Reality

My Worst Mistake In Woodworking

Well, one of them anyway

When I was a teenager, During my summer holidays, I used to work in a DYI-store. I made a major fuckup I won’t soon forget. I was asked to do a very simple task: cut a piece of wood.

Sawdust Heaven

One summer I was sweeping the cutting area. You know, that’s the area where our client could bring in pieces of wood to have them sawed down to an exact measurement. The place always needed a good sweep. This was sawdust heaven.

I think the accumulation of sawdust never actually stopped there. Even after we stopped cutting, the place seemed to fill itself with more fine grains of wood. Some sort of plastic curtain strips shielded the cutting area from the rest of the store. That actually did a good job. Inside it was dusty. Or sawdusty. Outside, not so much. Remember the bit about the inside, it turns out to be important later.

As I was sweeping, the curtain parted. A woman who held a long piece of timber. She asked me to have it cut. I had to decline. “Sorry, the saw guy is taking a break. He’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

An exact measurement

The woman did not take ‘no’ for answer “My husband needs this piece of wood cut exactly, down the millimeter.” she said, pointing at the wood. “It wouldn’t do to go back home and disappoint him. Is there no one else?” She paused and shot me a meaningful look. “Maybe you can do it?”.

I was 15. I loved making our customers happy. And… I had seen all the saws being operated numerous times by now. A length of wood only required the use of the simplest of them all. This long table saw where you just measure and swing the saw down. Surely I could do that? Time to spread my wings!

I was nowhere nearly qualified to do this. I am pretty sure the lady knew this. I knew my manager was definitely not okay with me handling heavy machinery. I am sure I knew that too. The testosterone in my teenage body gave the expected answer. “Sure. How long exactly does it need to be?”

She glanced at a little note and told me the measurements. Keen on showing my woodworking skill, I asked her what measuring device she had used. In one of the first days working here, I noticed that our regular saw guy sent people home to either measure again or to fetch their measuring tape.

Some people, especially women, used their sowing measuring tape. Although they are fine tools, they are not accurate. Their flexible nature causes them to stretch after extended use. Wood is not as forgiving as cloth when you need exact measurements. And if there was a time to be precise, it was right now.

She convinced me she had a good measure and I proceeded to take her beam and put it on the table saw (I don’t know the exact name. It’s a long table with a circular saw that is set up to cut lengths of wood to a smaller size). I pushed it to the back and to the edge, making sure it was level with the table for the entire length. I released the saw and moved it to match the appropriate length and locked it into place.

A perfect cut. Sort of.

Get the saw spinning, move it down to the wood and voila! Cut to the exact measure! In less than a minute I impressed myself, and hopefully the lady. She thanked me and left.

I felt good. I finished sweeping the floor, humming Queen’s Spread Your Wings. Being in a good mood, I continued to clean the saw table. Maybe I was worried about anyone finding out that I had operated it. However, to this day, I still regret seeing what I saw there.

As I held my brush to swipe the saw table, I noticed the sawdust. Yeah, only then did I notice. Never mind that my job was to clear the sawdust. It was only then that I noticed. There’s a world of difference in how you perceive things when you are holding different things. For example, a piece of wood or a brush.

The table was covered in dust. To my absolute horror, a bunch of sawdust had gathered right at the end of the table. For absolute clarity: when cutting, you make sure to move your wood to the edge so that your measure is exact. My measure had been off for a few millimeters!

His boss said to him, “Boy, you’d better begin To get those crazy notions right out of your head Sammy, who do you think that you are? You should’ve been sweeping up the Emerald Bar”

Excerpt from Spread Your Wings by Queen

Maybe I should have listened to my boss. I surely should not have listened to my testosterone. I worried to run into an angry lady for the rest of the day. Thankfully, she never returned. At age 15, I was not very good at handling conflict.

I am happy I didn’t charge anything for the cut. After all, my mistake didn’t cause me to lose any limbs, but it could have cost the lady her marriage.

Yearning for more woodworking? You might enjoy this abecedarian poem using only one word per letter about preparing wood. Want to write yourself? Join me in the 10-in-10 challenge to overcome your fear of publishing your work. You know how it worked out for me in my summer job. What could possibly go wrong?