A Philosophy of Precision and Safety
When it comes to working wood, you’re either moving the wood
through the machine, or you’re moving the machine thru the
wood.
During a recent class at the
Marc
Adams School of Woodworking, I was struck by something our
shop assistant said as he gave us the mandatory safety briefing
for a simple chop saw. At the Marc’s school, it doesn’t
matter if you’re a seasoned woodworking professional with 30 years
experience, or if this is the very first time in your life that
you’re about to use a particular power tool. Before you
touch that tool, you must listen to a mandatory safety briefing
about that particular tool. There simply are no
exceptions! During the chop saw safety briefing, our shop
assistant said two things that struck me as utterly profound:
Safety comes from control.
Control gives you precision.
Two very short sentences packing an enormous amount of woodworking
wisdom! Fine woodworking is not possible without precision.
For joints to close perfectly, or a drawer to fit precisely, or
dovetails to match flawlessly, precision is the most important
thing. To achieve precision in woodworking, whether you’re
moving the wood through the machine or the machine through the
wood, precision is impossible if you’re not in complete
control! When you’re in control of the machine, you’re
operating the machine in a way that is inherently safer than if
you’re not in control.
The more dangerous the tool, the more important control
becomes. It’s when you loose control of the work piece that
bad things happen! Best case – you’ve ruined your work
piece. Worst case – you’ve injured yourself. Either
way, you’ve thrown precision out the window! Precision and
safety, possibly the two most important tenets in woodworking, are
inexorably linked by control!
Naturally, control in woodworking is a vast and complex
topic. Like pornography, control is very difficult to
define. Yet, we all know it when we see it! More
importantly, we all feel it if we’re about to do something where
we don’t have it! At one time or another, we’ve all
experienced that feeling, that little voice inside us, warning us
that we’re about to do something that just doesn’t feel
right. That feeling is our brain’s warning that if we do
what we’re about to do, we’re not in control. Now, thanks to
Marc Adam’s obsession with safety, whenever I get that feeling, I
apply a slightly modified adage made famous by Nike:
“Just don’t do it!”
