Be Careful, or You'll Poke Your Eye Out!

Greetings and salutations from your humble correspondent!
As many of you are painfully aware, I am struggling to create a happy, well-adjusted, and functional piece of woodworking equipment known in woodworking circles as a router table. One step of the process is to use laminate on both sides of the table’s bed. Remember, the table bed is made out of two plies of MDF, banded with the material of your choice. I chose ½” Baltic birch plywood.

Today I took the next step by gluing the laminate to the MDF substrate, using contact cement. Contact cement is a strange, wonderful, and possibly dangerous concoction of unknown origin. Let me clarify: unknown to me. Those of you who diligently read instructions, warning labels, and other necessary but time consuming practices will understand my consternation. The basic warning labels read as such: Contact cement should be used in the absence of any type of flame; including pilot lights, electric motors, static electricity, and any other possible source of fire. It should only be used in a well-ventilated space, with an optimum temperature of 65 degrees. Gloves and goggles are not only fashionable, but necessary. Exposure to material could cause brain damage and birth defects. In the state of California there is evidence that the material may cause cancer in lab rats in concentrations one part per billion (I exaggerate). Rats in other states are considered safe. It seems to me that contact cement is analogous to the Corvair: IT IS UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED. And finally, the print size of the can in question is functional only for those with 20/10 vision in conjunction with the Hubble telescope. Some studies have shown that reading micro-print can, indeed, cause focal trauma.

Considering the myriad of hoops one must jump through in order to use said product in a safe manner, I went boldly forward in my quest of someday producing a complete router table. The old adage, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” seems appropriate. So despite the warnings of eminent brain damage and death, I somehow used the product to good effect, and was able to laminate both sides of my MDF substrate. While I believe safety is important, sometimes it seems difficult to obtain. Yes, we must read the ‘Warnings’, and heed them to the best of our ability. I will continue to keep you informed of any progress made.

Remember: Quality trumps speed.


Pontification: I vote for the guitar lead in Hotel California as quite possibly the best lead guitar riff in all of rock and roll. Yes, even better than Freebird.” Freebird only wins out in speed, whereas Hotel California is much deeper in melodic essence.

Story of yore: After leaving California in 1964, I was quickly inculcated into the social structure of an alien landscape; namely, Rogers, AR. Allow me to explain… As my parents and I entered the downtown area, I was drawn to the cobblestone streets and the historic nature of the city. But the moment of my epiphany came when we paused to allow a barefooted, corpulent resident of the female nature to cross the intersection in front of our car. As she sauntered across the street, she spit a large chaw of tobacco, quite possibly Red Man. My eyes were opened and I realized that life here would be much different than what I had previously known. At that point, I began to transition into Southern Living.

THE HACK