I hate to use the infant car seat comparison again but here it is. Do you remember the first time your child vomited in their car seat? You had to take the thing apart so you could get every bit of vomit from every nook and cranny. Putting the car seat back together brought a sense of sadness for me. I knew, in my mind, it had lost its out-of-the box, factory newness.
I experienced this same feeling recently although the sadness came mixed with fear. As you probably have guessed from previous posts, I maintain a healthy sense of fear, respect, whatever you want to call it when it comes to the table saw. I’ve seen the photos online. I’ve heard the horror stories about what it can do and I’m doing everything in my power to avoid any situation of the sort. I mean, I need both my thumbs to play with my kids.
So this past month when I was making cutting boards, I realized the blade that came installed on my table saw was a good one, but not the correct one for a real smooth cut that is so important for a perfect glue-up. (This was before I learned the planer trick for all of you experienced woodworkers out there.) I knew I was going to eventually have to change the blade, I just figured it would come because the blade was dull and 5 years down the road when I was much more experienced. I did what I usually do, Read the instruction manual section on changing blades a few times, looked at a few videos online and eventually got up the courage to do it.
Changing the blade was actually the easiest part. The hardest part was turning the machine on again. I had always trusted that the manufacturers had put the blade on properly and that was why my saw had always run so smoothly. But what now. What if I had put the new blade on incorrectly? Would it spin off and fly against the wall? Would it hit the metal plate surrounding it and send sparks flying? Any numerous visions flooded my imagination. I think I may have stood staring at the saw for a good 5-10 minutes (of course finding things to make myself look busy since the garage door was open) before getting up the courage to turn it on- and only then standing far off to the left of the machine reaching my arm just close enough to turn it on.
As you probably guessed, everything was fine. But this felt like a huge weight off of my chest- a huge task to accomplish.