Food for thought
I don’t often eat in the shop. Now I know why. My garage woodshop, like many garages, connects to our house via the kitchen. If I get hungry while working…
I don’t often eat in the shop. Now I know why.
My garage woodshop, like many garages, connects to our house via the kitchen. If I get hungry while working it’s just a few steps to a room devoted entirely to snackage. My usual routine is to step into the kitchen, grab a snack and a soda, and while I’m in the house maybe take care of a couple quick house chores like checking email or whatever. Then, refreshed from the quick break it’s back to work.
Sally’s out of town and while batching it on my own lately I’ve adopted – as I always do – different eating habits. I had pizza and a Sci-Fi movie for dinner the other night, and had enough leftover pizza for the next day. Got hungry yesterday evening while doing the one-handed task of brushing a coat of polyurethane onto a finished project, so I figured I could eat dinner with the other.
Nuked up what was left and took it out to the shop where I proceeded to make it so. The pizza was delicious, as nuked pizza always is, and the finishing job came out fine. Took care of the brush and poly, scooted the project over to the side of the worktable, turned out the lights and headed inside for more Sci-Fi viewing pleasure.
My worktable is a large laminate-topped structure that also serves as outfeed for my table saw. I love that table – it’s nice and bright for photography, the smooth surface lets me slide projects around easily while working, and the laminate surface is impervious to stains. Such as from a slice of pizza left sitting on it all night.
The thing of it is, is that when I moved that finished project to one side of the table, it pushed a partially gnawed slice of pizza right over onto the cast iron of my table saw. This morning when I went in that pizza was still there (and still fine for a quick breakfast should I have so desired), but I now have the oddest, triangular stain that appears permanently etched into my table saw.
I have some metal cleaners that can get that stain out of the cast iron, but I’m thinking of leaving it there as a reminder to culinary stupidity.
A.J.
A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.
