It’s safety week at Popular Woodworking.  Reading their blog this week took me back to my start in woodworking.

When my wife and I bought our house, we decided that we wanted a tile-top kitchen table.  I opted to try making the table after we failed to find what we had in mind.  I enjoyed that experience so much that I thought I’d get more involved in woodworking.

I started slowly.  No multi-thousand-dollar trips to the woodworking stores, I got some handheld tools and went about reading everything I could find.  Before long it became clear that a table saw would be a useful tool.  I shopped around for a used contractor’s saw and found a Delta at a reasonable price (though I had to drive to Pittsburgh to get it).  “Now,” I thought, “I’m a real woodworker.”

I got the saw setup in short order.  While I had read about table saw use, I don’t believe that I had ever before used one.  I set the rip fence, fired it up and began pushing a piece of oak through.  After a couple of seconds the oak was on the other side of the room, striking the water heater with a very loud noise.  Unhurt but a little shaken, I shut off the saw and went upstairs.  My first (and only experience with kickback).

I don’t remember what I thought about -- if I considered selling the saw and taking up golf -- but after a while I ventured back down to the shop.  The water heater sported a nice new dent, a convenient reminder that I could have been sporting a nice new dent.  Luckily something made me decide to give it another try, to climb back on the horse. 

Woodworking has been an important part of my life since.  An inauspicious start notwithstanding.  It’s good to think about such things once in a while, to remind ourselves that our hobby (or profession) involves inherent risks.  Fortunately, the risks are balanced by great rewards.