I teach wood shop and the students don't seem to take accidents seriously. Does anyone have a list of different short stories that I could share with them, to help them realise that accidents do and can happen if they are not careful. Or if something has happened to you please let me know. Thanks
I remember my shop teacher from junior high would drop a piece of wood onto the blade of a running table saw to demonstrate what kickback could be like.
I remember back in high school, we had an 8-fingered shop teacher, he served as a living example.
Jerry
My family has done wood working for years and generations. One summer evening (I was about 20 years old) I was in a hurry to finish up some cuts of oak for a coffee table. While cutting several lengths of 2 1/2" wide oak I put my hand between the blade and fence (Note your middle finger sticks out when pushing down like this) when the blade kicked my middle finger went across the blade. Enough said.
Two weeks later my cousin was holding a joint on plywood together while cutting the plywood with a skillsaw the blade bound up and kicked back removing his thumb.
Two weeks later my grandfather ran his thumb through the table saw.
I am now "SUPER" safe. The blood spots are still on the light above the table saw. When people ask I tell them... Safety fist speed later...
When I was around 16 I had my uncle tell me about someone "karate chopping" him in the back of the neck while he working on the table saw, he turned around but didn't see anyone. When he went inside for tea his wife noticed small holes down the middle of his shirt. Turns out the blade grabbed his shirt and gave it a very fast and tight pull and then release. When it happened to me a few years later I knew what he was talking about..
If you play with the bull your going to get the horns sooner or later..
All of us have had "CLOSE" calls that may not be the memorable because they didn't "REALLY" Happen.
tell them the guards fitted are there to stop them losing their fingers ,have you ever seen a stumpy pick his nose???
Of course not, they're kids, they think they're invulnerable.
There are endless stories I'm sure, and your kids won't pay any attention to them. The only real answer is to be a safety-nazi. If they don't behave, toss 'em out. They'll start to behave, not because they caref about safety necessarily, but because they don't want to be tossed out of class.
I once had a rather nasty one a few years ago. I don't much like to talk about it but since it is "for the kids", OK. The squeamish among you might want to skip to the next post.
I was ripping up some boards for a project and had almost finished when my wife told me it was almost time to go. GADZOOKS! I had completely forgotten that we had been invited to a dinner party. Quick shower, freshly pressed suit and off we went.
It was a nice but not late party and we arrived back home about 10 o'clock. I wasn't sleepy and decided to finish my ripping job - wouldn't take more than ten minutes.
I've always been safety conscious (I don't like pain and I'm not real fond of blood) so I took off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves and repaired to the shop. There I was, feeding through a nice piece of white oak, when all of a sudden that freakin' buzz saw grabbed my tie and jerked me down to the blade like a lusty wench in heat grabbing her lover. I don't quite understand what happened as the depth of cut of the saw is only 3" but that sucker took my head clean off! Well, not really "clean" as I'm sure some flesh was flung about and there must have been a lake of blood.
One thing sure, I learned a lesson. And that lesson is...always wear a tie tack when using a saw.
My shop teacher had a picture of someone who *used to have* a lot of long hair (this was in the 70's) sitting between the drill press and the lathes. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. That picture alone still serves for me as a good reminder for me of what can go wrong when using spinning tools improperly. I can think of nothing you can teach your students that will be more valuable to them in woodworking than safety.
-Bill
How does the tie stay on?
I disagree with the post that says "kids will be kids and nothing will get through to them". I do agree that a picture or something else that graphically illustrates what can happen will have an effect.
My accident wasn't in the shop. I'd moved a crummy old table saw outside to cut up kindling. I cut a lot each year, and after an hour or so, it's about as exciting as watching grass grow. Attention wanders, and I was also trying to speed the process up a bit.
While I was looking the other direction, my hand moved too close to the blade and i zinged the end of my thumb. I'm typing with that thumb now, 18 months later, so the damage wasn't serious. I won't say it wasn't permanent however. I still feel pins and needles in the thumb. I expect I always will.
It wasn't serious, but man did it hurt. The pain was so intense I passed out twice on the way to the ER (wife drove me). For weeks if I nudged that thumb against anything, pain shot through my entire arm.
How can I (or you to your kids) convey that pain? I don't know. But that's what gave me my wakeup call and made me much more aware of what could go wrong.
Years ago in Ontario, the Dept of Transport used graphic films of actual road accidents as prerequisites to kids getting their driver's license. I know that many of them deferred driving after seeing the films. Did it make safer drivers? I never knew.
Good luck. I hope these stories give you some ideas on how to break through to them and help you produce craftsmen that don't make the mistake I and others did.
In my high school shop the planer was a big ol' waist high 24 inch model sitting next to a pair of double doors so they could be opened to handle long boards. We were always told not to stand at the end of a board being fed into the planer or table saw. One day a short board kicked back from the planer while the door was closed. The board went through the door (a paneled door) out into the yard. I can still see that student's white face. We never had to be told about standing in the throw line again.
If you have a radial arm saw in the shop, turn it into a rip position, take a 20 - 40 page suppliers catalog, toss it into the spinning blade from the direction opposite to what you would normally use. Shreds and throws the pages nicely. To be preceeded with a safety lesson on saws.
Rick
Amen.
When I think back over the events of my life, I wonder how I got past those years with only minimal damage.
A friend of mine, was killed while we were in the 8th grade. He started a lathe on high speed while there was a large blank attached to a face plate. The screws holding the block sheared. The blank went through the window directly behind the lathe. The window was covered with a steel mesh security grid. When the block hit the mesh it broke in half, bounced back and impaled him in the forehead. He was killed instantly.
Several years ago my 14 year old son came home early from school, visibly shaken, with blood all over the back of his shirt. One of his woodshop classmates had severed all the fingers, including his thumb, ripping a board on the table saw. My son said that the boy had set the 12" blade much too high (contrary to instruction) for the thickness of the wood. There was no blade guard in place. His thumb slipped off the end of the workpiece while pushing it through the blade and passed through the saw. My son also said that the boy's fingers weren't immediately severed until he had shaken his hand in reaction, the fingers bouncing across the floor. (You can't get much more graphic than that.) Luckily, the fingers were reattached at our local hospital, and the kid regained about 85% of the use of his hand eventually, the thumb taking almost 10 months to "rehabilitate". An insurance adjuster/investigator came to our house to interview my son shortly after the accident in response to a lawsuit that the kid's parents were filing against the school. The school, in turn, filed a suit against the saw manufacturer for not providing a suitable guard for the machine. I do not know the results of the suits so I can't comment on that other than to say that my son never came near a piece of woodworking machinery again.
How much did the local taxpayers pay for the kid's stupidity? Would have been cheaper if he got killed instead of maimed.
As a new woodworker (who doesn't own a table saw yet), I just want to say thanks to most of the folks who have contributed to this thread. I have learned something from at least two of the stories. For instance, it hadn't occurred to me that having one's hand on the work behind the blade (say, between the fence and the blade) could get one in trouble. Thanks! -Bill
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