September is Safety Month

At least for me it is.

September brings a whole new crop of students to my high school shop class. Young, excited, darting quickly about. They don’t know what bad things can happen in this place.

When I was fifteen I put three fingers through the tablesaw at school. The throat plate was missing those tiny little grub screws so you had to reach around to give your stock a little bit of a lift. Of course there was no guard either…. When I saw the x-rays I finally understood what kerf really meant.

Two months later I asked if I could use my accumulated lawn mowing money to buy a radial arm saw. To their credit, my parents didn’t immediately say no. Instead they consulted with the plastic surgeon who so recently had put my hand back together.

And what do you think he’s going to say? I mean, his every day is spent reattaching fingers, grafting skin, sometimes just tidying up stumps. And he was so old too, probably like in his fifties at least. What could he possibly know about woodworking and some young kid’s desire to pursue it?

His sage advice was to let me buy a jigsaw.

Now, you have to try real hard to hurt yourself with a jigsaw. A radial arm saw – well, that’s a little different – there you have forearm amputation to contend with. But of course, even at my tender young age I knew that you could never build anything worthwhile with a jigsaw. A birdhouse sure, but who really wants to build one of those?

It’s really all about attitude.

All real woodworkers come to learn early on that in order to get something done, you have to accept some level of risk. It’s why we continue to work when we are tired, the guard is busted, the blade is dull, our mind is elsewhere. It’s why we cut corners even when that little voice inside tries to save us.

Whatever the specific risk of the moment, far too often “getting something done” trumps all.

I got the radial arm saw.