The coffee cart has come to a screeching halt!

The coffee cart has come to a screeching halt!  I am so close to done and yet I can proceed no further.  I have completed all of the hard wood working.  I finished the finger joints that hold the drawers together this morning.  They fit well – perhaps slightly tighter than I would like in one or two cases, but over all I am fairly happy with them.  I had only two sets of cuts left to do.  


I needed to cut the bottoms of the drawers and I needed to trim a tiny bit off of the “false fronts” for the drawers I was making.  You may have noticed (although I never did before I started into woodworking) that drawers are often a box with four sides and a bottom, but no top, but to that people attach an extra side on the front instead of just having the front face of the drawer be the face you see.  This is probably because drawers do not perfectly fit, but by putting on the extra face they can look perfect from outside (ie the front faces fit neatly together instead of revealing the structures behind them).


Now just as I was down to the last few cuts I made two and got ready to make the last three.  I was about 10 to 15 minutes from done.  I turned on the saw and boom I heard an explosion and smelled smoke.  I rushed to unplug the saw and clean up all sawdust to reduce fire risk and tried to figure out what happened.  I still do not know what exploded.  It  might have been some little piece of wood inside being hurled into the saw (thankfully not on top being hurled at me) but that would not explain the smoke smell.  Whatever it was I am not touching the saw again until someone wiser figures it out.  I am afraid I may have to replace the motor or starter, but I do not know.  In the mean time I am 15 minutes from done and probably months away unless I borrow a friends saw (which I will almost certainly do).  


I do still have to put the finish on and glue up the drawers, but neither of those make sense to do until the pieces have been cut (the glue can’t be done, the finish could be done, but it need to be touched up later).