Midstokke: The secret to life is learning about fasteners

I have a friend who once told me that the best piece of advice he’d received was to learn about fasteners.

As a person who has resolved all fastening issues with Gorilla Glue, duct tape and bent nails, the advice struck me as rather lacking in profundity. Until I decided to become a temporary carpenter and discovered that duct tape does not, in fact, stick to dusty plywood.

The gift of becoming a carpenter is that, with every new tool or fastener I learn to use, I am certain it is the solution to building problems of any variety. Because I am now competent with an orbit sander (as one becomes when building cabinetry), I recommend using it for all minor wood adjustments. Your mitered corner a few degrees off? Sand it. Board an inch too wide? Use 80-grit and patience.

As it goes in life, many solutions come with many new problems. One of my solutions has been to import a carpenter friend to teach me the ways of woodworking. The problem is, he knows what he’s doing and so my suggestions for glue and sanding are met with a kind and composed response like, “Well, I’ve never seen it done quite like that.”

And also because this human being is basically the physical iteration of a can of Red Bull and a dose of ecstasy – both of which would make this building project more fun, but neither within my strict regimen of not consuming things sold at gas stations. Naturally, my carpenter’s name is Gideon. Upon further research I have discovered this Hebrew word can be translated to “one who has a stump in place of a hand.” When I raised this unfortunate omen, he pointed out the sharpie writing on all his saws: DON’T BE DUMB.

With every saw or nailer or drill bit I learn to use, unlimited DIY potential is illuminated. When I learned to use a finish-nailer, I fastened everything to everything with a satisfying THWAP-THWAP for months: new Tibetan prayer flags on the porch, yellow jacket traps, art in the living room, overgrown tomato plants. I thought about real estate signs on my neighbor’s tree – a subtle suggestion – but did not want to damage the tree.

My dream is to one day work on the Home Shopping Network demonstrating all the beyond-spec but functional uses of various power tools. Compounding miter saws are better at cutting pizza than anything else I’ve used, though the tomato sauce residue may leave the shop looking like Gideon just satisfied a prophecy.

The worst part about having someone around who knows what they are doing is that they try to teach you. And I try to talk my way out of it like proper method were a speeding ticket. The only time I flatly refused (with accompanying curse words) was when he suggested something was 3/32-inch too long. I make it a point in my life to never do anything that needs to be that exact for the same reason my pants never quite fit: Sometimes a piece of pie looks smaller than it is.

Had he said “one-eighth,” I would have just reached for the sander. When I’m done building this house, I will revert back to only using the metric system and owning rulers that offer measurements no smaller than a centimeter. Unfortunately, I have so many little pieces of wood left over, I have decades of crafting projects ahead of me, from birdhouses to toilet stools. They will all be built in whole numbers.

In the mean time, I’m learning to make pocket holes and toe nail and another technique that I absolutely abhor: plugging holes with wood. I do not understand why, when the cabinet is basically finished, I have to go around with glue (wood glue at that, because everything we do has to be specific) and plug the holes with tiny pieces of precut wood that basically cost the same as a gold filling, if Home Depot sold them.

To make matters worse, they’re never quite the right size and so each one must be sanded down, which you’d think I like except they are always on the underside of a thing approximately 14 inches off the ground. This means I am not just an expert sander now, but a woodworking yogi with no less than 400 hours of training under my belt (or rather, my Carhartt’s). For the last week, most of my work has taken place upside down and within 3/32-inch of an orbital sander hovering over my face.

Which brings me to ear protection. Apparently, Apple’s noise-canceling headphones aren’t technically ear protection. Being raised with a deaf sister and a father who motorcycled and carpentered his own way to deafness, I’m determined to save my otoconia. When I retire and have time to go to the symphony, I’d like to be able to hear it.

To my knowledge, those bulk bags of bright orange ear plugs come in one size only – a size that could easily be confused with female hygiene products. I’d have better luck shoving the business end of an ice cream cone into my ear. Once I’ve twisted the contraption small enough to fit in there, it spends the next several minutes expanding into the lobes of my brain so that when I pull them out again, bits of my gray matter are stuck to the ends. It must be the bits that were responsible for fractions.

Which I don’t need because I am particularly good at inventing shortcuts that turn into long-and-round-about-ways. Competence and precision will only make me aware of how shoddy my work is and I prefer the naïve optimism of making the impossible possible with baling wire. Which I’ve been purchasing with my personal credit card so as not to alarm my husband with how much of it may or may not be used in the construction of this home.

For the record, I’ve never heard anyone suggest cutting it in increments smaller than a foot.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com.