Yup. If you're doing almost anything in wood, a set of clamps is more useful than you'd think.

I made a table. The legs are all exactly the same length, but don't ask me what that exact length is - I eyeballed the height I wanted and then clamped all the legs together before cutting them.

Another tip for building things with legs - a 3-legged object is stable on any uneven surface while a 4-legged objects will wobble on uneven surfaces.

This is because 3 points make a plane, adding a 4th point that is not on that plane introduces a wobble.

Easiest way to avoid that wobble: get the legs to within 1 mm, add felt pad to the bottom of the legs. The pressure of the table will compress the felt and all four legs now contact the ground.

> Easiest way to avoid that wobble: get the legs to within 1 mm, add felt pad to the bottom of the legs. The pressure of the table will compress the felt and all four legs now contact the ground.

On a level floor, sure. But for something that will be on uneven surfaces, like outside, 3 legs are stable, even if the legs are all different sizes[1].

[1] Three points make a plane, the plane itself may not be level, but because all points of contact are on the same plane there is no wobble. When there are more than 3 legs, some points may not be on the same plane, producing a wobble.

Yep. That's the whole principle behind stablity mechanisms such as tripods and easels

pretty amazing how the simplest of solutions seems to be so elusive. i've been guilty on more than one occassion of making something seemingly simple as difficult as wrangling cats.

It's just experience. Everything you've done before or that you've seen done by people that knew what they were doing is trivial, everything you haven't done before is difficult.