Remember how I said my dad gave me some equipment to get me started? Well a miter saw was one of those items. When we were loading it up into my vehicle, he very casually made a comment about how I might notice that the back fence is “off a little.” And? I was getting the miter saw for free. I was not going to complain or comment. Surprisingly, it wasn’t until I was trying to reuse the wood from some room dividers that I had built that I saw it. How was it possible that each board had one square edge and one not- and the one that was sometimes still had the sticker form the store where I had purchased it? That didn’t make sense. That would mean that all the cuts that I had done were…. In the words of Barney Stinson, “Wait for it.” Crap. The fence is not square- that was what dad had been referring too.
As a novice in this world of woodworking, I felt the machine was useless to me. Dad on the other hand thought he knew a guy that could fix it. Go for it, I have no idea where to begin fixing it. I’ll just get a new one. I went to one of your home improvement stores and started looking at the miter saws. But did you know that in addition to have several brand choices, they now have cordless options? Sliding options? After 45 minutes on my phone reading opinions and reviews on the internet, I chose to purchase a compact table saw. I know- not what I went in to buy at all but I felt it was a little more versatile and could cut out on the number of machines I might need.
I looked down at the box I was going to purchase. I bent over to give it a test lift. It barely budged so I gave it a little pat and silently told it, “You can stay there.” I stood back up and looked to my left. No one around. I looked to my right and there he was. This man was watching me with the goofiest grin on his face as though he knew exactly what I had been thinking patting the box. “Need some help?” After what seemed like an effortless lift of the box into my shopping cart, we chatted for a few minutes. He was a contractor in home improvement, doing well for himself. I asked a bunch of questions about the table saw since it happened to be an exact model that he used himself. As the conversation was coming to a close, he looked over and asked, “Are you good?” Huh? What kind of question is that? Oh right. We’re talking about home improvement stuff! Man, people are so funny. “Oh, no. I’m just getting started in woodworking.”