A unexpected buck of the saw made me nearly cut off my hand. Definitely was at the top of the scale for pucker factors, which also led to the furthest I’ve ever thrown/shotput a power saw as a result frustration. Two new personal records!

The main reason this was so infuriating, is I had just spent hours routing the edges perfectly, sanding it all level, and getting everything just the way I wanted. I had drilled out large pilot holes, and now just needed to make a short cut to connect the dots. As the saw caught an odd grain it jolted, making a large gash in the corner of the sink hole. It would stand out for sure. I knew I should have gone with quartz instead of butcher block! Trying to cut down on weight and on costs might be coming back to bite me.

I was pissed, but this was pretty par for the course at this point in the project. Even the easy portions were difficult, which made the more intricate stuff extra daunting.

My adrenaline was still way over the top, as I tried to pull myself together to finish the cut. The saw jumped again, eliciting an even worse reaction. I unplugged the saw. Set my tools inside the house and walked inside to have a snack.

I’d gotten lucky twice. At this rate I was bound to hurt myself. So I went to go chill out.

The next day I resumed work with a clear head. The remainder of the sink hole came out without much issue, then I got to work with fixing the gash I had made. I mixed wood putty with some black walnut stain to match the counter as best I could.

I almost forgot to mention. You may notice some of the photos show the countertop stained prior to me cutting the hole out. When I messed up my cut I had to re-sand everything to make the color match correctly. ::face palm:: Who needs deadlines anyway? I think of moments like this when people ask me if I’d consider building a house for them. The answer is always no.

In hindsight I got a two-fer out of this portion of the project; I learned how to make a counter top, and I learned how to fix a counter top. The effort was worth it though because I love how the counter-top came out.

You can see a video of my build below