Mike Manning
08-10-2016, 6:15 PM
Pulled a real bonehead move yesterday and got away with it. This time. I consider myself still a novice woodworker. I'm working on building some drawers for my wife's bathroom vanity. I put my Freud Super Dado on my Delta Contractor's TS yesterday and realized the zero clearance dado insert I'd purchased used with the dado set needed to be "recut" for my TS. I'd just done this exercise last week with a zero clearance insert I bought at Woodcraft for my Diablo thin kerf GP blade. Performing that last week I put a piece of scrap wood on top of the insert and clamped it down before starting the saw and raising the blade. That went off without a hitch.
For some reason, yesterday, that experience completely slipped my mind. I just thought that since the zero clearance dado insert only needed a whisker trimmed on one side it would be easy to do. Never thinking about all the extra blade surface involved with a dado blade set versus the thin kerf blade. I grabbed an 8" piece of 2x4 scrap put it on top of the insert where the blade would come up. And I'd hold that down with an old Shopsmith rubber-faced push block with handle using my left hand while raising the dado blades with my right hand.
Yeah, yeah, how stupid can you get. Right? Well, it took about 1-2 seconds after the blades engaged the 2x4 for both the 2x4 and the push block to fly back and nail me before I could even blink. The 2x4 hit me in the stomach and the push block (this thing is heavy) nailed me high in the chest. I was freaked out to say the least. After I recovered my composure, I picked up the push block and could see that it has also gotten into the saw blades and was scored and cracked.
Before I decided to use the push block I'd picked up a 6" piece of 1x4 oak and put it on top of the 2x4 thinking maybe I'd hold that down with my hand. Lucky again that I decided at least to use the push block that ended up keeping my hand further away from the blades. I'm pretty sure had I used that 1x4 piece that my hand would have been into the blades and they wouldn't have held up nearly as well as the push block did.
Anyway, my chest and stomach are both sore as hell but I'm lucky as all get out I didn't get seriously hurt. That push block hits 6" or higher and I could have crushed my windpipe, knocked some teeth out, etc.
I don't particularly enjoy let everyone know how stupid I was but in the interest of maybe helping us all to think at least twice about what we're doing when using power tools I wanted to share my bad but lucky mistakes.
Be careful out there people!!!
For some reason, yesterday, that experience completely slipped my mind. I just thought that since the zero clearance dado insert only needed a whisker trimmed on one side it would be easy to do. Never thinking about all the extra blade surface involved with a dado blade set versus the thin kerf blade. I grabbed an 8" piece of 2x4 scrap put it on top of the insert where the blade would come up. And I'd hold that down with an old Shopsmith rubber-faced push block with handle using my left hand while raising the dado blades with my right hand.
Yeah, yeah, how stupid can you get. Right? Well, it took about 1-2 seconds after the blades engaged the 2x4 for both the 2x4 and the push block to fly back and nail me before I could even blink. The 2x4 hit me in the stomach and the push block (this thing is heavy) nailed me high in the chest. I was freaked out to say the least. After I recovered my composure, I picked up the push block and could see that it has also gotten into the saw blades and was scored and cracked.
Before I decided to use the push block I'd picked up a 6" piece of 1x4 oak and put it on top of the 2x4 thinking maybe I'd hold that down with my hand. Lucky again that I decided at least to use the push block that ended up keeping my hand further away from the blades. I'm pretty sure had I used that 1x4 piece that my hand would have been into the blades and they wouldn't have held up nearly as well as the push block did.
Anyway, my chest and stomach are both sore as hell but I'm lucky as all get out I didn't get seriously hurt. That push block hits 6" or higher and I could have crushed my windpipe, knocked some teeth out, etc.
I don't particularly enjoy let everyone know how stupid I was but in the interest of maybe helping us all to think at least twice about what we're doing when using power tools I wanted to share my bad but lucky mistakes.
Be careful out there people!!!