I am a Saftey Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde…
Now, pretty much everyone who has any serious knowledge of me knows that I am an “OK Guy”. Not “Great”, but “OK”.
I realize I am not as good looking as George Clooney (hell, I am not as good looking as Frankenstein’s Monster for gawd’s sake!!). Out in public, I generally try to be polite and helpful to strangers. I consider myself an OK type of guy as far as what I tend to do at work. I work hard at work to produce quality and value for my customers. I work quickly, efficiently and safely while at work and, that being the case, my employer values my efforts and expertise. Generally I work extremely safely and don’t generally tend to hurt myself or others at work due to being “unsafe”.
(There was that ONE time I tried an “NOS energy drink” and had my blood pressure drop to about 60/20, but we try to forget that kind of thing… [There is something very enlightening about seeing the paramedics hovering over you with “THE PADDLES” and an incredibly large syringe with a 6 inch needle waiting for you to close your eyes so they can pin-cushion and then electrocute your heart… They seemed rather disappointed when I started to recover on my own. They were probably on commission and that’s some pretty expensive stuff they were going to use…])
Ok, so I am ugly as sin, I am a clean, safe and efficient worker, I am polite in public, I don’t kick the dog and I generally do what She Who Must Be Obeyed tells me to do…
So why is it as soon as the garage door opens and I see the vast array of power tools, which She Who Must Be Obeyed has indulged me with, do all my senses of safety and self preservation go out the window?
Norm Abrams, who is my personal savior of all things wood ( ok, except for THAT kind of wood ), starts every New Yankee Workshop with his “Before we use any power tools be sure to…” At this point in the program I go into a fugue state until he starts routing, sawing, drilling or mortising at which point I again start drooling again right where I left off…
I never see Norm in plaster casts, using a cane or crutches, fingers taped, splinted or bandaged. I think that either he is Divinely Protected or that maybe he really does believe that you should “…read, understand and follow all the directions and safety instructions that come with your power tools.”
I, on the other hand, am an idiot in my own workshop. Thus the reference to Mr. Hyde…
The instructions are discarded as soon as I have assembled my tools and found where the hell the on/off switch is. Bungee cords and zip ties are used judiciously to defeat any of those silly auto-stops and safety covers that those damned lawyers and doctors have decided need to be installed. Hell, they just get in the way of my creativity.
As an example of my “creativeness” I desired to make She Who Must Be Obeyed a nice, banded, cutting board. I was going to use materials on hand. The Corian counter top had a cut out for the sink and I had saved the cut out piece for future use. I had a nice piece of African Paduck and decided I would band the wood around the Corian. To do this required rough cutting the wood to approx 2” wide by about ½” thick. The plank of wood was 6’ long 8” wide and 1 ¼” thick and fairly warped. No big deal, I used the table saw to cut the plank down to the proper rough dimensions. When it came time to cut down the roughly 2 foot long piece for thickness the safety guard and “anti-kickback prawls” were in the way. So of course they were removed. Behind me were some empty cardboard boxes. I set the fence to 5/8” and ran the stock through.
Barehanded.
Once the cut started, all looked good, no fingers in the way, everything looked A-OK.
That is until the “waste” portion of the board shot past me at a speed authorities later estimated at approximately MACH 8.739…
To explain, the blade on table saws turn with the teeth of the blade coming toward the operator who is feeding the stock into said teeth. The blade is circular. The blade spins VERY damned fast. This leads us to now understand that if I am holding one side of the stock, the other side of the stock is free to get caught by an extremely fast moving saw blade and thus be propelled to near escape velocity as soon as the two pieces completely separate. (Which also explains the voices in my head saying “Mission Control, we have separation!” and then a whooshing sound as if wood was flying past at MACH 8.739…)
The cardboard boxes were, sad to say, casualties. So was a bag of planting mulch, a yard Gnome, a rake, as well as a Sunset (completely revised and updated) Western Garden Book (eighth edition, copyright 2007) which received numerous flesh wounds and is expected to survive but will require extensive tape therapy.
I now own a feather board.
Router technique is also improving after discovering that a bit attached to a 1 ¾ hp motor that turns 32,000 rpm can launch wood at an incredible velocity and a likewise incredible distance.
Drill bits should be kept sharp. It is not fun to catch an entire bench top drill press in the side of the head when said “unsecured to work bench drill press” spins around and knocks you in the head and upper torso because the large chunk of Madagascar Brand Inpenetratable Wood grabs the drill bit. Look folks, a 2.5 hp drill going 300 rpm is going to either drill the wood or drill YOU. Then again I hate to think of the carnage created if it HAD been bolted down to my 300lb work bench. THAT would have been ugly.
Hand Planes are for REAL MEN… I am going to sell mine.
Seems that when I get a good rhythm going it then snickers and hits an extremely hard knot and digs in. (Irresistible force I would like to introduce you to Mr. Immoveable Object.) A reenactment suggests that I actually somersaulted over the work piece.
Consciousness soon returned and all is well.
A firm grip is required on belt sanders…trust me. The garage floor does look really clean
in that one 3 inch by 12 foot spot though…
Don’t ever even attempt to use a dove tail jig…just don’t.
Have you noticed that grocery store butchers use band saws to effortlessly cut through fairly large pieces of meat, bone and sinew? I have a band saw… Let’s move on, shall we?
Well, She Who Must Be Obeyed finally got her cutting board. It really does look very pretty stood up on its side at the end of the cabinets, unused.
It seems the wood stains the counter-top when it gets wet.
In summary:
Corian blank $0
African Paduck $ 8.67 a board ft
Mahogany Dowels $1.05
Tightbond III food safe wood glue $3.67
Surviving the building process – Priceless!!!
By the way, a special thanks for the flowers and bottle of wine I received from Fred and Lou, the local Paramedics at station 152. Seems they had a very profitable month….