See that pic in FW Yikes!

[Tom Fischer]

Guess that's a home-made Table Saw.

257966

257965

[Mark Ashmeade]

Is it the April edition?

[John Piwaron]

Not so long ago I got a thick aluminum plate from my FIL. With a heavy "skilsaw" mounted to it. the blade passed though a slot in it. This was the "tablesaw" FIL and his brothers used to build houses on Milwaukee's south side 50 or so years ago. The first thing I did was detach that saw and take the aluminum plate to a recycle yard. The saw itself ended up similarly. It was a heavy cast aluminum behemoth.

Today I find it incredible that he and his brothers didn't have any missing digits or limbs. All of them passed away from old age.

[Troy Turner]

Guess that answers my question...

This guy is really that stupid and lazy to set something like this up to cut potatoes.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I'm missing something here, that's not an ordinary tablesaw, and he is not cutting wood. What is the rest of the story?

[Jamie Lynch]

It looks like he's cutting Tagua nuts. I do like the finger protection😧

[Matt Day]

Correct - those are Tagua nuts.

The craftsman is from Ecuador, and the email is from the FWW email "eletter" that was sent today.

Edit: Now that you know that the guy is from Ecuador, I wouldn't consider it "stupid" but more like resourceful to make a living!

[Bill Wyko]

Right up until the time that's his fingers on the table and not the nuts.

[Richard Wolf]

Correct - those are Tagua nuts.

The craftsman is from Ecuador, and the email is from the FWW email "eletter" that was sent today.

Edit: Now that you know that the guy is from Ecuador, I wouldn't consider it "stupid" but more like resourceful to make a living!

Wow, how is stupid and resourceful interchangeable based on where you live?

[johnny means]

Wow, how is stupid and resourceful interchangeable based on where you live?

When you don't have a Woodcraft on the corner to sell you a Sawstop.

[John McClanahan]

When you don't have a Woodcraft on the corner to sell you a Sawstop.

+1. We should be thankful for all that we have.

John

[Peter Quinn]

Well, at least he's not in any danger of a kick back with that set up. And he's wearing duck tape finger extenders, so what's the real danger? :eek:

[Troy Turner]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a hard a$$ or anything, but this does not pass any logic of resourcefulness I know of.

The blade it turning towards him...if he gets his metal wrapped finger between that and the metal thing there, I'm pretty sure the metal isn't going to be a match for the blade.

I'd be curious what the rest of the article was. Surely FWW wasn't advocating his resourcefulness :confused:

[Chris Fournier]

+1. We should be thankful for all that we have.

John

Truth! Safety is for the rich. Hunger trumps safety.

[Chris Parks]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a hard a$$ or anything, but this does not pass any logic of resourcefulness I know of.

Have you ever literally had no food to eat? People in third world counties do worse stuff than this to survive.

[Joe Kieve]

I am truly thankful for what I have but....that's a pucker factor of 10!

joe

[Harold Burrell]

Truth! Safety is for the rich. Hunger trumps safety.

hmmm...

I know what you're saying, but...this is just plain insane. You can't tell me that this method is "more resourceful" than using a knife.

[Dave Richards]

It's interesting to read the comments of those denigrating this man for making a living using the resources he has available. Clearly they are viewing this man through the lens of their Saw Stop-protected experience. It wasn't all that many years ago that blade guards were uncommon as were other guards and neckties were even common in shops. Instead of criticizing the guy, those of you with the negative comments ought to pool your shekels and buy this fellow a new tablesaw with guards. Get him a Saw Stop or at least a bandsaw. Or why don't you create the fixturing to hold the nuts so he doesn't have to get his fingers so close?

[John Coloccia]

http://www.beadinggem.com/2012/06/ecuadorian-hands-40-tagua-beads.html

http://www.taguanutivory.com/what-is-tagua-nut.html

http://www.ecuadorianhands.com/-i-18.html

I guess that's just how they do it down there, right down to the little finger guards.

How does SawStop keep coming up here? Some people are just fixated with SawStops. It doesn't take a genius or tremendous resources to make a little sled or holder to keep your hands out of the blades.

[Richard Wolf]

Most of us have done stupid things for many reasons, the reason doesn't make it any less stupid. Like John said, "resourceful" would be to design a fixture to do it safely. The problem is that he may have to feed his family, but post accident, how will he feed them when the workers compensation doesn't kick in.

[Joe Angrisani]

How does SawStop keep coming up here?

Because we're writing in America, Land Of SomebodyElse'sFault.

[Chris Fournier]

http://www.beadinggem.com/2012/06/ecuadorian-hands-40-tagua-beads.html

http://www.taguanutivory.com/what-is-tagua-nut.html

http://www.ecuadorianhands.com/-i-18.html

I guess that's just how they do it down there, right down to the little finger guards.

How does SawStop keep coming up here? Some people are just fixated with SawStops. It doesn't take a genius or tremendous resources to make a little sled or holder to keep your hands out of the blades.

A sled would make sense but materials may not be readily available. I've spent a bit of time in poorer countries and what we consider scraps would be gold to them, a sled may not be within reach for this fellow just yet. Until then he provide as he sees fit.

[keith micinski]

This meets a new mantra of mine perfectly. Just because something ends up in the "right"result, it doesn't mean it's "not wrong." Doing what you have to survive is fine. That doesn't make clearly unsafe practices all of the sudden safe, or ok. The real resourcefulness would be in making something out of materials at hand to make the job safe to do. I ate 2 boxes of .25 macaroni and cheese a day when I was 18 to support myself because that was all I could afford and did plenty of things I would never do now to live and never once have I thought those things were right or good to do. I saw that it sucked and I made the changes needed to be able to eat real meals. Not knowing what's going on in that photo I can guarantee you my first job would have been to find a way to make a fixture no matter how poorly made to keep me fingers safe.

[Chris Fournier]

This meets a new mantra of mine perfectly. Just because something ends up in the "right"result, it doesn't mean it's "not wrong." Doing what you have to survive is fine. That doesn't make clearly unsafe practices all of the sudden safe, or ok. The real resourcefulness would be in making something out of materials at hand to make the job safe to do. I ate 2 boxes of .25 macaroni and cheese a day when I was 18 to support myself because that was all I could afford and did plenty of things I would never do now to live and never once have I thought those things were right or good to do. I saw that it sucked and I made the changes needed to be able to eat real meals. Not knowing what's going on in that photo I can guarantee you my first job would have been to find a way to make a fixture no matter how poorly made to keep me fingers safe.


I see your point but would like to say:


Perhaps this fellow is in his .25 macaroni phase.

Our first world perspective on this fellow's third world reality is about as distorted as you can get and our "logic" is not really all that logical.

More likely than not we in the west are somewhat responsible for this man's present condition and should probably applaud him for getting by with what we have left him.

[Matt Day]

Tough (and sheltered?) crowd here.

They've probably been doing it this way for generations. If fingers were being cut off left and right i think theyd change their ways. And don't you think somebody down in Ecuador, other than the dozen or so people here in this thread, have thought about using a sled of some kind?

[Matt Ranum]

I see the nickname "Stubby" in his future. :p

[Adam lam]

Those are steel caps for his fingers with his hand braced on the table.

[keith micinski]

Tough (and sheltered?) crowd here.

They've probably been doing it this way for generations. If fingers were being cut off left and right i think theyd change their ways. And don't you think somebody down in Ecuador, other than the dozen or so people here in this thread, have thought about using a sled of some kind?



Did you actually just make the statement "they have been doing it this way for a long time so it must be ok?" Hilarious. And then you followed it up with "if it was unsafe surely they would have changed it so it must be ok." Even more hilarious. And then to top it off I think you are implying that they thought of a sled and dismissed this as not being a good idea for some unknown reason which totally invalidates your first two statements. Perspective, social situation, economic conditions, or geography don't make something safe or "ok". Unsafe is unsafe and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out from that photo that what he is doing could not only be made much safer it is probably really unsafe to do what he is doing. I do things all of the time that are unsafe in my construction job that I get away with. One day I probably won't and I won't be saying after wards well it always worked before so it must have been ok. I'll realize that I balanced the safety aspect of getting a job done and the productivity aspect of getting a job done and when I get injured I guess I had the balance wrong :) Look for a Shaper thread I am going to be creating in a little while to demonstrate this.