Wander the roads, not your thoughts. I was at the end of cutting a bunch of little pieces on my table saw and my mind wandered. Next thing I know I'm having a close encounter of the worst kind with my table saw blade.
Count yourself lucky when all you end up with is a wide but shallow scrape - whew....
I'm taking a break now :-)
Just before Christmas, I was routing some 'modified ogee' edges on 1/2" x 4-1/2" solid surface discs, which I cut out from left-over sink-cut-outs and give them away as coasters. Some are quite convincing as 'granite-like' and they are popular as gifts. As I was going through a stack of them, The Bluesy Side Of Jazz And The Jazzy Side Of Blues came on NPR and the announcer was listing the stuff he was going to be playing. With the router running in a table (granite) I couldn't really make out who he was talking about. I shifted my attention. One of the coasters I was free-handing spun out of my hands and the router bit geared the spin into the disc and it took off like a hockey puck on steroids for about 18 feet (without dropping an inch in elevation) and slammed into a plywood panel and found its way back to me dropping at my feet. The router bit also managed to take small piece of meat from my left middle finger, making nose-picking awkward for a while..... or so I'm told.
I pride myself on NOT having accidents. I'm careful, methodic and I pay attention to what I'm doing. That said, one day I cut the end off a piece with my miter box and the blade caught a piece of scrap from the last cut and WHAM! In 1/20th of a second the plasic saw shroud exploded and landed in pieces around the shop AFTER whacking me in the face. Puts the frickin fear of God into ya really frickin quick.
Joe Barta
YES!!! Count yourself LUCKY!!! When my tablesaw is on.....I know who's boss and I listen to him!!! I've had my Sears BEST for 5 years and NEVER to this date had the blade guard on!!! I have yet....to experience even a scratch!!!! Be careful Dude!!! ~~TOM~~
It will also influence which hand you use on the throne tomorrow morning!
I still have all ten, but every one of them has been defiled.
(top posted for your convenience) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keep the whole world singing . . . . DanG (remove the sevens) snipped-for-privacy@7cox.net
Use the blade guard, don't push your luck. Why ask for trouble?
And I never work without the guard. I am safety anal and when I make that inevitable stupidity, that guard will give me an edge in keeping my twelve talented fingers intact. mahalo, jo4hn
Take that as your warning. I had been seriously wood working for 10 years and ended up cutting the end of my thumb off after completing the cut, turning the saw off, and loosening the clamp on the rip fence.
As long as that blade is turning you should never take your eyes off if it. As you have seen, it only takes a split second to get into trouble and a blade spinning at any speed is dangerous.
You all piss the Woodworking Gods off. Will you never learn? They do NOT wasnt blood sacrifices. You are NOT properly afraid of your saws.
The lesson for today? Be very, very afraid -and keep youself out of the whirley parts.
I can't recall ever having any kickback on a table type saw. I now use a sled, but even so, am very nervous around it, and play close attention, and don't get my fingers "anywhere" near the blade while it's still spinning.
The last "serious" shop accident I had, I sanded the tip of a finger off, on a 12" sanding disc. That was in high school, 1953/4. The shop teacher put a bandage on it, I don't think my parents were informed, they didn't make a big deal of it when they found out. It boiled down to, "Now pay attention, and don't do that again". The next year we moved to the new high school, with power tools, and the shop instructor showed us how "kickbacks" happen on the table saw. He said, "Don't do that", and no one did while I was in school, and I never have since.
The music is for when the tools are off.
JOAT You'll never get anywhere if you believe what you "hear". What do you "know"?
- Granny Weatherwax
"J T" wrote
Exactly.
I never understood the infatuation with music in an environment where you can lose your hands or worse from being distracted. Save the music for when you can really enjoy it. Worrying about my fingers do not allow me to appreciate the music very well.
Maybe being extremely safety conscious has something to do with it. But I have all my fingers too.
I have wired in remote switches into several shops to manage the music. One safety practice that address this also is to just put on some ear protectors every time you use a power tool.
Sun, Jan 8, 2006, 2:32pm leemichaels*nadaspam*@comcast.net (Lee=A0Michaels) dolth complicate it all: I have wired in remote switches into several shops to manage the music. One safety practice that address this also is to just put on some ear protectors every time you use a power tool.
Too complex. I have a radio on constantly when I'm in the shop. It's turned low enough that even the bandsaw makes enough noise to cover the sound of the radio - so I can never be distracted by it whenever I'm using any power tool. Ear muffs are standard, worn for hearing protection while using power tools, not to drown out the radio.
JOAT You'll never get anywhere if you believe what you "hear". What do you "know"?
- Granny Weatherwax
Too complex. I have a radio on constantly when I'm in the shop. It's turned low enough that even the bandsaw makes enough noise to cover the sound of the radio - so I can never be distracted by it whenever I'm using any power tool. Ear muffs are standard, worn for hearing protection while using power tools, not to drown out the radio.
Thats my method.
Typical in a great many machine shops these days, tennis shoes and walkmans. Insane.
My friend was doing small pieces of plywood on his commercial Delta shaper and had an incident. After demanding that the doctor sew his finger back on (the doc thought it was too damaged) he had the best nose picking finger ever. The shape and angle were perfect for one nostril but not the other. Barely two months later, he had another shaper episode due to inattention caused by repetition, but a general mangling was all he got from that. Sam
One of my rules of life: It takes two mistakes to create an accident -- but you never know when you make the first one.
In this case, unnecessarily removing the blade guard appears to me to be the first mistake, and another one at some point is inevitable . . .
Hummm, as I work in a university we get stoodense in open toed sandals and i-pods, wog-boxes are so yesterday, oop's non-p.c. moment ;-)....
The other day I stopped a female stoodent who was bopping along the pavement (sidewalk) in a world of her own, with one of the local goblins following her waiting for the right for him/wrong for her moment. She started shouting at me and getting angery, until I ripped the ear pieces out and told her she was about to be mugged....Several seconds later a small dim light came on in her addled brain, the goblin when I pointed him out to her pivoted and sprinted away, I hope she never has a next time in such a situation.
Niel.
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