my shop teacher, who had all of his fingers BTW, told us the Bandsaw could be the quickest way to ruin your project. the blade moves really fast and you can quickly go off the line.
OTOH, the table saw, and if you get a âQUICK STOPâ or whatever the heck name it is you simply cannot cut yourself.
now you can get a kick back. but simple safety practices can help you eliminate that risk to nearly zero. I am teaching my girls where to stand how to hold things. now they arenât big enough to send stuff through yet, but they do help me catch stuff coming off on the roller stand.
I will always and forever remember that board Mr. C sent across the shop to make a point in that demo.
Kickbackâs no joke. Even with a riving knife and other associated safety gizmos, the risk never really goes away.
When I train folks on the SawStop at our local makerspace, I am able to illustrate the risk by pointing out the hole in the solid door which was caused by kickback.
If youâre really curious⊠itâs at the end of this ancient blog post (back from when my blog was a woodworking blog called âNothing Severed Yetâ). The short version is I used a crescent wrench to tighten a pipe clamp, the pipe clamp broke, and I slammed the crescent wrench into a pipe with my finger in the middle.
Loved the story lol very well written and with dry humor (my favorite). I can relate to the removal of the fingernail somewhat. I dropped a roll of sheet metal onto my foot and busted a few toes in the process. When I went to have my foot checked out they scheduled surgery to remove my nail and place acid onto the corner of the nail bed so the toenail wouldnât grow back into the permantly damaged areas. Im 6â5" and around 250 at the time but when the doctor inserted the needle under my loosely still attached toenail I teared up like a newborn getting spanked fresh from the womb.
After the local anesthetic took effect they removed the toenail and stuck two long wood skewers into the edges of the nail bed and put a drop of some kind of acid onto them and it ran down into the toe. it is really weird to watch someone ram a long wood skewer into your toe, felt like a deleted scene from payback with Mel Gibson.
My friends dad growing up was missing three fingers. Decided to cut apples on a saw. Not sure what kind.
Another friend dropped a circular saw while working on a ladder and tried to catch it. He missed and it got his hand. Heâs a manâs man so he put his hand in a bucket (or was it a bag?) and drove himself to the hospital. Told the nurse he had a head ache, I imagine due to delirium. Itâs back on now, but the nerves are shot.
Tools are dangerous. I get annoyed at all the added weird plastic safety things they slap on them nowadays , but I have all my limbs attached so Iâm gonna keep using them that way.
A friendâs dad lost his pinky and ring finger on his right hand in an accident putting a metal roof on a barn when he was a kid (teenager presumably.) One of his favorite things in the world was shaking hands with someone for the first time and watching their reaction.
Had an uncle (from a farming community) that did that with me (when I was early teen or younger) being a city slicker.
His arm had been lost from the elbow and he had a mechanical hook that he would âshake handsâ with and to this day (5 decades later) I can picture his impish grin