I was in the wood shop this past weeks… and I saw someone using the table saw… In a unsafe manner… basically they were cross cutting a piece that was to big to do it without using a cross cut sled… I said someone to the person and was told this is how I always do it… that doesn’t mean it’s the safe way of doing things… I don’t want to see anyone get hurt but if your trying to a 12” x 12” board off a 4 foot board and it’s hanging off the saw table to the left by 3 feet… that’s not safe… saw kick back is real
It can hurt you badly if not kill you or someone else in the shop… I didn’t say something to you to get in your business or ruin your day… I was trying to prevent you from having a bad day… see the photos below… this is a wood working friend of mine… A very experienced woodworker… who through his own fault was having a bad day… if you can’t cut it safely get help or ask on talk…
Well the guy with the saw is at least smart enough to have ear muffs to quieten the screams.
Yeah but no face shield to prevent blood, tissue and bone in the face
(In reference to the meme only)
Both of you need to quit nitpicking. The guy doing the cutting does have his safety glasses. They are clearly visible on top of hat. Face shield? That’s what the brim of the cap is for. Just tilt your head down, you may not be able to see but it’s not fine woodworking anyways.
The other guy has no ass so he’s perfectly fine. He also took the precaution of wearing a hoodie. That will help keep the cuttings from going down his shirt.
I’ve seen people on motorcycles wear less, these guys should be fiinnnneeeee…
I worked for a brief time at Rockler( a retiree job). Every week someone would come in and say “I want to look at your Sawstops” because of this and they would show off their stitches or missing appendages. One guy said I don’t want this to happen to my son and he showed off his left hand which was missing the tips of two fingers.
I would explain that the Sawstop is a great product and will prevent some kinds of injuries, but it will not prevent people who practice unsafe sawing. I would point out that a simple push stick at $4.50 would prevent a large number of injuries, too but people refuse to use them.
For some reason, experienced wood workers think that because they’ve been doing it a long time and haven’t been hurt it won’t ever happen to them. That is usually when they come in to buy a Sawstop.
The bottom line, is that safety needs to be paramount in people’s minds at all times. Reminders from fellow woodworkers should be a tell tale sign you need to reconsider what you’re doing, especially if they suggest a better way. Everyone needs to look out for their fellow DMS member. No one benefits from an ER visit for ignoring a safety warning.
I’ve been a wood worker a very long time and I’ve experienced kick back when the riving knife was misaligned and when I “skipped a step” in my cutting. It can happen at anytime to anyone. You need to know what causes it and how to prevent it. It can be very dangerous.
Thanks for the reminder.
One last thing. I was in the USAF ANG for 30 years in aircraft maintenance. We showed safety films routinely and some of them were very gruesome. You only have to see a guy lose a hand, finger or leg one time on film to remind you that it can and does happen that people get hurt because they don’t obey the safety rules.
The guy on the ground is the jobsite Plumber. His “Plumber’s Crack” is lined up with the saw blade. Everything should be okay then.
Complacency kills.
I’ve been doing my job for almost 21 years. I’m still very cautious. I donned my arc flash suit yesterday to check a bunch of voltages & take a look around while the equipment is running. This probably had 600 amps going through it at 480 volts.
Don’t know about you, but I want to go home the same way I came in.
THIS
For a lot of shops I’ve been in the highest injury rate was users’ own pocked knives. So many lacerations from that trusty pocket knife the victim had for years and grew comfortable with.
My own ER visit from making was an electric shock from a pulse power system I’d been using regularly for 5 years by the time it happened;.
a dull knife will cut you faster than a sharp knife…
Anytime you’re forcing the cut you’re probably using a dull tool. Spend a little time on a sharpening stone/diamond stone and make your job safer and easier. I agree a 100% with you on the dull tool comment.
Ever try to route with a dull router blade? You are just asking for trouble.
When I worked at United Technologies Fuel Cells - we had to watch the flash over films. The units I worked on were 1200V and 400kW.
This feels like a great time to bring up a safety vs money concern, recently we’ve decided to not provide dado cartridges for the saw stop so we can only use them on the powermatic , which to me is ludicrous, to save 89 per cartridge, we’re asking people to use a dado on one of the best table saws ever made meaning nothings going to stop it, a table saw blade injury might send you to the hospital but a dado stack on a powermatic 66 you might not make it to the hospital, so it seems absolutely insane budget cut to keep such a tool away from something that has a almost flawless safe guard, to save 90$
This decision was not made due to cost.
To be clear, the rule is that members are allowed to bring in their own dado stack and dado inserts for the sawstop, but they can’t use DMS dado stacks and the shop will not provide a dado insert.
This decision was made because of education and safety:
- If we allowed dados on the sawstop, we would tell members that “they can use the dado stack on the sawstop but that they have to swap the brake. When you’re done, be sure to swap the brake and blades back.”
- This requires members to remember to swap the cartridge to use a dado stack. If they don’t remember, the machine becomes much more dangerous than the powermatic because now users are expecting a level of safety that the sawstop will not provide. In addition, the inertia of the heavier blade stack against the lighter brake could cause the blades to RUD.
- We don’t train members in the basics class how to swap the cartridge, and if we’re instructing them to do so for a routine tool use mode, we should be teaching it.
- Leaving the dado insert in and using a normal blade is also supposedly dangerous though I no longer remember why. Probably because dado blades are smaller diameter than regular blades.
- Members who care enough to want to use the sawstop with a dado stack, will remember to bring in their own insert and stack, will remember to take the insert back out, and by the nature of being a self-selecting group, are motivated to learn how to do it correctly.
Invest in a CAT or RAT tourniquet if it’s a concern. Also, a packet of QuikClot if that’s a concern for you. I have both in my vehicle regularly? If you participated in WS committee activities to the degree you set forth your expectations you wouldn’t be posting these questions.
To Ian’s point…A bit of history that I was informed of… The general user doesn’t change cartridges (brakes) or blades regularly enough for training to be effective and useful over time. This caused significant confusion and unnecessary down time for this valuable resource. Hence, the decision was made to “norm” this machine to the needs of the average MS maker in the interests of being more available to all.
There’s literally a thread about how the Dms dado we just had sharpened for Dms need to be taken back, so I don’t get the logic, of we have 3 Dms dado sets but you can’t use them you have to use your own, but if you do use your own you have to use it on a saftey net proof saw or but your own 90$ cartridge cause the thing Dms had be doing since atleast 2years ago( treating dado cartridges the same as regular ones and providing them but if you’re the one who triggered it then you bought it) for some reason no longer seems rational, which the only argument for not wanting to provide that safety net or the 90$ otherwise there’s no argument against using the saftey net
but you don’t seem to know about the saw stop if you say you can use it without the proper cartridge, the machine has a gauge where the blade has to be a certain very tight distance from the cartridge or it won’t start, that’s what the Allen wrenched on the side are for so you couldn’t even begin to start a dado with a 10 in blade cartridge that’s what I mean when I say that tool is almost perfectly failproof
Again I don’t see the upside of risk vs the couple a minutes a months saved in “down time” and confusion, plus we’ve literally had a tool that’s top 4 most used tools in the shop down for 75+ days for minor repairs, but you disregard for safety with the whole bring a thing of instaclot is in rather poor taste given the picture at the top of this thread
Sorry Chris, what tool was down for 75+ days and during what time period did this happen? You are babbling as per usual and imposing your expectations and experience as the standard for DMS. To wit… you emphatically stated to me in a ~6 am conversation on 6 March of this year that you would be bringing in all of your own blades and brakes for all tools you use. This was following a 4 AM call from you about the lack of blades you found acceptable for use. Such is the measure of your resolve and understanding that DMS is not a personal playground to be configured to your specs.
I thought we had QuikClot in the First Aid boxes? (or something very similar)
We very well might. I keep a packet at hand knowing that it may very well help a loved one (or someone else’s loved one) arrive at the ER in a condition to be patched up permanently.