's the guitar.
There are things that when you break them, that's it. Goodbye.
It took me two tries to get the bridge right for the guitar. The first time, IN my attempts to file the ebony down into a 4 sided pyramid, about an inch square and 3/16" tall, I got it too thin. So I set aside most of a day's work, and started another one. Fortunately for me, the person who gave me the ebony gave me enough for three tries, so I still have a blank left.