In the short time I’ve been woodworking, I’ve learned five important things about dust.
First, all wood is made of dust, which has been trapped in a cumbersome slab-shaped or cylindrical prison. The whole point of woodworking is, obviously, to help these defenseless particles find a new and better life. The end result of any project – a Queen Anne chair, a Mission-style cabinet, a planter box – is just a ruse to get my wife looking the other way while I free some imprisoned dust.
(By the way, it’s not actually “sawdust,” but wood dust. If you happen to find that most of your dust is, in fact, sawdust, then your technique needs improvement.)
If the point of woodworking was to own furniture, we’d simply buy it. Looking back at my first planter box, I realize I could have purchased a much prettier, less expensive one. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, yes, to liberate the dust, allowing it to lounge about on every available surface. Allowing it to hitch a ride into the kitchen on my pants or in my hair.
Second item: Wood dust is released whenever wood is cut, routed, planed, sanded, stored or read about in a magazine. It’s amazing that forests can withstand even the gentlest breeze, given the amount of dust released through the slightest effort on my part. I suspect the “Sahara forest” wasn’t cut down, as the joke goes, but finally gave in to the wind.
Third, wood dust can materialize from thin air. It usually happens when the shop has just been vacuumed and you move a tool from the table to the floor. The laws of physics – like that silly one about not being able to create or destroy matter – do not apply here. I can move my miter saw a dozen times to vacuum every speck of wood dust beneath it, but as soon as I pick up that saw, there it is. The inexplicable pile – approximately the size of a medium steak with cottage fries and peach pie – is never revealed until the ShopVac is stowed away.
Fourth, a 2x4 has a volume of 63 cu. in. per foot, but that same amount of wood contains 302 cu. in. of dust. Allow me to explain. According to the Greek philosopher Zeno, an arrow fired at a soldier would never actually hit the soldier, since it travels through an infinite number of points in order to arrive at the soldier’s position, only to find that the soldier has (wisely) increased the distance between himself and the arrow, so the arrow must travel an infinite number of points all over again.
The same principle applies to wood dust. An infinite number of dust particles exist between a bandsaw blade and the air on the opposite side. Thus, the physical volume of the wood has no bearing on the volume of wood dust contained therein.
I suspect that Zeno was a woodworker.
My fifth and final point about wood dust is that it is quite underappreciated. There is a purity, a magnificence, a perfection to wood dust. Your finger presses a switch and your ears fill with the sound of carbide teeth in oak. The blade eases through the wood and sweet-smelling dust fills the air. Then the noise of the saw dies away and truth is revealed.
You tried to cut straight, but the truth lies before you. You measured a dozen times, but the size of the cut piece is no longer theoretical or abstract. And you have an epiphany: to apply a tool to a piece of wood is an act of courage and resolve, a decision to test yourself in three dimensions. That dust filling the air following the cut, softly floating and coating the floor and table and tool and board and yourself, is a symbol of the determination of imperfect man to change his world to suit his needs.
Talk to you later. I’m going to go free some dust.
Gregory Lawhorn is a California native now living in northeastern Nebraska with his wife of 24 years and three children. He’s been woodworking for about two years.
First, all wood is made of dust, which has been trapped in a cumbersome slab-shaped or cylindrical prison. The whole point of woodworking is, obviously, to help these defenseless particles find a new and better life. The end result of any project – a Queen Anne chair, a Mission-style cabinet, a planter box – is just a ruse to get my wife looking the other way while I free some imprisoned dust.
(By the way, it’s not actually “sawdust,” but wood dust. If you happen to find that most of your dust is, in fact, sawdust, then your technique needs improvement.)
If the point of woodworking was to own furniture, we’d simply buy it. Looking back at my first planter box, I realize I could have purchased a much prettier, less expensive one. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, yes, to liberate the dust, allowing it to lounge about on every available surface. Allowing it to hitch a ride into the kitchen on my pants or in my hair.
Second item: Wood dust is released whenever wood is cut, routed, planed, sanded, stored or read about in a magazine. It’s amazing that forests can withstand even the gentlest breeze, given the amount of dust released through the slightest effort on my part. I suspect the “Sahara forest” wasn’t cut down, as the joke goes, but finally gave in to the wind.
Third, wood dust can materialize from thin air. It usually happens when the shop has just been vacuumed and you move a tool from the table to the floor. The laws of physics – like that silly one about not being able to create or destroy matter – do not apply here. I can move my miter saw a dozen times to vacuum every speck of wood dust beneath it, but as soon as I pick up that saw, there it is. The inexplicable pile – approximately the size of a medium steak with cottage fries and peach pie – is never revealed until the ShopVac is stowed away.
Fourth, a 2x4 has a volume of 63 cu. in. per foot, but that same amount of wood contains 302 cu. in. of dust. Allow me to explain. According to the Greek philosopher Zeno, an arrow fired at a soldier would never actually hit the soldier, since it travels through an infinite number of points in order to arrive at the soldier’s position, only to find that the soldier has (wisely) increased the distance between himself and the arrow, so the arrow must travel an infinite number of points all over again.
The same principle applies to wood dust. An infinite number of dust particles exist between a bandsaw blade and the air on the opposite side. Thus, the physical volume of the wood has no bearing on the volume of wood dust contained therein.
I suspect that Zeno was a woodworker.
My fifth and final point about wood dust is that it is quite underappreciated. There is a purity, a magnificence, a perfection to wood dust. Your finger presses a switch and your ears fill with the sound of carbide teeth in oak. The blade eases through the wood and sweet-smelling dust fills the air. Then the noise of the saw dies away and truth is revealed.
You tried to cut straight, but the truth lies before you. You measured a dozen times, but the size of the cut piece is no longer theoretical or abstract. And you have an epiphany: to apply a tool to a piece of wood is an act of courage and resolve, a decision to test yourself in three dimensions. That dust filling the air following the cut, softly floating and coating the floor and table and tool and board and yourself, is a symbol of the determination of imperfect man to change his world to suit his needs.
Talk to you later. I’m going to go free some dust.
Gregory Lawhorn is a California native now living in northeastern Nebraska with his wife of 24 years and three children. He’s been woodworking for about two years.
