"Absolute wealth of techniques in this video for any project."

[Simon MacGowen]

The title is a comment made by one of the video viewers:

https://youtu.be/CP36Rp18ovA?t=3m17s

Simon

[Bob Cooper]

Wow...that was painful. I stopped at the bridle joints

[Derek Cohen]

My heart was in my mouth as he cut those on the tablesaw.

This type of video should be a lesson in how never to do woodworking! Dangerous and seriously lacking in skills.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[glenn bradley]

I struggled to make it past the initial effort to purposely cause kickback by running un-milled material across a tablesaw. Please . . . use a bandsaw for ripping unprepared stock.

I did bookmark it to share with anyone asking about how to cause an "accident" in the shop.

[John K Jordan]

[QUOTE=glenn bradley;2785856]

I cringed at holding small blocks by hand at the drill press.

[Steve Demuth]

I had to stop at 6:40 or so when he started feeding 3" X 1" X 1" pieces of wood vertically through the table saw. Up until then I thought he was Darwin Award wannabe. I was sure I could think of stupider ways to use his tools. That episode convinced me he is a gold medalist in waiting and that he probably had experimented with every possible way to injure himself with power tools.

[Edwin Santos]

[QUOTE=glenn bradley;2785856]

I cringed at holding small blocks by hand at the drill press.

Using a Forstner bit no less. Yikes

[Simon MacGowen]

I had to stop at 6:40 or so when he started feeding 3" X 1" X 1" pieces of wood vertically through the table saw. Up until then I thought he was Darwin Award wannabe. I was sure I could think of stupider ways to use his tools. That episode convinced me he is a gold medalist in waiting and that he probably had experimented with every possible way to injure himself with power tools.

Not to mention that his fingers were not only well inside the danger zone but literally just inches away from the mitre saw's spinning blade every time he held a small workpiece to the fence with his bare fingers.

He would not know what he has been doing wrong...he has been showered with positive comments from his viewers who apparently are either as ignorant or as invincible as he.

He has been playing multiple Russian roulettes in his shop.

Simon

[Simon MacGowen]

I struggled to make it past the initial effort to purposely cause kickback by running un-milled material across a tablesaw. Please . . . use a bandsaw for ripping unprepared stock.

I did bookmark it to share with anyone asking about how to cause an "accident" in the shop.

Judging from his shop behavior with other power tools, wouldn't you think he would use a bandsaw in a way that we will never try?

Simon

[Brian Nguyen]

Simon, John Heisz has been around for many, many years. He's not a new hack that just started a YT channel. Yeah, some of his techniques are butt-clenching to put it mildly but he's repeatedly says that he understand the risks and that he's comfortable with himself around his tools. He's 100% know the danger.

[Simon MacGowen]

He's 100% know the danger.

Does his audience know that, too?

By the way, doing the same dangerous things (in plural) in a shop over and over again does not reduce the chances of a serious shop incident from happening. You can't predict or control how the machine or stock (dressed or undressed) will react the next time you don't follow the basic shop safety rules.

Simon

[Ben Rivel]

Wow.... Just wow.... Im amazed this guy still has all his fingers. I bet he's had some close ones over the years. And of course hes got over half a million subscribers to LOTS of other people out there can learn his bad and unsafe practices!

[Steve Demuth]

He's 100% know the danger.

Maybe he does - although given the ubiquity of dangerous cuts in that video, I rather doubt he actually understands the risks he's taking. But even if he does, promoting those techniques as a way of promoting himself is utterly irresponsible. If he's a well known and followed "instructor" on youtube, then what he shows comes with an implied, but substantial endorsement of correctness. Knowing you're doing something wrong doesn't make it less wrong. Promoting it as right does make it more wrong, though.

[Ben Rivel]

I struggled to make it past the initial effort to purposely cause kickback by running un-milled material across a tablesaw. Please . . . use a bandsaw for ripping unprepared stock.

I did bookmark it to share with anyone asking about how to cause an "accident" in the shop.
Actually thats a good point! A video like this could be a good tool to use as a test for new woodworkers to watch and see if they can catch all the things he's doing wrong or unsafely.

[Brian Nguyen]

Again, he understands the risks. He's made handful (hah!) of videos explaining what kickbacks are, why it happens, what HE DOES to keep himself safe, etc. etc. etc. He's documenting how he builds the clamp--it's literally in the video title. The long-time viewers does know, but those that just see his latest videos are understandably freaking out. If John Heisz has to put a disclaimer each time he make a cut, then his video would simply be filled with warnings every 5 seconds.

I mean... it's very similar to watching another great channel called "Tips from a Shipwright". The guy puts out videos of himself and his assistants hand making boats--it's his trade for 50 years or so, probably, so he know various techniques with power tools that'd give us nightmares. Yet he can do things like use a circular saw without a guard to hand cut a long board to size, because he is comfortable with it and has proven to have done it for years.

At the end of the day, it's really up to us to understand what's safe and proper, and what we can handle.

[Edwin Santos]

Again, he understands the risks. He's made handful (hah!) of videos explaining what kickbacks are, why it happens, what HE DOES to keep himself safe, etc. etc. etc. He's documenting how he builds the clamp--it's literally in the video title. The long-time viewers does know, but those that just see his latest videos are understandably freaking out. If John Heisz has to put a disclaimer each time he make a cut, then his video would simply be filled with warnings every 5 seconds.

I mean... it's very similar to watching another great channel called "Tips from a Shipwright". The guy puts out videos of himself and his assistants hand making boats--it's his trade for 50 years or so, probably, so he know various techniques with power tools that'd give us nightmares. Yet he can do things like use a circular saw without a guard to hand cut a long board to size, because he is comfortable with it and has proven to have done it for years.

At the end of the day, it's really up to us to understand what's safe and proper, and what we can handle.

I get your point, and that you're a long time viewer/fan of his, but don't you think this practice is a disservice to a novice who could only conclude that these practices are sound for everyone? Some of what's going on in that video is not just dangerous, but recklessly dangerous.

I've taken some hands on woodworking classes with well known instructors and what I've noticed them doing is "dialing up" their own personal safety precautions during the class to set a safe example to the students. I realized this when I got to class early one morning and the visiting instructor was prepping some parts, working much faster and closer to blades than he was doing when the class was present and watching. I thought this was super responsible.

To work dangerously under the justification of one's experience is one thing, but to demonstrate it to others for imitation is another.
Safety is non-negotiable in woodworking.

[Andrew Hughes]

Is he the one that made the kickback video. Holding a piece if wood with a push block to intentionally turn it into the back of the blade. A very dumb thing to do. :confused:

[Steve Demuth]

At the end of the day, it's really up to us to understand what's safe and proper, and what we can handle.

And it is the responsibility of a teacher to never lose sight of what his or her pupils can handle. This guy has set himself up as a teacher, and is therefore irresponsible, as he clearly either doesn't know or doesn't care that he is instructing people to do things that are inherently dangerous.

I would apply the following test to anything I would demonstrate on a youtube channel: if you were a shop owner held morally and financially responsible for your employee's safety, would you build this technique into your production processes? If the answer is "no," then I don't see how you can justify it on a youtube channel that is likely to be viewed by thousands of untrained individuals who may well mimic your techniques.

[Simon MacGowen]

I would apply the following test to anything I would demonstrate on a youtube channel: if you were a shop owner held morally and financially responsible for your employee's safety, would you build this technique into your production processes? If the answer is "no," then I don't see how you can justify it on a youtube channel that is likely to be viewed by thousands of untrained individuals who may well mimic your techniques.

That sure is a reasonable test.

The last place I worked was pretty lenient with staff misconduct (being late for work. etc.), but when it came to shop safety, it had zero tolerance. Not only that, every minor incident had to be recorded and reported...the safety culture there was etched into your mind. Elsewhere, I know some industrial employers would fire their employees for repeated or serious safety violations.

Simon

[andy bessette]

...Some of what's going on in that video is not just dangerous, but recklessly dangerous...

Come on you guys!

No guards, OMG! Some here believe it is reckless to use anything but a Sawstop table saw. And that you must never get your hands closer to the blade than a 1-foot long push stick will allow. That every single youtube video must be geared to the lowest common denominator--someone who has never run a saw.

Take a deep breath. Unclench your glutes. Watch how experienced professionals do it.

[Simon MacGowen]

Watch how experienced professionals do it.


Youtube should create categories of woodworking videos, including:

1) Watch how experienced professionals do it.

...and

2) Watch how experienced professionals hurt themselves.:D

Simon

[Marty R Schlosser]

After watching this video, I made the following comment, "John, you're promoting many well-documented unsafe tablesaw and fixed belt sander operating practices."

What a terrific "how-not-to-do-it" video!

[Steve Demuth]

Watch how experienced professionals do it.

3 minutes into the video the guy is ripping a board that is so badly cupped you could use it as a rocker. The only reason it didn't lead to a messier outcome is that his saw was too wimpy to power through the resulting bind and throw the board around. Professionals use their tools properly, and respect them.

The guy is a menace to anyone trying to learn good woodworking skills, not a professional.

[Peter Kelly]

He shows a clever technique for flipping boards over as they go through the planer at 3:30 (https://youtu.be/CP36Rp18ovA?t=3m29s).

[Simon MacGowen]

He shows a clever technique for flipping boards over as they go through the planer at 3:30 (https://youtu.be/CP36Rp18ovA?t=3m29s).

He set the planer to cut 1/2" on each pass!

How did I know?

For him, nothing mattered -- not even shop safety -- as long as it got the job done! So, 1/2" it went.:p

Simon

[Bill Space]

He set the planer to cut 1/2" on each pass!

How did I know?

For him, nothing mattered -- not even shop safety -- as long as it got the job done! So, 1/2" it went.:p

Simon

I missed that part but wonder if that is possible with the planer shown. To take off 1/2” the knives would have to be extending more than that. Seems unlikely.

After reading all the comments above, l was almost afraid to watch the video. But I did. Granted he certainly puts his fingers closer to cutting blades than I would ever do. But it was as not as crazy as I was expecting. While no excuse, he was using jigs/stops to hold the material in position while doing those worrisome actions.

Bill

[Frederick Skelly]

Come on you guys!

No guards, OMG! Some here believe it is reckless to use anything but a Sawstop table saw. And that you must never get your hands closer to the blade than a 1-foot long push stick will allow. That every single youtube video must be geared to the lowest common denominator--someone who has never run a saw.

Take a deep breath. Unclench your glutes. Watch how experienced professionals do it.


Yah, we've argued safety between the Pros and hobbyists many times and we usually don't agree. The world looks different when you do a task every day. I'm not going to try to convince a Pro that I'm right and he's wrong. But the world also looks different after you or an employee gets hurt. I know 2 Pros who have each suffered saw accidents and permanent impairment. Injuries do happen and I wish the author of that video had included a subtitle that clearly said the equivalent of "Professional driver. Don't try this at home." I think he is inadvertently misleading people into thinking what he does is safe. YMMV.

[Nick Lazz]

Pretty easy to pile on here....but I liked his clamps!
Buyers just may not know how many fingers lost their lives in the process of making them. :)

I’ve done some questionable things in my shop I suppose....I’m not perfect, but I use my tools safely in dangerous situations once in a while.

I like the safety squint myself for emergency eye protection...I didn’t see him employ that maneuver!

[glenn bradley]

Judging from his shop behavior with other power tools, wouldn't you think he would use a bandsaw in a way that we will never try?

Simon

Baaah-haaa-haaa-haaa!

[Mark Hennebury]

When the rock throwers have finished, maybe you could all explain how come this guy has all of his fingers.

[Peter Kelly]

Don't watch his video on kickback. You'll be less clear on that..

[Simon MacGowen]

When the rock throwers have finished, maybe you could all explain how come this guy has all of his fingers.

You serious, Mark after all this "statistics does not apply to an individual" thing?

Not every Russian Roulette kills in the first shot.

Simon

[Mark Hennebury]

Simon,
I too have worked decades in a similar fashion and i too have all of my fingers, not bragging just stating a fact. That makes at least two of us that apparently defy the laws of nature.

According to your responses, this way of working is guaranteed to cause loss of fingers. You were all quite clear on that point.

So you can play games, make your jokes and deflect and change the subject but you cannot answer that question without it conflicting with your logic, so i don't expect any will answer directly.

You cannot explain how someone acting in such a "Recklessly Dangerous" manner can survive a day in the workshop without a serious accident, let alone decades it is just not feasible, it defies logic and the laws of nature....unless you are wrong.
So i don't expect you to answer the question.

[Marshall Harrison]

Does his audience know that, too?

Simon

That's the kicker. He is welcome to use his tools anyway he wants to and only he has to pay the consequences. But when you when you start doing videos that inexperienced woodworkers may see and copy his techniques out of ignorance or lack of experience then you have problems.

[Mark Hennebury]

That's the kicker. He is welcome to use his tools anyway he wants to and only he has to pay the consequences. But when you when you start doing videos that inexperienced woodworkers may see and copy his techniques out of ignorance or lack of experience then you have problems.

Who appointed him baby sitter on the world.

What would happen if people copied him, they would end up just like him, happily working away in his shop making nice stuff, confident and relaxed with his machines and being able to count on all ten fingers, what is so bad about that?

There are a lot of videos on the internet, they cover every level of expertise, are you suggesting that someone police the internet and make only beginner videos?

How about we only make phoney videos, like was suggested, you know the old do like i say not like i do, type. Someone suggested teachers lie to their students and teach them to work in a way that the teacher would not themselves work.

[Simon MacGowen]

Simon,
I too have worked decades in a similar fashion and i too have all of my fingers, not bragging just stating a fact. That makes at least two of us that apparently defy the laws of nature.

According to your responses, this way of working is guaranteed to cause loss of fingers. You were all quite clear on that point.

.

His way of working is guaranteed to cause an injury or two (it could be a finger loss, a kickback, etc.), but not necessarily to him or to any particular person. That is what statistics is about.

It is no different from the fact that smoking will cause lung cancer, but not to every smoker or any particular smoker. My uncle is turning 93 this month and he was a smoker (he stopped about 30 years ago after close to 45 years of smoking). My mom-in-law was not a smoker but she died of lung cancer.

You and he are not defying the laws of nature. You both are increasing your chances of getting hurt.

Simon

[Marshall Harrison]

Who appointed him baby sitter on the world.

What would happen if people copied him, they would end up just like him, happily working away in his shop making nice stuff, confident and relaxed with his machines and being able to count on all ten fingers, what is so bad about that?

There are a lot of videos on the internet, they cover every level of expertise, are you suggesting that someone police the internet and make only beginner videos?

How about we only make phoney videos, like was suggested, you know the old do like i say not like i do, type. Someone suggested teachers lie to their students and teach them to work in a way that the teacher would not themselves work.

I'm not sure if you are attacking me or the guy on Youtube. But to answer some of your points:

No one wants or needs to have the internet policed or censored. But with great power comes greater responsibility. If you are posting woodworking how-to videos then you should show safe practices. Or at least add a caution to the video about how/why you are doing something that may be unsafe.

Everyone has some things that are do as I say not as I do in everything we do. But again that should be pointed out if you are trying to instruct others.

I carefully examined his hands and he has all his fingers and they all appear to be the correct length so obviously his methods have worked for him. But that doesn't mean they will always work out in his favor. Cutting small pieces on the table saw especially when oriented vertically is not a good practice and could get someone trying to copy him in some deep kimchi.

[Keith Outten]

All of you Safety Police Deputies need to lighten up. Every point you have made is true but you can't police the Internet. Your blood pressure is going off the charts guys, let it go.

The only thing a novice needs to know is that they need to read and follow all of the safety precautions in their owners manuals, that's where you start. People who try to shortcut the necessity to learn to work safely from the proper sources are bound to make mistakes that are often serious. Accept that none of you can make any kind of impact on this issue and let it go. The alternative is that you can form an organization to get the government to enforce safety rules and regulations in home shops. In time we will all have to register our table saws and ultimately the government will try to take them away :)

We need to teach people to be responsible for their own actions.

[Mark Hennebury]

I'm not sure if you are attacking me or the guy on Youtube. But to answer some of your points:

No one wants or needs to have the internet policed or censored. But with great power comes greater responsibility. If you are posting woodworking how-to videos then you should show safe practices. Or at least add a caution to the video about how/why you are doing something that may be unsafe.

Everyone has some things that are do as I say not as I do in everything we do. But again that should be pointed out if you are trying to instruct others.

I carefully examined his hands and he has all his fingers and they all appear to be the correct length so obviously his methods have worked for him. But that doesn't mean they will always work out in his favor. Cutting small pieces on the table saw especially when oriented vertically is not a good practice and could get someone trying to copy him in some deep kimchi.


For starters, i was the one defending.

It is quite obvious that we differ on the concept of what is safe practice; I do a lot of joinery on the table saw without the guard, i consider that i work safely, in a dangerous situation. Woodworking is dangerous, and some are not suited to it.
I have cut thousands of complex joints on the table saw, including all sizes ( from tiny to 5" deep) of bridle and halflap joints without incident in much the same fashion as the guy in the movie. If you know what you are doing and follow proper procedures there will be no problems. So why would i think that it is unsafe? It is not unsafe because you or any number of people say so.
Blades don’t have a mind of their own, they behave according to the laws of physics and are quite predictable as are the materials that you cut. So if your process is sound you need not be fearful of working close to blades.

And i have every right to post how i do my work as anyone else. It is not for me to determine the ability or lack thereof of the audience. And neither am i in any obliged to only show beginner processes. That is the freedom and the problem with the internet. It is information, good and bad, buyer beware. It is not divided up into beginners, intermediate and master class sections.


380874

[Steve Demuth]

There is a lot of talk in this thread about the need for people to take responsibility for their own actions. Posting a "how to" video on youtube is an action, and taking responsibility for it means either not using, or being clear when we do use, techniques that require exceptional care or skill, are outside of best practices, or which are inherently dangerous. No law will force any of us to do that, but when we something in a broadcast informational or educational forum and we don't, we're being irresponsible.


It is not for me to determine the ability or lack thereof of the audience.

You don't have to. If you're posting on youtube, you already know that your audience includes people who are pros, and other who are rank beginners.

[Tony Joyce]

Well said, Keith. I especially agree with your last sentence.

[Simon MacGowen]

We need to teach people to be responsible for their own actions.

Hi Keith,

When it comes to shop safety, people to be responsible for their own actions should include not just the woodworkers themselves whatever their levels are but, more importantly, also those who produce instructional, informational, educational or demonstration videos, regardless of which group of woodworkers they intend to target at.

The big question thrown around here is are some of those video content makers being responsible by showing from risky to dangerous to unsafe to reckless shop procedures, knowing that their audience could be any one? Some probably think so; some -- including me -- don't.

As far as I see it, no one is policing or is interested in policing the internet or video contents (this isn't China or North Korea). Yet, nothing is wrong when one expresses one's disapproval of such irresponsible contents. Of course, it would be naive for anyone to think that their expressed words of disapproval would result in behavioral changes from those who disagree with them.

Simon

[Brian Holcombe]

Are you guys serious that you think the internet should be policed for proper safety procedures? According to what safety board?

Please wait here while I delete anything and everything I’ve ever contributed to the internet. I’m sure everyone else who doesn’t have a team of lawyers would follow.

[Edwin Santos]

I'm not an attorney, and maybe a tort lawyer among us could answer this hypothetical question. What if someone put up YouTube videos that showcased something dangerous without any disclaimers or warnings. Then let's say a viewer goes out to imitate what they've seen on the video and hurts themselves which they would not have done but for the video that prompted them. Could a lawsuit come out of the incident that attaches any liability to the person who made and uploaded the video? Or maybe liability for YouTube itself because it was the medium?

I'm thinking it may because otherwise why would stunt oriented TV shows be riddled with disclaimers and warnings if they don't need to? I'm not trying to argue one side or another but I think it's an interesting question. I tried googling the question and all I can find is information about copyright and fair use issues. I'd love to hear from someone who would know.

Either way, if you're a viewer, buyer beware and make your own decision about whether what you see is something you should try, and if you're a video maker I would think having a lead-in disclaimer like Norm did on his TV show is a good move. I don't think anyone is going to start policing the internet and it will continue to be consume at your own risk. By the way Mark H., that's some beautiful joinery!

Edwin

[Edwin Santos]

The alternative is that you can form an organization to get the government to enforce safety rules and regulations in home shops. In time we will all have to register our table saws and ultimately the government will try to take them away :)


Please sir, let's keep politics out of this or you might be paid a visit by the moderators :D

[Doug Hepler]

Mark Hennebury wrote:"You cannot explain how someone acting in such a "Recklessly Dangerous" manner can survive a day in the workshop without a serious accident, let alone decades it is just not feasible, it defies logic and the laws of nature....unless you are wrong.
So i don't expect you to answer the question."

Mark,

I am happy to exceed your expectation that nobody will answer directly. Here is a direct answer. I take safety very seriously, having injured myself twice because of my cowboy attitude -- . Simon MacGowan referred to Russian Roulette, Roulette and games of chance are actually a decent metaphor. We all have a chance of injury every time we use a tool, drive a car, etc. The objective is to control the odds in our favor (1) by arranging our shops in a safe manner, e.g., good lighting, no slippery trippery things on the floor, etc (strategy) and (2) by using properly equipped tools in a safe manner (tactics). Of course you can do dangerous things without being injured, but why not work safely to reduce the odds that your number will come up?

Your argument that you and lots of other cowboy woodworkers violate the rules without injury demonstrates a serious lack of understanding of statistics and probability. You might have heard that flipping a "head" on a coin flip -- or even flipping three or five or ten heads in a row tells you NOTHING about the next coin flip. Furthermore, changes in safety strategy changes the odds tremendously.

[I am reminded] of the story about the thanksgiving turkey. He was having a chat with the other turkeys in the flock. He was saying that humans are great. They must love turkeys because they feed them, water them, house them, keep them safe from coyotes. What a great deal. He and his turkey friends had many days of experience to prove their point. Then, one day in late October, the strategic environment changed and his predictions turned out to be tragically false. He was using the past to predict the future without really understanding the environment he was working in.

Doug.

[Simon MacGowen]

I'm not an attorney, and maybe a tort lawyer among us could answer this hypothetical question. What if someone put up YouTube videos that showcased something dangerous without any disclaimers or warnings. Then let's say a viewer goes out to imitate what they've seen on the video and hurts themselves which they would not have done but for the video that prompted them. Could a lawsuit come out of the incident that attaches any liability to the person who made and uploaded the video? Or maybe liability for YouTube itself because it was the medium?

I'm thinking it may because otherwise why would stunt oriented TV shows be riddled with disclaimers and warnings if they don't need to? I'm not trying to argue one side or another but I think it's an interesting question. I tried googling the question and all I can find is information about copyright and fair use issues. I'd love to hear from someone who would know.

Either way, if you're a viewer, buyer beware and make your own decision about whether what you see is something you should try, and if you're a video maker I would think having a lead-in disclaimer like Norm did on his TV show is a good move. I don't think anyone is going to start policing the internet and it will continue to be consume at your own risk. By the way Mark H., that's some beautiful joinery!

Edwin

I asked a similar question in an old, related thread, but no one seemed to have offered a legal opinion to it.

Simon

[Mark Hennebury]

Hi Doug,

I too take my safety very seriously.
Russian Roulette does not apply to this at all; Russian roulette is a game of chance, your knowledge or planning or how you play has absolutely no bearing on the outcome.
I don't play games.
My work is not about chance. It is based on knowledge and planning.
I work very safely.

The turkey in your story is much like the guy playing Russian roulette in Simons story; has no control over the outcome.

And if i teach someone to work like me they too will do nice work, and learn to understand their machines, and will learn to work on them with respect not fear, and at the end of the day they will still be able count to ten.

There was once a foreman in a shop that i once worked, criticized the way that i used the jointer, he could count to all the way up to nine and a half.

[Lee Schierer]

Guys, keep it civil or this thread will end or disappear...

[Pat Barry]

The ONLY thing I saw that made me cringe was the vertical cuts on the table saw but even there he had the piece well supported although I would definitely look for another way to do that. The miter saw cutting was well supported and I think people are making that out to be much worse than it really was - take another look. Drilling the holes was NOT that big a deal. I see lots of overreaction in these responses.

[andy bessette]

...I too take my safety very seriously...

I really like this simple statement. It is why I will never relinquish my safety to the designer or manufacturer of safety gismos and gadgets (or to their proponents). I personally take responsibility for my own safety. And I highly recommend it to others.

[John Kee]

Great video I enjoyed watching his build and techniques and completely agree with Marks comments. I saw nothing that was unsafe and his board control showed he knew what was happening and how to control it. He was using an anti kickback blade. Board pinching is a common occurrence in woodworking and understanding how counteract it is a valuable lesson. If you don't feel safe with a tool you are using you should be using it, don't criticize because of your own incompetence. The comments about drilling with a forstner and not clamping just show an ignorance of how sharp tools cut. Most of the criticisms are quite humorous to those make a living do this. I've watched a lot of videos of true wack and hacks and this guy isn't one of them. Good comments Brian on police, we are policed and controlled enough in our LOL free society.

[Martin Wasner]

Take a deep breath. Unclench your glutes. Watch how experienced professionals do it.

I wasn't able to watch the whole thing, but that pretty much sums it up for me.

[Glen Gunderson]

You cannot explain how someone acting in such a "Recklessly Dangerous" manner can survive a day in the workshop without a serious accident, let alone decades it is just not feasible, it defies logic and the laws of nature....unless you are wrong.
So i don't expect you to answer the question.

Of course you can. I think we can all agree that driving drunk is reckless and dangerous, but based on the statistics only about 1 in 550 instances of intoxicated driving results in an incident that causes injury. So someone could drive drunk once a month for 40 years, and statistically they'd be less than 50% likely to ever have an incident that injures themselves or someone else. Does someone driving drunk for decades and not hurting anyone mean that it being considered dangerous "defies logic and the laws of nature"? Of course not, it's in line with the statistics. It doesn't mean it's not risky behavior though.

So the question is what constitutes unsafe practices in woodworking. That's up for everyone to decide for themselves. But the fact that a person does something for years or decades and doesn't get hurt from it doesn't mean it's necessarily safe. I have a lifetime of driving where I've never been in a situation where I needed my seatbelt to prevent injury, but does that mean if I'd never worn one that I wouldn't be taking an unneeded risk? Not at all.

[Mark Hennebury]

Of course you can. I think we can all agree that driving drunk is reckless and dangerous, but based on the statistics only about 1 in 550 instances of intoxicated driving results in an incident that causes injury. So someone could drive drunk once a month for 40 years, and statistically they'd be less than 50% likely to ever have an incident that injures themselves or someone else. Does someone driving drunk for decades and not hurting anyone mean that it being considered dangerous "defies logic and the laws of nature"? Of course not, it's in line with the statistics. It doesn't mean it's not risky behavior though.

So the question is what constitutes unsafe practices in woodworking. That's up for everyone to decide for themselves. But the fact that a person does something for years or decades and doesn't get hurt from it doesn't mean it's necessarily safe. I have a lifetime of driving where I've never been in a situation where I needed my seatbelt to prevent injury, but does that mean if I'd never worn one that I wouldn't be taking an unneeded risk? Not at all.

Okay so more non relevant metaphors just like the Russian Roulette and talking turkeys, now we have driving drunk and not wearing seatbelts.

Can you not stick with the topic of discussion.

Driving drunk, is operating with diminished control, awareness and reaction. That is Not how i work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not in any way shape or form!


There may be no advantage not to wear a seatbelt, but there are reasons to remove guards. There is the difference.
I wear safety glasses, because they don't impede my work, and not wearing them would be taking an unnecessary risk. I don't take unnecessary risks.

I work without guards on certain machines and certain operations, because they are an impediment to safe operation, in my opinion.
It appears from the admissions of many of the posters here that they are afraid of their machines, and lack confidence in their ability to work safely with them, which to me is dangerous.

I take calculated risks and have developed safe operating procedures based on the risks.
The process that i follow has allowed me to work safely for many decades.
I am not immune to making mistakes, so far my mistakes have resulted in only minor injuries.
My mistakes have been the result of deviating from procedure. That is a weakness of character not process.



My point of joining this discussion was in response to the abusive attack launched against the man in the video, because I and many others work in similar ways to him, and by attacking him you are attacking all of us that work like him.
I will work as i see fit.
I will make and post videos of how i work if i wish.
I will not be silent when i see people attacking others.
I will defend my right to decide how i choose to work.
I will make an attempt to educate people who make rude ignorant and bias comments, by offering an alternate point of view and endeavor to back it up with facts, even though i doubt anyone will let the facts sway them.

You are welcome to work whatever way you wish.
You are welcome to believe me to be dangerous and reckless if you wish.
You are not welcome to be rude and abusive or publicly disparage me or anyone else for the way that we work.

[Glen Gunderson]

Okay so more non relevant metaphors just like the Russian Roulette and talking turkeys, now we have driving drunk and not wearing seatbelts.

Can you not stick with the topic of discussion.

Driving drunk, is operating with diminished control, awareness and reaction. That is Not how i work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not in any way shape or form!



Well obviously I wasn't conflating driving while intoxicated with woodworking. I was merely pointing out that even with something that is universally considered as risky behavior, one's chance of causing injury is still fairly small on an individual level and a person could have a lifetime of doing such activity and never have suffered for it.

In the post I quoted, you suggested that someone going a period of time without hurting themselves necessarily means that what they're doing is safe. You said it "defies logic and the laws of nature" that someone could work in an unsafe manner and not suffer serious injury, therefore they're not being unsafe. That is simply not true though.




There may be no advantage not to wear a seatbelt, but there are reasons to remove guards. There is the difference.
I wear safety glasses, because they don't impede my work, and not wearing them would be taking an unnecessary risk. I don't take unnecessary risks.


And yet it took until the 1990s before even half of people bothered to wear seatbelts. They had all kind of excuses about why they didn't use them. People used to complain that they were uncomfortable, they wrinkled their clothes, or that they were an impediment to getting out of the vehicle in a dangerous situation. They were safe drivers who'd driven for decades without getting injured, so they were being safe.



I work without guards on certain machines and certain operations, because they are an impediment to safe operation, in my opinion.
It appears from the admissions of many of the posters here that they are afraid of their machines, and lack confidence in their ability to work safely with them, which to me is dangerous.

I take calculated risks and have developed safe operating procedures based on the risks.
The process that i follow has allowed me to work safely for many decades.
I am not immune to making mistakes, so far my mistakes have resulted in only minor injuries.
My mistakes have been the result of deviating from procedure. That is a weakness of character not process.



My point of joining this discussion was in response to the abusive attack launched against the man in the video, because I and many others work in similar ways to him, and by attacking him you are attacking all of us that work like him.
I will work as i see fit.
I will make and post videos of how i work if i wish.
I will not be silent when i see people attacking others.
I will defend my right to decide how i choose to work.
I will make an attempt to educate people who make rude ignorant and bias comments, by offering an alternate point of view and endeavor to back it up with facts, even though i doubt anyone will let the facts sway them.

You are welcome to work whatever way you wish.
You are welcome to believe me to be dangerous and reckless if you wish.
You are not welcome to be rude and abusive or publicly disparage me or anyone else for the way that we work.

Everyone is responsible for their own safety and everyone has different standards and that's fine. But don't complain about criticism of someone's technique (or an "abusive attack" as you say) while simultaneously belittling people who make safety a big priority by saying they are "afraid of their machines" or "lack confidence in their abilities". That's no more true than suggesting that someone who wears a seatbelt lacks confidence in their driving.

[Mark Hennebury]

Well obviously I wasn't conflating driving while intoxicated with woodworking. I was merely pointing out that even with something that is universally considered as risky behavior, one's chance of causing injury is still fairly small on an individual level and a person could have a lifetime of doing such activity and never have suffered for it.

In the post I quoted, you suggested that someone going a period of time without hurting themselves necessarily means that what they're doing is safe. You said it "defies logic and the laws of nature" that someone could work in an unsafe manner and not suffer serious injury, therefore they're not being unsafe. That is simply not true though.




And yet it took until the 1990s before even half of people bothered to wear seatbelts. They had all kind of excuses about why they didn't use them. People used to complain that they were uncomfortable, they wrinkled their clothes, or that they were an impediment to getting out of the vehicle in a dangerous situation. They were safe drivers who'd driven for decades without getting injured, so they were being safe.




Everyone is responsible for their own safety and everyone has different standards and that's fine. But don't complain about criticism of someone's technique (or an "abusive attack" as you say) while simultaneously belittling people who make safety a big priority by saying they are "afraid of their machines" or "lack confidence in their abilities". That's no more true than suggesting that someone who wears a seatbelt lacks confidence in their driving.

The initial posts in this thread are an abusive attack.

I did not in any way belittle anyone, I just made an observation; several of the posters expressed fear watching the guy in the video performing operations. So if you wish to discuss what i said that's fine with me, but don't make up stuff.

I make safety a big priority, as does the guy in the video, our idea of safety differs from some others that's all.

There we go; back to the metaphors again. Seatbelt??????????

I will gladly discuss the topic if you stay on topic.

[mreza Salav]

Well obviously I wasn't conflating driving while intoxicated with woodworking. I was merely pointing out that even with something that is universally considered as risky behavior, one's chance of causing injury is still fairly small on an individual level and a person could have a lifetime of doing such activity and never have suffered for it.

In the post I quoted, you suggested that someone going a period of time without hurting themselves necessarily means that what they're doing is safe. You said it "defies logic and the laws of nature" that someone could work in an unsafe manner and not suffer serious injury, therefore they're not being unsafe. That is simply not true though.




And yet it took until the 1990s before even half of people bothered to wear seatbelts. They had all kind of excuses about why they didn't use them. People used to complain that they were uncomfortable, they wrinkled their clothes, or that they were an impediment to getting out of the vehicle in a dangerous situation. They were safe drivers who'd driven for decades without getting injured, so they were being safe.




Everyone is responsible for their own safety and everyone has different standards and that's fine. But don't complain about criticism of someone's technique (or an "abusive attack" as you say) while simultaneously belittling people who make safety a big priority by saying they are "afraid of their machines" or "lack confidence in their abilities". That's no more true than suggesting that someone who wears a seatbelt lacks confidence in their driving.

very well said.

[David Kumm]

Those of use in the hobby world also need to remember that the pros here ( or in any vocation ) do things the rest of us shouldn't even think about. They have a much higher skill set and need to make money in an often thin margin business. I can take my car to a test track but I won't make 2/3 the time or speed a pro driver will. He is likely more safe at 150 mph than I am at 100. He also knows the limitations of his machine which is often lacking by the hobby crowd. Some of the stuff in the video is scary but obvious. I see posts and threads where people use cheap light duty machines in ways that might look safe, but way exceed the capability of the design. The pro guys here add immeasurable value to the forum to help those of us who could never pay the bills given our speed and efficiency- even if we do nice work. I've seen enough of Mark's work, both wood and metal to know he is about 100 levels above me. Even if some of the video makes me cringe, I appreciate the perspective of Mark, Martin, and others in the business. Dave

[James Pallas]

I see many concerns involving all levels of woodworkers. What someone may be able to do safely others should not try. There is a video out of one of the best woodworkers around cutting twin tenons on a table saw verticle with a back up block. I saw no criticism of that one. I have been in shops with the radio or even a tv turned up so loud you could not have heard the table saw when it started to bind. You hear the old saying of guard removed for clarity when it was never installed to begin with. Do you put on eye protection when chopping mortises with your steel Japanese chisel hitting the edge of a steel ring on your chisel? And just for fun if your a great driver and never had an accident does that qualify you to drive Indy cars? Yet you can go to the big box store and buy a table saw read the directions, or maybe not, and you are good to go. If you cut off your fingers you can always sue. All this talk makes little sense to me.
Jim

[Doug Hepler]

Lee, Prashun, Mods in General

One of the reasons I use and support SMC is the lack of personal venom, flaming, etc compared to other forums. In general you do a good job in keeping the tone above all that. Thank you for editing my post. I did not intend it to be personally insulting to the person I was addressing, simply to disagree with him strongly. If you think I crossed the line, I apologize.

All the best.

Doug

[Simon MacGowen]

Even if some of the video makes me cringe, I appreciate the perspective of Mark, Martin, and others in the business. Dave

I appreciate the perspective of many of those who expressed their concerns about the safety aspects of the video posted in this thread which I started. None of them intends to police or is interested in, as far as I am concerned, policing anything. It is totally unfair for anyone to suggest that expressing objections and opinions against the unsafe shop behavior seen in the video is an act of policing. Policing what and under what, if not whose, authority?

So when a view is not what you want to hear, it makes those who share the views a dictator? A police chief? Is that what this Forum is all about: Policing vs not policing? We need not apologize for pointing out any unsafe shop practices and I don't care who is demonstrating them. Be him or her woodworking for a living, producing video contents for fun or for money or for sharing, or just doing woodworking as a hobby. Unsafe shop routines are unsafe shop routines. Period.

Simon

[Prashun Patel]

Thread re-opened because a few enjoyed the debate. Keep comments non-personal.

[Pat Barry]

Woodworking, especially with power tools has some inherent danger. Each situation is its own potential safety risk. Each individual needs to make his own decisions on how they will accomplish each step of the process and should assess what could go wrong and determine how they can manage the risks. Learning from others is important to finding better and safer ways to operate the equipment and perform the task at hand. Calling someone an idiot or moron for doing something that is apparently umsafe doesn't help anyone. Suggesting a better or safer method or approach does if it is descriptive enough to be understood. I'd like to see alternatives presented more frequently as there is always a potentially better or safer way to do many things.

[Brian Holcombe]

Completely agree with Pat and would be interested to see the discussion move in that direction.

[Martin Wasner]

Thread re-opened because a few enjoyed the debate. Keep comments non-personal.

Thank you, I didn't think it deserved to be closed




So this has been prevelant for quite a while, but has really ramped up lately. What is the deal with the virtue signaling of the "I'm safer than you" crowd?

[Dan Friedrichs]

So this has been prevelant for quite a while, but has really ramped up lately. What is the deal with the virtue signaling of the "I'm safer than you" crowd?

I suspect there is an underlying discomfort about the economic realities of professional woodworking (or other similar work) that is feeding a need to signal "I'm not part of [that group]". Hobbyists (or those living in countries with stronger worker safety protections - like Canada) feel that safety is paramount and non-negotiable, while people trying to make a living (particularly self-employed people) are more willing to acknowledge that the poor state of safety technology (or the cost thereof) means small risks need to be taken to be successful.

The ideal solution would be less-invasive, more workable, lower-cost safety technologies.

[Brian Holcombe]

I suspect there is an underlying discomfort about the economic realities of professional woodworking (or other similar work) that is feeding a need to signal "I'm not part of [that group]". Hobbyists (or those living in countries with stronger worker safety protections - like Canada) feel that safety is paramount and non-negotiable, while people trying to make a living (particularly self-employed people) are more willing to acknowledge that the poor state of safety technology (or the cost thereof) means small risks need to be taken to be successful.

The ideal solution would be less-invasive, more workable, lower-cost safety technologies.

I recall a thread on shapers lately where professionals commented on best practice and which guarding they preferred for shaping curves. This was in reply to a hobbyist who had a close call (iirc).
Professionals are an important resource in this respect as many who are self employed realize that time away from work means considerable financial stress and possible loss of orders.

[Edwin Santos]

Thank you, I didn't think it deserved to be closed

So this has been prevelant for quite a while, but has really ramped up lately. What is the deal with the virtue signaling of the "I'm safer than you" crowd?

Yes, thank you for re-opening the thread. Yes there have been a few inflammatory exchanges, but there have also been some interesting and educational insights in this discussion.

For my part, I've re-watched the video with some consideration for the opposing points of view, and making an effort to ignore those practices that made me wince the first time, I'd say he's definitely a talented builder. His woodworking construction techniques are sound and some are downright clever.

Martin, I don't think safety is a virtue as such, but I see no downside to working a little safer and demonstrating the same. At worst, it takes a small amount of additional time.
Maybe we would all agree on some simple practices. For example just keeping hands outside the distance of the table saw throat insert when the blade is spinning. That was the firm rule in the last pro shop where I worked for someone else. He said it was the reason the inserts are red.
Is a more safety oriented pro shop any less professional than a less safety oriented pro shop?

Edwin

[Frederick Skelly]

Professionals are an important resource in this respect as many who are self employed realize that time away from work means considerable financial stress and possible loss of orders.

+1 Well said Brian.
+2 for moving this thread move in the direction Pat Barry suggested.

Fred

[andy bessette]

...Maybe we would all agree on some simple practices. For example just keeping hands outside the distance of the table saw throat insert when the blade is spinning...

No. But how about the simple practice of never touching the blade while it is spinning?

[peter gagliardi]

Safe and practical for people who essentially live over a tablesaw, or other woodworking tool for 8-12 hours a day every day for a living, is quite different than a hobbiest who might see an hour or two a week, on a very busy week.

Those that do it for a living are balancing safety, and livelihood every minute of every day.

If there is anyone that CANNOT afford to get hurt, it is the self employed 1 man show.

There was nothing shown that was very or extremely dangerous to a seasoned person. Could he have stopped and rigged up a clamp for every single setup, yes. BUT, we would still be watching that video a week from now.

As a full time woodworker, and not, say, a full time logger, or deep sea fisherman, there is one thing I have learned.- We don't know, what we don't know, and sometimes what we don't know looks dangerous- because we don't have the experience.

Different levels of experience, equates to different levels of tool usage.

I could not do 25 years ago, with the tools I have, what I can do today.
I have lived with them, learned from them, and yes used them in ways I might never have thought of back then.
However, I do think as a whole, that I probably work safer and smarter than I did.
Why? Because I have the experience to do so, even though I can calculate and do jobs that at one point were risky for my level of expertise, but now I have a keener awareness of the minute little details that make a process safe to perform.

[Keith Outten]

Most YouTube videos are created by people who are interested in showing their techniques to others. They are not intended to be training videos. You have to accept this as fact or it will drive you crazy because you cannot police the unbelievable volume of videos that YouTube hosts. You have the right to disagree with anyone but you don't have the right to infringe on anyone else's point of view.

Its been said several times in this thread "You must be responsible for your own safety", this is something you NEVER delegate to anyone for any reason. I have been telling both of my daughters this since they were old enough to comprehend a sentence. You should automatically know when you lack the necessary knowledge or skills to perform a particular action, if not you are bound to make mistakes and some of them will probably be very serious.

As your friend and host I ask everyone to please keep the conversation friendly so this thread can remain open for everyone to participate and hopefully learn something valuable.

[Glen Gunderson]

No. But how about the simple practice of never touching the blade while it is spinning?

I'm not sure I see the point in this kind of post. I don't know if you're just trying to be funny, or if you honestly believe that everyone who suffers a table saw injury just didn't bother to not want to touch a spinning blade.

[andy bessette]

...everyone who suffers a table saw injury just didn't bother to not want to touch a spinning blade.

Clearly everyone who is injured by a spinning saw blade simply did not heed rule #1: "Thou shalt not touch spinning saw blades."

[Brian Holcombe]

Edwin,

Martin posted a video not long ago on making a cabinet door. I noticed the shop is super clean, well lit, proper dust collection, proper guarding, correctly functioning machines, clear passageways and safe procedures.

I’m certain that did not all come together by accident.

The point these guys are making and how I interpret it is that safety starts with getting your head in the game and being aware of what’s going on. I didn’t see anyone suggesting to remove the guarding, simply stating that they have in some circumstances and would like not to be condemned for it.

There has been long conversations on this board about SUVamatic and Aigner and it is mainly led by professionals.

[Edwin Santos]

Hi,
At the risk of geeking out on safety, in response to Pat's suggestion, I'd like to present two technique I use to keep my hands further away from the spinning blade when cutting a small part like the guy was doing in the video on his table saw with a small sled.

Photo 1 shows a small part being held with my hands, this is what I choose not to do and do not recommend to others (although I understand many pull it off successfully every day).
Photo 2 is what I do most of the time which is a stick holder shaped at the end with some sandpaper glued on for grip. The key to this technique is the other block which has to be larger than the piece you're cutting, so the pressure will be levered at the tip of the stick where you want it. This technique creates a kind of vise and is surprisingly strong. I use it at the miter saw all the time.
Photo 3 is what I do if the stick will not work which is to use a fat pencil with the eraser tip as an 11th finger to hold the workpiece. These fat pencils are what they give kids in kindergarten when they are learning how to write. I keep one with a magnet at every cutting machine where it's always handy. Incidentally, I don't have a Sawstop but it occurs to me that the metal ferrule on the pencil could trip it if it were struck. To avoid this I would maybe fashion an alternative with no metal.

I hope these ideas are constructive for someone. I'd like to think there is very little additional time (as in none) taken for utilizing these precautions in exchange for greater safety odds. There are lots of other methods, and I hope to learn some here if others are posted. If you disagree, go ahead, but please resist mocking me and preserve what little self-esteem the house full of women here have left me.
Edwin

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[Marshall Harrison]

Most YouTube videos are created by people who are interested in showing their techniques to others. They are not intended to be training videos. You have to accept this as fact or it will drive you crazy because you cannot police the unbelievable volume of videos that YouTube hosts. You have the right to disagree with anyone but you don't have the right to infringe on anyone else's point of view.

Its been said several times in this thread "You must be responsible for your own safety", this is something you NEVER delegate to anyone for any reason. I have been telling both of my daughters this since they were old enough to comprehend a sentence. You should automatically know when you lack the necessary knowledge or skills to perform a particular action, if not you are bound to make mistakes and some of them will probably be very serious.

As your friend and host I ask everyone to please keep the conversation friendly so this thread can remain open for everyone to participate and hopefully learn something valuable.

I can agree. But the salient point here is that when newbies recognize that they turn to Youtube to lear how to do it and can easily pick the wrong person to learn from. How can we as a community prevent that? Do we have a responsibility to "look out for" those newbies?

[Edwin Santos]

Edwin,

Martin posted a video not long ago on making a cabinet door. I noticed the shop is super clean, well lit, proper dust collection, proper guarding, correctly functioning machines, clear passageways and safe procedures.

I’m certain that did not all come together by accident.

The point these guys are making and how I interpret it is that safety starts with getting your head in the game and being aware of what’s going on. I didn’t see anyone suggesting to remove the guarding, simply stating that they have in some circumstances and would like not to be condemned for it.

There has been long conversations on this board about SUVamatic and Aigner and it is mainly led by professionals.

Brian, just to be clear, I'm a big fan of Martin and always perk up and pay attention to his posts.
In fact, there are only a handful here for whom I might be guilty of being a bigger fanboy, and you're one.

Edwin,

[Brian Holcombe]

Brian, just to be clear, I'm a big fan of Martin and always perk up and pay attention to his posts.
In fact, there are only a handful here for whom I might be guilty of being a bigger fanboy, and you're one.

Edwin,

Thanks Edwin, much appreciated.

In any case, I appreciate your having taken the leap with photos and documentation on your approach with crosscutting small parts. I dont use a table saw, so I'll leave others to comment.

I'll likely do the same for my jointer later today and possibly bandsaw.

I'm a bit of a safety nut, personally. I raced cars and saw a few really horrible but preventable accidents and so when I was able to put theory to practice I added many things to my race car that actually I like for the workshop as well. One of them 'the big red button'. Or the 'oh-no' button. I gained a reflex racing which was that if I hear something wrong; kill the motor and investigate. Same for the workshop; hear something kill the machine and investigate.

[Frederick Skelly]

Hi,
At the risk of geeking out on safety, in response to Pat's suggestion, I'd like to present two technique I use to keep my hands further away from the spinning blade when cutting a small part like the guy was doing in the video on his table saw with a small sled.

Photo 1 shows a small part being held with my hands, this is what I choose not to do and do not recommend to others.
Photo 2 is what I do most of the time which is a stick holder shaped at the end with some sandpaper glued on for grip. The key to this technique is the other block which has to be larger than the piece you're cutting, so the pressure will be levered at the tip of the stick where you want it. This technique creates a kind of vise and is surprisingly strong. I use it at the miter saw all the time.
Photo 3 is what I do if the stick will not work which is to use a fat pencil with the eraser tip as an 11th finger to hold the workpiece. These fat pencils are what they give kids in kindergarten when they are learning how to write. I keep one with a magnet at every cutting machine where it's always handy. Incidentally, I don't have a Sawstop but it occurs to me that the metal ferrule on the pencil could trip it if it were struck. To avoid this I would maybe fashion an alternative with no metal.

I hope these ideas are constructive for someone. I'd like to think there is very little additional time (as in none) taken for utilizing these precautions in exchange for greater safety odds. There are lots of other methods, and I hope to learn some here if others are posted. If you disagree, go ahead, but please resist mocking me and preserve what little self-esteem the house full of women here have left me.

Thanks Edwin. I didn't know of this technique, but it sure looks safer to me. It reminds me of the "10 million dollar Stick (https://www.fastcap.com/product/10-million-dollar-stick?cat=3)" I bought recently and find useful.

I'd add a 4th option to making the cut your pictures show: use a hand saw, like a Dozuki or a Backsaw. For me, that works very well. For others, YMMV.

Fred

[andy bessette]

...Photo 3 is what I do if the stick will not work which is to use a fat pencil with the eraser tip as an 11th finger to hold the workpiece...
381035

That looks much more dangerous to me than the method shown in the first photo, as the workpiece is not being held firmly enough. I would never recommend this, especially to a beginner.

[brent stanley]

I'm frankly surprised at how long these discussions go on. I think people need to think more about statistics, probability, risk and human nature and not be so inclined to throw out general ideas because they have an example of where the generality doesn't work. There are occasions where people survive falling out of airplanes without parachutes, but I don't think that should be used as support for any argument that parachutes are for wussy, safety nutbars.

We all know there are plenty of examples of people using tablesaws without incident with no guards, and employing subpar techniques just like people die in their late 90's from being hit by a truck even though they smoked a pack a day since they were 14. We need to understand that both human beings and wood are not perfect, nor are they perfectly predictable. In order to be able to accurately predict a future event (or a non-event), every aspect of the situation has to be 100% known and predictable. In the act of cutting a piece of wood on a tablesaw, the wood is not 100% known or predictable, the human is not 100% predictable either especially when you consider the huge variety of outside influences that may unpredictably affect the person. All the training and experience in the world will NOT make a human, inhumanly perfect.....I don't care how awesome you think you are. Additional guarding and better techniques are there to deal with anything that may happen from imperfections in wood, training and humans.

So where does that leave us? Well, there is information available out there to people that shows them how to mill wood to the same specs as produced in the video with much safer techniques. It won't be 100% safe we should remind people, but safer is something some people may like. The unfortunate thing is, people do not know what they do not know, and newbies may look at techniques employed by someone who appears very experienced and assume they are safe techniques. That's just they way people are. So I know a lot of people just say "It's their own stupid fault for not training themselves properly! Serves them right for cutting their fingers off! I don't want to change what I do to babysit idiots!". And while I get that, I also think it would be unfortunate if people hurt themselves even if it's a product of their own ignorance. Look at the big picture...these are probably good people with families and indifference to their being hurt is just not cool especially when the answer is really easy. So, if you want to make a video showing imperfect techniques, why not just mention they are not perfect and link to the videos out there that show proper techniques or alternative approaches to the same milling job? How hard is that I rhetorically ask? I really don't care what choices people make as long as they are informed decisions, and I think it's a small effort to point people towards better information.

My 2 cents,

B

[Martin Wasner]

No. But how about the simple practice of never touching the blade while it is spinning?


Even while not spinning is a good plan. I sliced the crap out of my thumb buffing out the top of my dado saw a few weeks ago. Stupid is, as stupid does.

[Glen Gunderson]

I always like Sam Maloof's approach when demonstrating technique to other woodworkers. He knew some of his methods (particularly his free hand shaping on the bandsaw) were dangerous. He made it clear that he started doing it when he didn't know any better, that is was a potentially dangerous method of work, but that he still used it because he felt he was experienced and skilled enough to do it and it was the best way to handle the job. He showed a technique, outlined the dangers, and cautioned others to consider other methods to achieve the same goal.

I think more people making instructional material for money (which is essentially what people making YouTube videos are doing) would do well to follow his example and his self awareness.

[Mark Hennebury]

I'm frankly surprised at how long these discussions go on. I think people need to think more about statistics, probability, risk and human nature and not be so inclined to throw out general ideas because they have an example of where the generality doesn't work. There are occasions where people survive falling out of airplanes without parachutes, but I don't think that should be used as support for any argument that parachutes are for wussy, safety nutbars.

We all know there are plenty of examples of people using tablesaws without incident with no guards, and employing subpar techniques just like people die in their late 90's from being hit by a truck even though they smoked a pack a day since they were 14. We need to understand that both human beings and wood are not perfect, nor are they perfectly predictable. In order to be able to accurately predict a future event (or a non-event), every aspect of the situation has to be 100% known and predictable. In the act of cutting a piece of wood on a tablesaw, the wood is not 100% known or predictable, the human is not 100% predictable either especially when you consider the huge variety of outside influences that may unpredictably affect the person. All the training and experience in the world will NOT make a human, inhumanly perfect.....I don't care how awesome you think you are. Additional guarding and better techniques are there to deal with anything that may happen from imperfections in wood, training and humans.

So where does that leave us? Well, there is information available out there to people that shows them how to mill wood to the same specs as produced in the video with much safer techniques. It won't be 100% safe we should remind people, but safer is something some people may like. The unfortunate thing is, people do not know what they do not know, and newbies may look at techniques employed by someone who appears very experienced and assume they are safe techniques. That's just they way people are. So I know a lot of people just say "It's their own stupid fault for not training themselves properly! Serves them right for cutting their fingers off! I don't want to change what I do to babysit idiots!". And while I get that, I also think it would be unfortunate if people hurt themselves even if it's a product of their own ignorance. Look at the big picture...these are probably good people with families and indifference to their being hurt is just not cool especially when the answer is really easy. So, if you want to make a video showing imperfect techniques, why not just mention they are not perfect and link to the videos out there that show proper techniques or alternative approaches to the same milling job? How hard is that I rhetorically ask? I really don't care what choices people make as long as they are informed decisions, and I think it's a small effort to point people towards better information.

My 2 cents,

B

First of all the argument was never about people saying safety apparatus was for wussy, safety nutbars, quite the opposite it was about the defense of a man who was vilified for showing how he did work, because it wasn't deemed safe, by certain people.

I have been told many times in many ways during this thread that I simply don’t understand that repeating an operation x number of times without injury does not make it a “safe” operation. I beg to differ, that means that it is safe, to me.
Am I to assume that by the same “logic” that repeating a “safe” operation x number of times and getting injured each time does not mean that it is unsafe?

This logic is foreign to me.

I think people should forget about statistics and probability and think about safety operations in terms of an acceptable level of risk matched to their own level of knowledge, skill and comfort. Because after all its your fingers.

How is one to determine what is “safe” for you if not by the outcome?
I evaluate the operation and potential concerns, develop a method that I feel comfortable, and test the operation, I would make any adjustments to my process if I perceived any weakness.
Nothing is 100% safe, I work in a dangerous environment, I take calculated risks, I accept that, I am comfortable with the odds.
There are many variables, and the odds would be different for different people doing the same operation. Each must work within their own limits at any particular time in life.

If you want disclaimers on all videos, Like "don't try this at home its dangerous" I don't see any harm in that but i also don't believe that it will save anyone either. Woodworking is dangerous.

[andy bessette]

MH--good post.

[Lee Schierer]

I have been told many times in many ways during this thread that I simple don’t understand that repeating an operation x number of times without injury does not make it a “safe” operation. I beg to differ, that means that it is safe, to me.

The point you are missing is that it "appears to be safe for you" just because you've never been injured doing it that way. That doesn't make it safe. The closer your fingers or any other body part get to a moving cutting edge, the less safe it is. Have you ever sneezed unexpectedly? Have you ever flinched from a loud sound nearby? Any of those could cause a normally safe procedure by you or anyone else to become unsafe.

Wood is not a uniform material. There are hard and soft spots and even embedded debris. I've personally cut through BB's and bullets that were completely embedded in the piece of wood I was working on. With lead shot that generally is not a problem; however there is a lot of steel shot out there now which could prove disastrous when cutting with carbide blades.

You've probably never had a carbide tooth come off a blade and hit you. I have. It was a 1 in a bazillion occurrence yet it happened. There were guards in place, yet this piece of carbide found a way out of the guard and manage to hit me in the throat. The piece of wood I was cutting was quite uniform, i.e. no knots, sap pockets, wavy grain etc. The blade was fairly new and I don't recall banging it at any time. Fortunately, I wasn't seriously injured, just a minor cut.

We have people with all levels of experience reading the posts here and we need to always be aware that not everyone has our level of experience nor the quality of the tools we might own when describing how to do an operation safely.

[andy bessette]

... The closer your fingers or any other body part get to a moving cutting edge, the less safe it is...

This is simply false logic.

[Mark Hennebury]

The point you are missing is that it "appears to be safe for you" just because you've never been injured doing it that way. That doesn't make it safe. The closer your fingers or any other body part get to a moving cutting edge, the less safe it is. Have you ever sneezed unexpectedly? Have you ever flinched from a loud sound nearby? Any of those could cause a normally safe procedure by you or anyone else to become unsafe.

Wood is not a uniform material. There are hard and soft spots and even embedded debris. I've personally cut through BB's and bullets that were completely embedded in the piece of wood I was working on. With lead shot that generally is not a problem; however there is a lot of steel shot out there now which could prove disastrous when cutting with carbide blades.

You've probably never had a carbide tooth come off a blade and hit you. I have. It was a 1 in a bazillion occurrence yet it happened. There were guards in place, yet this piece of carbide found a way out of the guard and manage to hit me in the throat. The piece of wood I was cutting was quite uniform, i.e. no knots, sap pockets, wavy grain etc. The blade was fairly new and I don't recall banging it at any time. Fortunately, I wasn't seriously injured, just a minor cut.

We have people with all levels of experience reading the posts here and we need to always be aware that not everyone has our level of experience nor the quality of the tools we might own when describing how to do an operation safely.

Hi Lee,

If you spend enough time in the workshop you will be exposed to many accidents and occurrences. I have cut through a few stange objects including bullets.
I was in a friends shop once when he was ripping a piece of 1" maple when zap, for no apparent reason a carbide tooth struck him in the lip. It was a weird thing to happen and seemed without any explanation.

I have spent more time in the hospital getting crap dug out of my eyes, even though i wear safety glasses, crap still gets in.
I have had grinding wheels explode, and bandsaw blades break, and a thickness planer head exploded on me once.Lots of crap happens in the shop.
The closest i came to an accident on the jointer was in someones else's shop when a guy walking by the outfeed table of the jointer unexpectedly grabbed a board that i was dressing and pulled it, "to help me".

I don't believe that anything is "safe" that is a relative term based on many variables some unknown to us.
I work within my comfort level.
Woodworking, like most things in life involves risk.


Evaluating the risk and working within the boundaries of your skill, knowledge and comfort level is unique to each individual, and covers a wide range.

As people progress in other aspects of life, they do in woodworking; some people play sports, reach a certain level and coast for the rest of their lives comfortable at that level,
others push on to develop into Olympic athletes and do incredible feats, they take much bigger risks and face the much higher levels of danger, but they do it with a higher level of skill, knowledge, experience and comfort.
The risks are bigger, and the potential injuries for catastrophic failure are also, but so is their ability to avoid such disaster.
None of us would condemn an Olympic athlete call them reckless, or morons, yet it is obvious that they are on the edge, doing things that are extremely dangerous and scary as hell to most of us.

What is so different with woodworking?
Woodworking is dangerous because doing it can result in injury.
There are various levels of danger, as there are various levels of skill, knowledge, experience and comfort within those limits.
Some are comfortable with their fingers 4” from the blade others ¼” and they don’t break a sweat.
It is not dangerous because of proximity, It is only dangerous when you exceed your limit.

Calling someone reckless implies they are ignorant, of the dangers, inexperienced and don’t care about their safety; I seriously doubt that most experienced woodworkers fall into this category.

Some woodworkers push on, they gain knowledge and experience and take bigger risks and operate with more comfort, confidence and control in more dangerous situations.
It is obvious that there is a wide variety of levels in woodworking, operations that appear scary to one are quite normal to another.
Much can be learned from observation and rational discussion of all levels and methods of work.

I don't know that you can expect an olympic ski jumper to be responsible for an amateur trying things above their skill level. What is more usual i would guess is that an amateur will be inspired to learn.

[Mark Hennebury]

This is simply false logic.

I agree with Andy on this point.

[Mark Hennebury]

That looks much more dangerous to me than the method shown in the first photo, as the workpiece is not being held firmly enough. I would never recommend this, especially to a beginner.

I agree with Andy on this point

[Glen Gunderson]

The difference between athletes like ski jumpers and woodworkers is increasing the risk generally improves the result for the former but not for the latter. Not using a splitter and a guard on a table saw when it's feasible doesn't make you a better woodworker; it just saves you 10 seconds of time each time you don't have to remove it. It's more akin to not bothering to wear a seatbelt in car.

That and elite athletes generally use all the safety gear they can and try to mitigate the risks. There's a reason every single skier and snowboarder in a competition wears a helmet.

[Mark Hennebury]

The difference between athletes like ski jumpers and woodworkers is increasing the risk generally improves the result for the former but not for the latter. Not using a splitter and a guard on a table saw when it's feasible doesn't make you a better woodworker; it just saves you 10 seconds of time each time you don't have to remove it. It's more akin to not bothering to wear a seatbelt in car.

That and elite athletes generally use all the safety gear they can and try to mitigate the risks. There's a reason every single skier and snowboarder in a competition wears a helmet.

You are welcome to your opinions, just don't make like they are facts. You may have all of the opinions you want about why others choose to work the way they do, but they are just that, your opinions.
And a helmets wont stop you breaking your neck, back arms, legs, ribs etc.. The fact is elite athletes take and handle higher risk because the have the skills and ability to do so.
Just like elite woodworkers do.
The difference is woodworkers don't get the respect for their skills, only ridiculed for taking higher risks, unless they happen to be famous like Sam Maloof, then they get a free pass.
Sam Maloof took extreme risks, and showed them on videos, and they did not all come with the " don't do this at home folks" warning. I did not see Sam Maloof receive any of the abuse like was displayed on this thread.
Woodworkers like myself work safely regardless of your opinion. we take measures to mitigate the risks, regardless of your opinion, those are facts. That's why we can work for years in high risk situations with minimum of injuries.
What we deserve is a little respect.

[brent stanley]

First of all the argument was never about people saying safety apparatus was for wussy, safety nutbars, quite the opposite it was about the defense of a man who was vilified for showing how he did work, because it wasn't deemed safe, by certain people.

I know Mark, clearly I was exaggerating to make a point. However we shouldn't determine how we feel about something, simply because of how others react to it. It is possible to be bothered by the vilification and agree with the spirit of why people were concerned.


I have been told many times in many ways during this thread that I simply don’t understand that repeating an operation x number of times without injury does not make it a “safe” operation. I beg to differ, that means that it is safe, to me.
Am I to assume that by the same “logic” that repeating a “safe” operation x number of times and getting injured each time does not mean that it is unsafe?

This logic is foreign to me.

The logic train you are criticizing is not the one people are employing here. What is logical is that there are universally accepted safer way of doing some things, and that with a sufficiently large sample size, those practices will show their superiority in accident/injury data. Where will YOU fall in the statistic? You will never know till you have done your last cut and can compile the date, but you DO know that the level of risk is lower when you use techniques that are logically safer. Remember, a high risk of an accident, doesn't necessarily mean one will happen to you and you are correct when you say below that people need to decide on an acceptable level of risk. Since level of risk is hard to put a number on for a particular individual/task combination, why not just suggest techniques that are known to be safer?


I think people should forget about statistics and probability and think about safety operations in terms of an acceptable level of risk matched to their own level of knowledge, skill and comfort. Because after all its your fingers.

How is one to determine what is “safe” for you if not by the outcome?

So is this to suggest that you conduct an experiment with your own body to determine if something is safe or not? Wait till the outcome and then be able to look back on it (perhaps while missing body parts!) and then triumphantly say that you now know how safe it is because you've seen the outcome? You can't predict the future, and waiting till the future is too late so if you care at all, you would take advantage of all the good work that has already been done in the field and employ safer systems. If you care....if you don't then that's fine. BUT I think that's a personal decision that one should make while informed, and it's reasonable to think that leaders in the field should either demonstrate good safety practices, or make it clear when they are not. I don't think that's something that should be made law, but it would be respectful and it's really not that hard.


If you want disclaimers on all videos, Like "don't try this at home its dangerous" I don't see any harm in that but i also don't believe that it will save anyone either. Woodworking is dangerous.

I beg to differ.....when I was learning I changed my ways when people told me I was being unsafe.

[brent stanley]

The point you are missing is that it "appears to be safe for you" just because you've never been injured doing it that way. That doesn't make it safe. The closer your fingers or any other body part get to a moving cutting edge, the less safe it is. Have you ever sneezed unexpectedly? Have you ever flinched from a loud sound nearby? Any of those could cause a normally safe procedure by you or anyone else to become unsafe.

Exactly, the "appearance" of safety is very different between the well informed and the poorly informed. If someone does something and hurts themselves while knowing they don't know what they're doing...I don't have that much sympathy for them. They should have looked into better ways of doing things. If they've been lead to believe that it is safe and they hurt themselves because it really wasn't, then that would be lousy. The problem is you don't know what you don't know.

Regarding unpredictable distractions: I was working away in my shop, crosscutting something on the tablesaw with safety glasses on and all of a sudden, one of those giant wasps fell straight down and tickled my eyelashes while it landed between my safety glasses and my eyeball. In February....in Canada. Is THAT predictable? The thing must have been overwintering in the rafters and decided to start crawling around in a stupor when I turned the heat on. I don't care how tough you are, there aren't many folks who would fail to give a start when that happens.



We have people with all levels of experience reading the posts here and we need to always be aware that not everyone has our level of experience nor the quality of the tools we might own when describing how to do an operation safely.

Exactly...and it comes down to helping our fellow woodworkers make informed, risk-related decisions by giving them the whole safety picture or at least telling them when something isn't as safe as it could be.

[brent stanley]

You are welcome to your opinions, just don't make like they are facts. You may have all of the opinions you want about why others choose to work the way they do, but they are just that, your opinions.
And a helmets wont stop you breaking your neck, back arms, legs, ribs etc.. The fact is elite athletes take and handle higher risk because the have the skills and ability to do so.
Just like elite woodworkers do.
The difference is woodworkers don't get the respect for their skills, only ridiculed for taking higher risks, unless they happen to be famous like Sam Maloof, then they get a free pass.
Sam Maloof took extreme risks, and showed them on videos, and they did not all come with the " don't do this at home folks" warning. I did not see Sam Maloof receive any of the abuse like was displayed on this thread.
Woodworkers like myself work safely regardless of your opinion. we take measures to mitigate the risks, regardless of your opinion, those are facts. That's why we can work for years in high risk situations with minimum of injuries.
What we deserve is a little respect.

Mark, I think you feel the need to defend the chap in the video, but the underlying reason for what most people in this thread are saying is not concern for him or the old veterans who have a ton of experience and training, it's for the people who may end up ill-informed from watching his video. I will agree with you that attacking him is not productive, and some could have approached their concerns in more tactful ways, but I'm sure he's a big boy and can handle it.



The difference is woodworkers don't get the respect for their skills, only ridiculed for taking higher risks

While I agree there's no value in "ridiculing" some pros for taking "higher risks" I think you've just conceded that the risks are higher if guards (for example) are not used vs. if they were used. I think woodworkers would get more respect for their overall teaching competence if they told the audience how to do things safer if they insist on NOT employing the current state of the art in safety accessories and techniques.

[Joe Calhoon]

I watched a little bit of it. We don’t use standard table saws in our shop and would have approached most everything he did quite differently. With the right tools and safety gear your hands should never have to get that close to the blade. But he is using the tools he has with not terrible shop made fixtures. I used to work that way years ago without incident before I knew better and had safer machines. Most of his techniques I would not recommend for new woodworkers.

For those wanting to look at safety videos, Patrick Molzahn who runs Madison College has some good stuff for standard woodworking machines.
It’s hard to argue against safety.

[Simon MacGowen]

Sam Maloof took extreme risks, and showed them on videos, and they did not all come with the " don't do this at home folks" warning.

That is not exactly true. I can't find the video links, but I could clearly remember that Sam Maloof had warned about his unsafe bandsaw use in at least one film. Below is someone mentioning about Sam's warning in a very old Sawcreek thread (post #9):

"It's neat the way that Sam uses the bandsaw to carve, but why does he keep saying, 'don't use the bandsaw the way I do.' Is it because you might slip and put your hand into the blade? Or because the blade might catch the wood and cause a problem? or both..."

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?76866-Sam-Maloof

If I do find his recording, I will share.

Simon

[David Kumm]

On the other hand, being told NOT to do something by someone respected, admired, and even revered is almost an invitation to try it. Ask any parent how well that works. Dave

[Mark Hennebury]

That is not exactly true. I can't find the video links, but I could clearly remember that Sam Maloof had warned about his unsafe bandsaw use at least in two different films. Below is someone mentioning about Sam's warning in a very old Sawcreek thread (post #9):

"It's neat the way that Sam uses the bandsaw to carve, but why does he keep saying, 'don't use the bandsaw the way I do.' Is it because you might slip and put your hand into the blade? Or because the blade might catch the wood and cause a problem? or both..."

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?76866-Sam-Maloof

If I do find his recording, I will share.

Simon



https://youtu.be/l272IFKogHU


No tablesaw guard, and dangerous unsupported work on the bandsaw. I dont have a problem with the way Sam worked, but you should.
Sam never seemed to suffer any abuse, is it because he was famous. Sam wasn't doing home made youtube videos, he was doing TV professionally produced video, so chances are at some point someone told him to put the "don't do this at home"
Everything that was said about the guy in the video could just as easy been said of Sam Maloof if he wasn't famous. Everything that has been said to me could apply to Sam Maloof.


People work differently, and have different skill levels and different ideas of what is safe for them.
I am sorry but you won’t change my mind,
I care about my safety as much as you care about yours,
I take precautions to protect my safety just as you do yours,
I work differently than you do and I employ different safety measures than you do. My methods are different but just as effective for me.

I do not trust statistics, too many variables, too many ways to interpret or misinterpret results.

It doesn't matter if I work safely for a year or a 1000 years you will always say that I am delusional and it doesn't prove that my way is safe.
But it’s good enough for me.
What you assume is universally accepted safety methods is not actually universally accepted.
Techniques that you state are proven good safety measures are not acceptable to me.
I am fine making my own decisions on what ways are safe for me, and I am fine with you following whatever safety measures you feel work for you.

[Simon MacGowen]

On the other hand, being told NOT to do something by someone respected, admired, and even revered is almost an invitation to try it. Ask any parent how well that works. Dave

I suppose whether or not his audience would pay heed to his safety warning, Sam still had the responsibility to point out the dangerous aspect of his bandsawing techniques -- which he did.

I am not so sure about this, but he might also have warned about the way he held the router with one hand or something like that in another film. Anyone recall seeing that footage? It was a long time ago that I watched his VHS tapes.

Simon

[Mark Hennebury]

https://youtu.be/IKIoezZUK6s

[Simon MacGowen]

Found it!

Title: Sam Maloof - Woodworking Profile
The Taunton Press, 1989

This is what Sam Maloof said in the film (part 2), word for word:

From 01:55 to 02:10 -
“I recommend that you do not use the bandsaw the way I’m using it. It is very dangerous. You shouldn’t do it. Ah I do it because I didn’t know it better when I started and no one had told me I shouldn’t do it.”

I don't have the means to post the video clip which is copyrighted material.

Simon

[Mark Hennebury]

Found it!

This is what Sam Maloof said in the film word by word:

From 01:55 to 02:10 -
“I recommend that you do not use the bandsaw the way I’m using it. It is very dangerous. You shouldn’t do it. Ah I do it because I didn’t know it better when I started and no one had told me I shouldn’t do it.”

I don't have the means to post the video clip which is too big.

Simon


So do you still think of him in the same way as the guy in the video you posted.
I assume that after your quote he changed his ways once it was pointed out to him that it was dangerous.

[Edwin Santos]

Thanks Edwin. I didn't know of this technique, but it sure looks safer to me. It reminds me of the "10 million dollar Stick (https://www.fastcap.com/product/10-million-dollar-stick?cat=3)" I bought recently and find useful.

I'd add a 4th option to making the cut your pictures show: use a hand saw, like a Dozuki or a Backsaw. For me, that works very well. For others, YMMV.

Fred

Fred, that's a nice safety accessory. I hadn't seen it before, but yes, it's an improved variation on the same principle I was showing in the one photo. I can see it was primarily designed for use at a miter saw, which is good because miter saw blades with negative hook designs have a tendency to grab. This work holder keeps your hand safely away from the blade and takes no additional time to use. Might be a little long for use on a table saw sled.

Not related to your post, but I was taught it's good practice to let the miter saw blade come to a stop in the down position so the spinning blade cannot catch the workpiece or the offcut on the way up.

Another thing I do often is hold small or odd parts for cutting on a table saw sled with a temporary fence hot glued in the field of the sled. You can screw on a toggle clamp for a hold down, or just use the holding stick.
Edwin

[brent stanley]

https://youtu.be/l272IFKogHU


No tablesaw guard, and dangerous unsupported work on the bandsaw. I dont have a problem with the way Sam worked, but you should.
Sam never seemed to suffer any abuse, is it because he was famous. Sam wasn't doing home made youtube videos, he was doing TV professionally produced video, so chances are at some point someone told him to put the "don't do this at home"
Everything that was said about the guy in the video could just as easy been said of Sam Maloof if he wasn't famous. Everything that has been said to me could apply to Sam Maloof.


People work differently, and have different skill levels and different ideas of what is safe for them.
I am sorry but you won’t change my mind,
I care about my safety as much as you care about yours,
I take precautions to protect my safety just as you do yours,
I work differently than you do and I employ different safety measures than you do. My methods are different but just as effective for me.

I do not trust statistics, too many variables, too many ways to interpret or misinterpret results.

It doesn't matter if I work safely for a year or a 1000 years you will always say that I am delusional and it doesn't prove that my way is safe.
But it’s good enough for me.
What you assume is universally accepted safety methods is not actually universally accepted.
Techniques that you state are proven good safety measures are not acceptable to me.
I am fine making my own decisions on what ways are safe for me, and I am fine with you following whatever safety measures you feel work for you.

Mark I think you have erroneously concluded people here are trying to "change" YOU. You keep talking about you and your techniques, but really the conversation quickly morphed (though not entirely) into a discussion about the responsibility of YouTube personalities (and other "teachers") to at best demonstrate good techniques or at worst mention when the ones employed are inferior from a safety perspective....much like Sam Maloof did. It is only logical that excellent training and a lot of experience can lead to a safer worker. Forgetting for a minute that excellent training would include all the best guarding and techniques, it's also only pure logic that adding additional safety elements (whatever they may be) on top of this training and experience will make that individual even safer again. That's just plain logic. Yes, I agree with you that lots of experience and training can put you in one part of the bell curve such that (all things equal) you have fewer accidents per unit operation, but it will never make you inhuman and it will never mean the unpredictable will never happen to you. Guarding and superior techniques just add another safety layer. If a guard gets in the way, choose a different technique. I respect someone's right to decide that some techniques and no guarding are safe enough for them...that's just fine. But I do think that there's a social responsibility, if you're a teacher or a leader in your field making a demonstration, to tell people if what you're doing is not current state of the art with respect to safety. It takes no effort, costs nothing and causes no pain....so why not?

[Mark Hennebury]

Mark I think you have erroneously concluded people here are trying to "change" YOU. You keep talking about you and your techniques, but really the conversation quickly morphed (though not entirely) into a discussion about the responsibility of YouTube personalities (and other "teachers") to at best demonstrate good techniques or at worst mention when the ones employed are inferior from a safety perspective....much like Sam Maloof did. It is only logical that excellent training and a lot of experience can lead to a safer worker. Forgetting for a minute that excellent training would include all the best guarding and techniques, it's also only pure logic that adding additional safety elements (whatever they may be) on top of this training and experience will make that individual even safer again. That's just plain logic. Yes, I agree with you that lots of experience and training can put you in one part of the bell curve such that (all things equal) you have fewer accidents per unit operation, but it will never make you inhuman and it will never mean the unpredictable will never happen to you. Guarding and superior techniques just add another safety layer. If a guard gets in the way, choose a different technique. I respect someone's right to decide that some techniques and no guarding are safe enough for them...that's just fine. But I do think that there's a social responsibility, if you're a teacher or a leader in your field making a demonstration, to tell people if what you're doing is not current state of the art with respect to safety. It takes no effort, costs nothing and causes no pain....so why not?

I do not think that people are trying to change me at all.

I have defended myself because i work in similar ways to the guy in the video and Sam Maloof, and so do many others, and that way of working was attacked, and the man was belittled, by what i see as ignorance and arrogance.

I have tried to shed some light on how and why people choose to work that way.
I have tried to show that we are not all idiots, that actually care about our safety and work with skill and knowledge. With the hopes that people will not jump in with a mob mentality in the future, but will maybe have a little more respect and more open mind.
We on occasion work in high risk situations that we feel we understand and are capable of handling. Not 100% safe, not as safe as can be, not with all the available safety devises know to man, but to a degree of risk that we feel confident that it is within our abilities.

Maybe you should contact youtube to put a disclaimer for thier channel, might be easier.


The total number of people who use YouTube – 1,300,000,000. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute! Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day.


Many people choose to do things in their lives that can not be considered 100% safe for their own reasons, no reason to single out woodworkers.

[Steve Demuth]

I think people should forget about statistics and probability and think about safety operations in terms of an acceptable level of risk matched to their own level of knowledge, skill and comfort. Because after all its your fingers.

Mark,

Two things here that I would disagree with in the context of this thread:

1. "an acceptable level of risk" is a statement about probability and statistics, so saying we should move away from that is an oxymoron. Risk is always a probability of undesirable outcome, not an absolute certainty of undesirable outcome. So, no, repeating an operation 10 times without incident and concluding that it will never bite you isn't a valid conclusion. It should increase your confidence that your original analysis of the operation as safe was valid, but it does not provide certainty. Using "safe" techniques lowers the probability of an undesirable outcome, using "unsafe" techniques raises it. But it's always about probability.

I work in a hospital that is absolutely dedicated to patient safety. We are by any reckoning among the best in the world. Yet even entirely preventable "accidents" - things that are never intended and which in theory can only happen due to a mistake by a highly focused professional team - occur in roughly 1 of 100,000 surgeries. All of our training and practice hasn't made the probability zero, but a strict attention to following every safety practice does make it very small. (It's worth noting, that a large fraction of surgeons initially rejected the safety protocols we used to achieve those results, because they "didn't need them" and "understood their own skills and limitations well enough to know they didn't.")

2. "Because after all it's your fingers" is true only if you DON"T post it on Youtube. Once you make a "how to" video and share it with every woodworker looking for answers via a Youtube video, it's no longer just your fingers. This is the real crux of this whole thread. Taking personal responsibility for what you do means, to me at least, being aware of how it will be used by others. Youtube videos are used by people who are not expert to learn. We should all take responsibility for what we're teaching them, understanding they may not have the skills and background we do. Would you take a 15 year old aspiring woodworker into your shop and teach them that ripping a severely cupped board on a table saw resulting in binding the saw to the point of jamming, and severe burning of the cut is a good use of tools? I doubt it. I think you're much more of a pro than that. But that's what that Youtube video that started this thread is doing (among other, to me even more hair-raising, things).

[Simon MacGowen]

Photo 2 is what I do most of the time which is a stick holder shaped at the end with some sandpaper glued on for grip.

Good share.

This fellow also demos the use of a stick holder/sandpaper:

https://youtu.be/knotpj60bsk?t=23m52s

A jig may help, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djU29zn-kDU

Simon

[brent stanley]

I do not think that people are trying to change me at all.

I have defended myself because i work in similar ways to the guy in the video and Sam Maloof, and so do many others, and that way of working was attacked, and the man was belittled, by what i see as ignorance and arrogance.

I have tried to shed some light on how and why people choose to work that way.
I have tried to show that we are not all idiots, that actually care about our safety and work with skill and knowledge. With the hopes that people will not jump in with a mob mentality in the future, but will maybe have a little more respect and more open mind.
We on occasion work in high risk situations that we feel we understand and are capable of handling. Not 100% safe, not as safe as can be, not with all the available safety devises know to man, but to a degree of risk that we feel confident that it is within our abilities.

Maybe you should contact youtube to put a disclaimer for thier channel, might be easier.


The total number of people who use YouTube – 1,300,000,000. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute! Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day.


Many people choose to do things in their lives that can not be considered 100% safe for their own reasons, no reason to single out woodworkers.

Well for the record Mark (and you can verify by reviewing this thread) I didn't attack the guy. What I did say is that I don't care what decisions people make as long as they're informed decisions and they don't hurt anyone else. Why would you not want to help people make informed decisions about their safety?


Not 100% safe, not as safe as can be, not with all the available safety devises know to man,

You've essentially agreed with me that some seasoned veterans do things in ways that aren't as safe as they could be. That's fine....I don't actually care.....as long as they're not inadvertently influencing others to do the the same thing by demonstrating unsafe techniques and giving the appearance they are endorsing it.

I agree that people who choose not to employ all safety techniques should not be called idiots or vilified....it's not productive or helpful. It might be best if people assumed they knew what they were doing and knowingly accepted the risks. However it's equally as unhelpful to throw out the baby with the bathwater and dismiss the entire substance of what people say simply because you don't like their approach to saying it.

I did offer up for discussion that there may be a social responsibility to help ensure people aren't misguided by what we show them. To help them make informed decisions about safety according to THEIR standards which may be different from the person doing a video. It takes no effort and costs nothing so why not?

[Mark Hennebury]

Mark,

Two things here that I would disagree with in the context of this thread:

1. "an acceptable level of risk" is a statement about probability and statistics, so saying we should move away from that is an oxymoron. Risk is always a probability of undesirable outcome, not an absolute certainty of undesirable outcome. So, no, repeating an operation 10 times without incident and concluding that it will never bite you isn't a valid conclusion. It should increase your confidence that your original analysis of the operation as safe was valid, but it does not provide certainty. Using "safe" techniques lowers the probability of an undesirable outcome, using "unsafe" techniques raises it. But it's always about probability.

I work in a hospital that is absolutely dedicated to patient safety. We are by any reckoning among the best in the world. Yet even entirely preventable "accidents" - things that are never intended and which in theory can only happen due to a mistake by a highly focused professional team - occur in roughly 1 of 100,000 surgeries. All of our training and practice hasn't made the probability zero, but a strict attention to following every safety practice does make it very small. (It's worth noting, that a large fraction of surgeons initially rejected the safety protocols we used to achieve those results, because they "didn't need them" and "understood their own skills and limitations well enough to know they didn't.")

2. "Because after all it's your fingers" is true only if you DON"T post it on Youtube. Once you make a "how to" video and share it with every woodworker looking for answers via a Youtube video, it's no longer just your fingers. This is the real crux of this whole thread. Taking personal responsibility for what you do means, to me at least, being aware of how it will be used by others. Youtube videos are used by people who are not expert to learn. We should all take responsibility for what we're teaching them, understanding they may not have the skills and background we do. Would you take a 15 year old aspiring woodworker into your shop and teach them that ripping a severely cupped board on a table saw resulting in binding the saw to the point of jamming, and severe burning of the cut is a good use of tools? I doubt it. I think you're much more of a pro than that. But that's what that Youtube video that started this thread is doing (among other, to me even more hair-raising, things).

Steve,

I do understand that my work carries a chance of getting injured. I don't believe that i am invincible or doing an operation 10 times means i won't ever have an accident. Just like i believe that if your hospital had never had an accident in 50 years of operation you would not feel the need to "upgrade" your safety protocol. Even though your current one had worked for 50 years would not mean it would continue. But i would suggest if you had suffered several serious mishaps you might feel the need to change your methods.

No i would no let a 15 year old as you suggest, anymore than you would let a 15 year old do open heart surgery.

There are plenty of surgery videos, do they all give safety warnings to 15 years old not to try this at home.

The fact is there are billions of videos on the internet. Adults wanting to learn have a responsibility to seek out beginner training videos, children need be supervised by their parents not me.
I would never recommend an advanced practice to a beginner myself. But that does not make me responsible for adults making bad choices.
No different than an adult trying home surgery, is that your fault.

[Simon MacGowen]

???

I always refer to the shop behavior of a person. Safety is about a person's behavior.

I like what I hear on the video: Sam Maloof did not say “I recommend that you do not use the bandsaw the way I’m using it. It is very dangerous. You shouldn’t do it. Ah I do it because I AM AN ELITE WOODWORKER.”

Instead, he said: "“I recommend that you do not use the bandsaw the way I’m using it. It is very dangerous. You shouldn’t do it. Ah I do it because I didn’t know it better when I started and no one had told me I shouldn’t do it.”

Simon

[brent stanley]

In all my years woodworking and meeting tons and tons of other woodworkers, the only people with missing fingers I've ever met were experienced, high end, middle aged woodworkers and one carpenter. Probably half a dozen all together. They all said the guards were removed, they all said they were too confident, and they all said it was while they were doing something they'd done a million times before. They all said they wished they'd never taken the guards off, and hadn't gotten a false sense of confidence. Anyway, I've said my bit, I'm out. I'm going to run away now, but not with scissors in my hand. :)

B

[Marshall Harrison]

The fact is there are billions of videos on the internet. Adults wanting to learn have a responsibility to seek out beginner training videos, children need be supervised by their parents not me.
I would never recommend an advanced practice to a beginner myself. But that does not make me responsible for adults making bad choices.
No different than an adult trying home surgery, is that your fault.

You still don't get our point.

So how do "Adults wanting to learn" seek out competent beginner videos? if you don't know something and you are looking for how to do it then how do you determine if the woodworker in the video you are watching is doing something that is dangerous.

I fully support your right to do your woodworking the way you want to and commend you for your safety record. But how do we keep someone from getting hurt from copying practices that are hazardous with years of experience? That all I want to know.

My last input on this subject.

[Martin Wasner]

I watched a couple of videos on how to fly a A320 today, I think I'm going to take one for a spin

[Mark Hennebury]

You still don't get our point.

So how do "Adults wanting to learn" seek out competent beginner videos? if you don't know something and you are looking for how to do it then how do you determine if the woodworker in the video you are watching is doing something that is dangerous.

I fully support your right to do your woodworking the way you want to and commend you for your safety record. But how do we keep someone from getting hurt from copying practices that are hazardous with years of experience? That all I want to know.

My last input on this subject.

You cant.

I get your point exactly, i just don't agree with it.
You want me to be responsible for the youth of the world, to protect them from doing dangerous things that they see on the internet. A job i believe belongs to their parents.
You want me to be responsible for the adults of the world to protect them from harming themselves after copying things they see on the internet. A job i believe belongs to them.

I copy no one
I trust no one
I do not trust my self, i know only to well that your mind, does not care about the welfare of its owner, i check, i verify to the best of my ability.
I make my decisions based on my assessment.
I may do myself and injury from something i do.
it will be my fault.
I am an adult and i take full responsibility for my actions.

[Warren Lake]

Decided to stay out of this, busy with old people care and lost the old guy that taught me the most last week. He was very well respected in the cabinetmaking world. On the safety thing here you go I clicked a few you tubes after the Sam Malof post not ideal but not big deal what he is doing he has the feel for what he is doing. You tubes down the side I had to check that it truly was a jointer and not a sanding head and it is a jointer. I really cant believe im seeing this. No matter what any of us have done over the years old school guys it wont come close to this.


381229

[mreza Salav]

Warren, that's hard to watch. The poor guy doesn't know any better. And that includes not knowing how to use tools properly...

[Simon MacGowen]

381229

S-P-E-E-C-H-L-E-S-S.

Simon

[Tony Joyce]

Woodworkers like myself work safely regardless of your opinion. we take measures to mitigate the risks, regardless of your opinion, those are facts. That's why we can work for years in high risk situations with minimum of injuries.
What we deserve is a little respect.

How true. I don't engage in lots of discussions, because I'm tired of being talked down to.

[Martin Wasner]

I don't engage in lots of discussions, because I'm tired of being talked down to.

I'm pretty sure that's why so many of the professionals have came and went over the years here. We need our own sandbox. Woodweb has the worst format for a forum

[Peter Kelly]

It's worked great since 1998. Why mess with perfection.

[peter gagliardi]

Mark, I wholeheartedly agree with you, on all points.
I certainly haven't found a pro forum besides woodweb myself, and I just found it about a year ago.

[Simon MacGowen]

How true. I don't engage in lots of discussions, because I'm tired of being talked down to.

I despise any bullying or disrespectful remarks in any forums. I don't talk down to anyone in any of my posts (which anyone can examine in case of doubt), but I look down on any posts (even if I am not part of them) which use insulting or uncivil words like stupid, foolish, etc. I believe it is a moderator's job to delete insulting posts and I have seen that done here and in other forums.

Heated debates, discussions and arguments based on reasons, logic and facts are totally fine to me. Stay away from the kitchen if you find it hot.

The most meaningless posts are those from one member chasing after another just because the threads are made by a particular member. I've seen that happen. I laugh at the chasers, because they take things too seriously in the Internet.

Sarcasms? Fine, as long as if you are also fine with being the receiving end. You can't just throw a sarcasm at someone and expect everyone else can't do the same to you.

Finally, being talked down to? Is it a matter of confidence? I am confident of my skills and work, just like many of you expressing your views in this particular thread are. Anyone is free to disagree with what I said, but I never take or feel anyone's objections being me talked down to. Voicing your opinions in any forums is not a contest to win, but to share what you'd like to share. You should defend for yourself, your views and your work. If you ever feel being talked down to, don't go away, stand your ground and reason with them.

The last place I would like to spend time on is where it is a herd of sheep and I feel I can only follow the herd regardless of where it is heading. You can find such phenomenons in some blogs where the blog followers will agree with EVERYTHING the blog owners say.

Simon

[brent stanley]

I despise any bullying or disrespectful remarks in any forums. I don't talk down to anyone in any of my posts (which anyone can examine in case of doubt), but I look down on any posts (even if I am not part of them) which use insulting or uncivil words like stupid, foolish, etc. I believe it is a moderator's job to delete insulting posts and I have seen that done here and in other forums.

Heated debates, discussions and arguments based on reasons, logic and facts are totally fine to me. Stay away from the kitchen if you find it hot.

The most meaningless posts are those from one member chasing after another just because the threads are made by a particular member. I've seen that happen. I laugh at the chasers, because they take things too seriously in the Internet.

Sarcasms? Fine, as long as if you are also fine with being the receiving end. You can't just throw a sarcasm at someone and expect everyone else can't do the same to you.

Finally, being talked down to? Is it a matter of confidence? I am confident of my skills and work, just like many of you expressing your views in this particular thread are. Anyone is free to disagree with what I said, but I never take or feel anyone's objections being me talked down to. Voicing your opinions in any forums is not a contest to win, but to share what you'd like to share. You should defend for yourself, your views and your work. If you ever feel being talked down to, don't go away, stand your ground and reason with them.

The last place I would like to spend time on is where it is a herd of sheep and I feel I can only follow the herd regardless of where it is heading. You can find such phenomenons in some blogs where the blog followers will agree with EVERYTHING the blog owners say.

Simon

I appreciate this post and I think it's all fair.

I will add though that some of the comments on and about the chap in the video were less than productive, and while I can appreciate the sympathy others who place themselves in the same category as him have for him, I'm not comfortable with any assertion that the attitude is uni directional. I make my living with my tools but choose to work to a higher level of safety than some, and I will say there's a regular onslaught of ridicule, condescension and fun making levelled at me in forums, youtube, instagram and in person from professionals who make it clear they think I'm foolish to spend the time working with guards, buying safer tooling, taking the time to set up the power feeder for one cut etc. It's constant, and I don't like working around a lot of "pros" now because I have to listen to them sigh and roll their eyes because I insist on putting a guard back on etc etc etc. I've had similar discussions with many people so I know it's not just me....and I also know it's not all "pros".

So while I agree those people who are extra safe shouldn't go attack those who make different safety decisions, I'm not comfortable with any thinly veiled assertion that the reciprocal doesn't happen too.

[andrew whicker]

I was helping someone make a thing this Sunday. I was ripping some poplar and they thought it would be useful to start pulling the wood as it was leaving the blade. I just said 'no' and they stopped. Haha, that made me nervous for a brief second.

Last night I was ripping some walnut to width. I had like a 1/16" to an 1/8" scrap and boom, some piece of that scrap just whipped me right in the face. Never had that happen before. Safety glasses are nice.

I used to do track days on motorcycles. I used to do a lot of trad climbing. Safety equipment is nice, but using your brain mostly separates the injured from the non-injured. After your initial learning period of course. The learning curve part is usually brain + dumb luck.

[Harold Balzonia]

This thread is great!

I gather from reading this that most of the folks here would never use a straight razor to shave with.... it makes me realize that just about every sharpening video ends with some guy (ALWAYS, a guy) taking a razor sharp blade to his forearm.... I've never seen a warning against this practice. What if a wasp fell out of the guy's rafters? What if he sneezes? What if there's an earthquake? Or lightning strike? Oh the humanity!!!!! Since when is taking a plane blade to your forearm "safe?"

one of my good friends is a stunt driver in Hollywood. He's driven more miles SIDEWAYS than most people have going forward. His car control is unbelievable. What if a deer comes bounding out of the woods when he's filming a pursuit? What if he sneezes? What if a wasp flies in his visor?

some people are just more skilled than others. It's a fact of life. The more skill you have, the more "risk" you can take. The guy in the video has great skill with his tools. If that isn't apparent to any newbie, then that newbie probably ought to return his table saw and pick up a new hobby.

[Steve Demuth]

No i would no let a 15 year old as you suggest, anymore than you would let a 15 year old do open heart surgery. There are plenty of surgery videos, do they all give safety warnings to 15 years old not to try this at home?

Mark,

I think there is a difference, that is important to what those of us criticizing the video (which is what I am doing - I am not criticizing professional woodworkers with experience with their tools making judgments about safety in their own shop, despite what some in this thread seem to believe) are saying.

The video is pretty explicitly a "how to" video aimed by an amateur or hobby woodworker (if those looked like professional tools in a professional shop to you, I'd be surprised) at other amateur or hobby woodworkers. He's speaking to people without preofessional experience and knowledge, and showing things that put that group of people at risk of injury, or which are just plain wrong (I doubt you can find any professional woodworker who will tell you ripping a cupped board the way he does is good practice). We produce surgical videos where I work. They are different for several reasons: 1) They are explicitly used to train professional surgeons, 2) they do only show "best practice," and 3) even when shared with lay people, it is with the explicit social and legal understanding that you have to have an MD degree, and a surgical certification to perform surgery. They never make a claim to be "how to" for amateurs or hobby surgeons.

[brent stanley]

Mark,

I think there is a difference, that is important to what those of us criticizing the video (which is what I am doing - I am not criticizing professional woodworkers with experience with their tools making judgments about safety in their own shop, despite what some in this thread seem to believe) are saying.

The video is pretty explicitly a "how to" video aimed by an amateur or hobby woodworker (if those looked like professional tools in a professional shop to you, I'd be surprised) at other amateur or hobby woodworkers. He's speaking to people without preofessional experience and knowledge, and showing things that put that group of people at risk if injury, or which are just plain wrong (I doubt you can find any professional woodworker who will tell you ripping a cupped board the way he does is good practice). We produce surgical videos where I work. They are different for several reasons: 1) They are explicitly used to train professional surgeons, 2) they do only show "best practice," and 3) even when shared with lay people, it is with the explicit social and legal understanding that you have to have an MD degree, and a surgical certification to perform surgery. They never make a claim to be "how to" for amateurs or hobby surgeons.


Exactly Steve, not only is the pinnacle of safety demonstrated, but also the audience is clearly understood and can safely be assumed.

[Mark Hennebury]

Responsibility is a complex issue that goes far beyond woodworking into every aspects of our lives.

Since the beginning of time, human existence has been based on influence: religion, politics, advertising, sports, entertainment etc.
Humans are tribal, and join groups, gangs, sides.
A single human unknown to anyone and in total isolation will not influence anyone or be influenced by anyone.
Put a few together and they influence each other, for better or worse.
Who decides what influences are okay, and how far your responsibility goes.

Personal Responsibility:
As a child your parents have a responsibility to protect you, teach you values and independence, to be able to make your own decisions.
As an adult, you must find your own way and make up your own mind and you must navigate all of the influences on you on a regular daily basis.

I understand that you want to save people from injuring themselves and think that woodworkers should say that woodworking is dangerous on every video that they make.
Do you think that would make any difference?
Do you want to see them grade the danger on a scale of 1-10 maybe? How would people know what the levels actually meant or what level they were at, woodworking is unregulated ungraded, you could pick 100 woodworkers each with 10 years experience and they will all have a different level of knowledge, skill, ability and ideas about the right way to do anything? It’s a bit of a jungle. It would be nice if we were all trained the same and all had the same knowledge, but we don’t.
Do you want private video channels for different skill levels where you cannot watch stuff that you are not qualified to do.
Would that apply to all other things in life, like movies. How many kids have been injured trying skateboarding tricks that they have seen others do, the list is endless.

I have taught hundreds of woodworking classes and I have tried to teach people to understand, wood, tools, tool geometry, referencing and machining, so that they may understand the basic principles and make informed decisions. With that knowledge they can observe and analyze and learn the rest on their own. That is how I have viewed my responsibility to woodworking.

When I was a teenager in the early 70’s I saw a movie called “Little Fauss and big Halsey” it was a movie about motocross racing, I went to the bike shop the next day and ordered the biggest pro race bike they had listed, my first motor bike was a Yamaha SC 500, I could easily have been killed riding that, who’s responsibility was it, the actors, the producer, the cinema that showed the film, the shop that sold the bike to me , the laws that let them, Yamaha, the laws that let me ride it. my parents or mine.
Everything influences everyone, and telling someone not to do stuff won’t stop them trying.
Adults need to be accountable for their own actions, and it is their responsibility to educate themselves before they attempt something new. There simply is no excuse for ignorance in the age of information, where you can research and crosscheck anything from your cellphone. Either way you will get your education it just depends if you want to learn through research or recuperation.



381391381392

[Brian Holcombe]

I feel similarly, as someone who has machinery I feel that it is my responsibility to learn about proper use. I do this for every unfamiliar machine and every unfamiliar operation, and occasionally find ways to improve upon the familiar operations for safety, quality and output.

[brent stanley]

I feel similarly, as someone who has machinery I feel that it is my responsibility to learn about proper use. I do this for every unfamiliar machine and every unfamiliar operation, and occasionally find ways to improve upon the familiar operations for safety, quality and output.

The problem is, there's no real gold standard that everyone knows about to compare to so as to ensure they've got the best instructions. It's completely logical therefore to go to the experts to see what they do....after all they're the experts for pete's sake! I mean if you want to know how to rebuild an automatic transmission and want to know all the tips and tricks to do a really good job, do you talk to someone who's done it once and botched it? No, you go to an expert. Someone who works in the field all the time and produces transmissions with a new lease on life. It's reasonable to think they're the ones who will give you the best instructions because they have a history of doing a good job. So in this case you can go talk to the expert......but you should basically ignore them and go take a mechanic's course and then proceed? Or wait...who knows where that logic trains stops....maybe you shouldn't trust the mechanic's course either because they're experts too....and maybe you should teach yourself from scratch how to do everything. Boy....sure would take a long time to get anything done.

People look to the experts in our field just like every other field out there. It's not very often people learn everything on their own as it would be immensely inefficient. Very often people see how experts do things and assume it's as safe as can be.....that's just the way it is. People may argue they SHOULDN'T do that and should go to some other unstated source in order to meet their responsibilities, but the fact is they do. People SHOULDN'T want to beak into my house and steal my stuff, BUT THEY DO so I lock the doors. People SHOULDN'T hack your computer BUT THEY DO so we have firewalls. Arguing for not helping people because of SHOULDs and SHOULDN'Ts instead of dealing with the reality of what IS, is a weak argument. Especially when it takes no effort to do better.

[Brian Holcombe]

OK, the machines come with manuals. The manuals describe basic safe procedure.

Beyond that you need to learn about things, how wood reacts to being cut, how to flatten, etc, etc. These are things that you can research and understand. Expecting a 'how to' list of everything and anything is going to be asking a lot. To expect that an expert is an expert and is then responsible for your actions if they give you advice is asking far too much. You do not need to be an expert yourself to judge the quality of information, nor do you need to qualified to release information, so reader/viewer beware.

I raced cars enough so that I was on two racing teams and worked as a fabricator. Do you think all of the experts have the same info? Do they provide the same info? Not at all. You ask professional and successful racers how they're seated in the car, how they race, how their engines are setup and most often the information will be a little different person to person and a lot different at times. That is the meat and potatoes of this discussion, two camps of experts with completely different approach and opinion to the same goal.

[peter gagliardi]

Either way you will get your education it just depends if you want to learn through research or recuperation.
About the most quotable quote I have read in years!

[Dave Zellers]

It would not occur to me to perform heart surgery after watching a few videos.
Oh come on. How hard could it be? :D

[Mark Hennebury]

Accepting responsibility for someone else’s safety is a pretty tall order.

Back in the 80’s probably taught way over 400 adults students in night classes at my shop.
Most of the courses were 8 weeks 1 night a week for 3 hours. 8 people per class.
Some of the classes were intro course about wood structure and hand tools, tuning up handplanes etc.
Some classes were projects.

I had two people that got injured and had to go to hospital;
One slit his thumb open with a chisel and required stitches.
One stuck two fingers into a spinning blade and had to get them amputated. His little finger and the one next to it.

Have you ever tried to watch eight or ten adults in a workshop using machinery.
Not an easy task.

I had two extra people in the shop that night they had doubled up from another class to get their projects finished.
The class was split into two groups based on what parts they were working on.
One group I set up to cut stopped dados.
The stock was 1 ¾” square pine.
Two different lengths 18” and 36”
The dado was ¼” wide x ½” deep stopped about an inch from each end.
The machine was like a mini table saw it had a 3 wing slot cutter router bit that would cut a ¼” wide slot in the stock.
There was a long fence set to center the cut.
There were two sets of stops clamped to the fence, one set for the short length stock, one set for the long.
I demonstrated how to execute the cut, by placing the end of your stock against the table, fence and end stop, then lower the other end carefully onto the blade until the stock was flat on the table , then sliding across to the other stop and lifting.
A fairly straight forward operation.
I got them started, then went to the other group to set them up on their task.
The first group finished and moved on to another job, I was dealing with the second group, when the accident happened.
One of the first group had forgotten to do two of his short pieces, and went back to do them, but the short stops had been removed and just the long stops were there. He decided to not bother putting the short stops back and just do it by eye.
He told me that he did it and ran the two slot without stops and got away with it, but went back again to make the slot closer to the end, and when he laid the stock over the cutter he pushed it the way that the cuter was spinning, and right near the end of the stock, with one hand on the end.
The cutter grabbed the stock and shot it out, his fingers went into the cutter and got chopped up.
The surgeon said that he mangled one and cut the tendon of the little finger, so it was better to remove both as the little finger wouldn’t operate anyway.

So do you expect me to predict what people may do? That is a big responsibility to put on someone.
After the fact is no problem.
It is tough to watch one person, but in a shop class with 10 adults all working on different things, and people talking to you, it’s impossible.
You have no idea of what people will really understand or what they might do.
What do you hope to achieve by putting a 10 second disclaimer on a 15 minute video.
Woodworking used to be a profession where people had apprenticeships and were trained.
Now my Grandmother (if she were alive) could go into home depot and buy a table saw, and she couldn’t even read the instruction.
I understand that we live in an age of diminished responsibility, where cars will tell you if you are wandering out of the lane, and park themselves etc.. but this is a slippery slope.
It has been proven that people concentrate less when they expect someone or something else is watching out for them.
If you expect your saw to stop when you put your hand into it…..you will put your hand into it, I guarantee it.
You better just hope that your mind makes the adjustment for your bandsaw.

[brent stanley]

Accepting responsibility for someone else’s safety is a pretty tall order.


Pretty sure nobody's suggested that YouTube video producers do that. As you've said yourself the entirety of "someone's safety" is a combination of many factors so silly to think that simply providing better information in a YouTube video would be equivalent to "accepting responsibility for someone else's safety". That's a bit melodramatic. But what you did confirm is what many have been saying for a while now....there are many things hard to predict in the woodworking world. This supports the idea that more guarding and better techniques are good ideas. Demonstrating them in videos costs nothing, doesn't hurt anyone and (because humans are human) may well prevent injury. No harm done at worst, at best prevent injury.....why the fuss?

[Marshall Harrison]

Accepting responsibility for someone else’s safety is a pretty tall order.

Back in the 80’s probably taught way over 400 adults students in night classes at my shop.
Most of the courses were 8 weeks 1 night a week for 3 hours. 8 people per class.
Some of the classes were intro course about wood structure and hand tools, tuning up handplanes etc.
Some classes were projects.

I had two people that got injured and had to go to hospital;
One slit his thumb open with a chisel and required stitches.
One stuck two fingers into a spinning blade and had to get them amputated. His little finger and the one next to it.

Have you ever tried to watch eight or ten adults in a workshop using machinery.
Not an easy task.

I had two extra people in the shop that night they had doubled up from another class to get their projects finished.
The class was split into two groups based on what parts they were working on.
One group I set up to cut stopped dados.
The stock was 1 ¾” square pine.
Two different lengths 18” and 36”
The dado was ¼” wide x ½” deep stopped about an inch from each end.
The machine was like a mini table saw it had a 3 wing slot cutter router bit that would cut a ¼” wide slot in the stock.
There was a long fence set to center the cut.
There were two sets of stops clamped to the fence, one set for the short length stock, one set for the long.
I demonstrated how to execute the cut, by placing the end of your stock against the table, fence and end stop, then lower the other end carefully onto the blade until the stock was flat on the table , then sliding across to the other stop and lifting.
A fairly straight forward operation.
I got them started, then went to the other group to set them up on their task.
The first group finished and moved on to another job, I was dealing with the second group, when the accident happened.
One of the first group had forgotten to do two of his short pieces, and went back to do them, but the short stops had been removed and just the long stops were there. He decided to not bother putting the short stops back and just do it by eye.
He told me that he did it and ran the two slot without stops and got away with it, but went back again to make the slot closer to the end, and when he laid the stock over the cutter he pushed it the way that the cuter was spinning, and right near the end of the stock, with one hand on the end.
The cutter grabbed the stock and shot it out, his fingers went into the cutter and got chopped up.
The surgeon said that he mangled one and cut the tendon of the little finger, so it was better to remove both as the little finger wouldn’t operate anyway.

So do you expect me to predict what people may do? That is a big responsibility to put on someone.
After the fact is no problem.
It is tough to watch one person, but in a shop class with 10 adults all working on different things, and people talking to you, it’s impossible.
You have no idea of what people will really understand or what they might do.
What do you hope to achieve by putting a 10 second disclaimer on a 15 minute video.
Woodworking used to be a profession where people had apprenticeships and were trained.
Now my Grandmother (if she were alive) could go into home depot and buy a table saw, and she couldn’t even read the instruction.
I understand that we live in an age of diminished responsibility, where cars will tell you if you are wandering out of the lane, and park themselves etc.. but this is a slippery slope.
It has been proven that people concentrate less when they expect someone or something else is watching out for them.
If you expect your saw to stop when you put your hand into it…..you will put your hand into it, I guarantee it.
You better just hope that your mind makes the adjustment for your bandsaw.

Mark, you taught him the right way and he took a shortcut to save time. Not your fault. But this is what I've been saying all along. Take on the responsibility of showing the safe way as you did and then its out of your (or our) hands. If you had shown him to do a climb cut with his hand near the end close to the router blade then you would have been doing something irresponsible as he would have had no way to know that that method could be dangerous.

[Glen Gunderson]

I don't know, to me cutting a double stopped groove on a narrow 18" long piece of wood by lowering it onto and raising it from a spinning cutter while (presumably) not using push blocks is a pretty dangerous operation, stops or no stops. Gravity is working against you and your hands are guaranteed to be right over the blade pretty much the whole time while you're awkwardly trying to lower and lift a small workpiece.

Doing it horizontally on a router table is easier, safer, faster, and will produce a better cut. Since you're not lowering and raising the workpiece you can use push blocks the whole way and if you want you can even have a guard on top of the bit in case something goes wrong.

[brent stanley]

I don't know, to me cutting a double stopped groove on a narrow 18" long piece of wood by lowering it onto and raising it from a spinning cutter while (presumably) not using push blocks is a pretty dangerous operation, stops or no stops. Gravity is working against you and your hands are guaranteed to be right over the blade pretty much the whole time while you're awkwardly trying to lower and lift a small workpiece.

Doing it horizontally on a router table is easier, safer, faster, and will produce a better cut. Since you're not lowering and raising the workpiece you can use push blocks the whole way and if you want you can even have a guard on top of the bit in case something goes wrong.

May well not have been chip limiting tooling either which could reduce the magnitude of injuries should they happen. Makes it less grabby too. Wonder what the rpm of the table saw is vs. what the router bit was designed for? Good job for a router table or gluing up three pieces of wood to leave the stopped groove.

[Mark Hennebury]

I don't know, to me cutting a double stopped groove on a narrow 18" long piece of wood by lowering it onto and raising it from a spinning cutter while (presumably) not using push blocks is a pretty dangerous operation, stops or no stops. Gravity is working against you and your hands are guaranteed to be right over the blade pretty much the whole time while you're awkwardly trying to lower and lift a small workpiece.

Doing it horizontally on a router table is easier, safer, faster, and will produce a better cut. Since you're not lowering and raising the workpiece you can use push blocks the whole way and if you want you can even have a guard on top of the bit in case something goes wrong.

The only difference is either you lower the stock vertically the half inch or you push it horizontally . You still rely on the stops. You can use the same fences and pushsticks on either setup, the resulting cut quality and speed are identical.

[mreza Salav]

Accepting responsibility for someone else’s safety is a pretty tall order.

Back in the 80’s probably taught way over 400 adults students in night classes at my shop.
Most of the courses were 8 weeks 1 night a week for 3 hours. 8 people per class.
Some of the classes were intro course about wood structure and hand tools, tuning up handplanes etc.
Some classes were projects.

I had two people that got injured and had to go to hospital;
One slit his thumb open with a chisel and required stitches.
One stuck two fingers into a spinning blade and had to get them amputated. His little finger and the one next to it.

Have you ever tried to watch eight or ten adults in a workshop using machinery.
Not an easy task.

I had two extra people in the shop that night they had doubled up from another class to get their projects finished.
The class was split into two groups based on what parts they were working on.
One group I set up to cut stopped dados.
The stock was 1 ¾” square pine.
Two different lengths 18” and 36”
The dado was ¼” wide x ½” deep stopped about an inch from each end.
The machine was like a mini table saw it had a 3 wing slot cutter router bit that would cut a ¼” wide slot in the stock.
There was a long fence set to center the cut.
There were two sets of stops clamped to the fence, one set for the short length stock, one set for the long.
I demonstrated how to execute the cut, by placing the end of your stock against the table, fence and end stop, then lower the other end carefully onto the blade until the stock was flat on the table , then sliding across to the other stop and lifting.
A fairly straight forward operation.
I got them started, then went to the other group to set them up on their task.
The first group finished and moved on to another job, I was dealing with the second group, when the accident happened.
One of the first group had forgotten to do two of his short pieces, and went back to do them, but the short stops had been removed and just the long stops were there. He decided to not bother putting the short stops back and just do it by eye.
He told me that he did it and ran the two slot without stops and got away with it, but went back again to make the slot closer to the end, and when he laid the stock over the cutter he pushed it the way that the cuter was spinning, and right near the end of the stock, with one hand on the end.
The cutter grabbed the stock and shot it out, his fingers went into the cutter and got chopped up.
The surgeon said that he mangled one and cut the tendon of the little finger, so it was better to remove both as the little finger wouldn’t operate anyway.

So do you expect me to predict what people may do? That is a big responsibility to put on someone.
After the fact is no problem.
It is tough to watch one person, but in a shop class with 10 adults all working on different things, and people talking to you, it’s impossible.
You have no idea of what people will really understand or what they might do.
What do you hope to achieve by putting a 10 second disclaimer on a 15 minute video.
Woodworking used to be a profession where people had apprenticeships and were trained.
Now my Grandmother (if she were alive) could go into home depot and buy a table saw, and she couldn’t even read the instruction.
I understand that we live in an age of diminished responsibility, where cars will tell you if you are wandering out of the lane, and park themselves etc.. but this is a slippery slope.
It has been proven that people concentrate less when they expect someone or something else is watching out for them.
If you expect your saw to stop when you put your hand into it…..you will put your hand into it, I guarantee it.
You better just hope that your mind makes the adjustment for your bandsaw.

Excuse me Mark, but that was a tricky and not so "straight forward" operation you set some "learners" up to do. I personally would not get people who are just learning do this operation the way you describe even if I might feel comfortable to do it myself after doing it countless many times. For this particular operation (with small pieces) I suggest them to use a slot-cutter on router table and will have a jig to hold the small piece. Hands are away from the two ends of the piece being cut and should never come close to the cutter.
People who are just starting don't know many things that can go wrong, did they know the danger of climb cutting? You can certainly not predict all things people might do but they should also be aware of possible dangers in an operation if they are told to do such things. It is like holding the hands of a guy blind folded to walk in a maze and asking him to repeat it without telling him all the possible consequences of a wrong step.

[Mark Hennebury]

I never said that it was a table saw.

[brent stanley]

I never said that it was a table saw.

Sorry Mark I see that now....it was LIKE a table saw. Presumably it could be run at the speed recommended by the manufacturer of the router bit?

[Steve Demuth]

A last (from me) summary thought about this thread - which I have thoroughly enjoyed, BTW.

I think that it is good for people to have the desire, skills and opportunity to make things, and make them well. I see a lot of value in youtube as a channel for learning as people engage in this activities. I deeply appreciate the time experts put into making good youtube channels and videos to engage in this teaching. The best of them are very well produced, highly enjoyable, and a great source of learning. Since I want "hobby" woodworking to be something people can grow in through exposure to other's techniques, they are a wonderful public service.

But I think there is an obligation on the part of the teachers in this enterprise to teach appropriate and safe techniques.

When I criticized this video in this context, it was entirely within that amateur context. I don't expect professionals are primarily learning how to run their shops through these videos, and my experience with the pros I know is that they actually care and pay MORE attention to safety for themselves and their employees than relatively inexperienced amateurs. The "clamps" video that started this makes that point nicely - I don't know any, and can't imagine any, professional "production" woodworker who would pay a second's attention to a build process that creates an inferior version of a widely available product using a process with hundreds of steps, and which requires hand control of tiny bits of wood in close proximity to spinning saw blades. Highly expert artisan woodworkers might use some similar techniques, although I'd be surprised to find many. Artisans care - a lot - about keeping all their fingers.

I totally understand that some will get their back up a bit when anyone appears to be telling them how to do things. Think about the context though. Would you teach those techniques?

[brent stanley]

The only difference is either you lower the stock vertically the half inch or you push it horizontally . You still rely on the stops. You can use the same fences and pushsticks on either setup, the resulting cut quality and speed are identical.

Except I assume it's required to ease the component into the blade at the start, not just drop it on? I can imagine how one might ease it down with elaborate holders for the component, but typically this is done by holding with the fingers. Done horizontally it can easily be eased into the cutter with push blocks. If it was a large component you might be able to hold it safely with one hand and ease it down, but with smaller components of course you're digits end up close to the blade.

[Mark Hennebury]

Mreza , we are all learners at different points on a line. The people that chose to take project classes were adults and not blind. The reason they took the course was to learn, I showed them to the best of my ability how to do the jobs safely. The ones that did as I showed them were safe. Climb cutting and the correct feed direction was explained to them. The one that got injured disregarded my instructions and setup. No different than a student of yours disregarding you telling him to use your jig,

[Mark Hennebury]

You don't have to have your fingers that close to the blade at all. You can have your fingers four or five inches from the covered blade.

[Bill Carey]

"SPEECHLESS"

My favorite part is that he is wearing a dust mask. Can't be too safe!

[Joe Calhoon]

The only difference is either you lower the stock vertically the half inch or you push it horizontally . You still rely on the stops. You can use the same fences and pushsticks on either setup, the resulting cut quality and speed are identical.

Mark, not sure I am following your method here but I think you are using the back stop and easing the stock into the cutter? If so I disagree that is a safe method and still prone to kick back. Experienced hands can get away with it most of the time but not a good method for beginners.

The safest way to do this on a shaper is to make sure the stock is resting front and back on the fence and stop before easing into the cutter. It can be done on a table saw but a little more awkward.

This picture is from a German shop I visited last year. You can see he rested the front of the piece against the fence while easing the back in using the wide backstop.
381548

We use use the same method in our shaper workshops for beginners. These cuts can be a little tense if not used to shapers and I have them use a push stick sometimes depending on the workpiece size. Both photos using Aigner accessories but the same can be accomplished with shop made fixtures.
381549

[brent stanley]

Mark, not sure I am following your method here but I think you are using the back stop and easing the stock into the cutter? If so I disagree that is a safe method and still prone to kick back. Experienced hands can get away with it most of the time but not a good method for beginners.

The safest way to do this on a shaper is to make sure the stock is resting front and back on the fence and stop before easing into the cutter. It can be done on a table saw but a little more awkward.

This picture is from a German shop I visited last year. You can see he rested the front of the piece against the fence while easing the back in using the wide backstop.
381548

We use use the same method in our shaper workshops for beginners. These cuts can be a little tense if not used to shapers and I have them use a push stick sometimes depending on the workpiece size. Both photos using Aigner accessories but the same can be accomplished with shop made fixtures.
381549

Interesting Joe, so effectively the near-end of the piece is actually drug along the front face of the large backstop? I've always set the piece on the near-end stop first and slowly eased the far end into the cutter but it's always been with longer pieces such that I could grab a fist full of the stock and easily control the rate it entered the cutter. When it's smaller, that left hand would be too close to the cutter to get a solid grip so this would be better. Constant pressure with the left hand, ease it in with the right hand. Cool, thanks.

B

[Mark Hennebury]

Hi Joe,


Every thing that you do in the workshop is dangerous to some degree.
The only things that are not dangerous are things that are done by an automatic machine or done by someone else.
If you want to arbitrarily assign a level of danger on a scale of 1-10 what then is an acceptable level on that scale.
Is your posted method 100 % safe? or where on the scale would you rate it? Who should be the one to decide?

Explain to me how anyone could have got injured using my method.

It cannot kickback when starting the cut. It is firmly registered against the stop, table and fence. It cannot go anywhere so how is is "dangerous"
My method, at the worst will only pull the stock flat to the table.
Your method uses a table, a fence, and stops. My method used a table, a fence and stops, and eases the stock into the cutter.
There is, for all intents and purposes no difference at all in your method and my method.

My students were hobbiest students and i showed operations with the kind of equipment that they would have at home, most did not have $30,000 shapers in their basements with $10,000 worth of Aigner fences and accessories.

My methods worked fine and were "safe" within reason, decided by me. I was the one teaching so i made decisions to the best of my ability, no one ever got hurt using the methods that i taught.

You could have developed a 100 % safe method and it would not have changed the outcome of this incident because the student ( a full grown adult man in his 40's) did not use the prescribed method.

if all of your methods were better than mine it would not have changed the results for any of the 400 plus students that i taught.

My classes were hobby classes I had usually 8 people to a class, various ages, various skills and abilities, and comprehension level, i had them for a total of 24 hours. To teach them how to do woodwork, use and understand machinery, and complete a project.

[Randy Heinemann]

Probably didn't lose them on a jointer though. All of us probably occasionally do something which isn't safe, just to get something done quickly or for many other reasons (none of them reasonable). It really is just a matter of time. Even with safe practices things happen that we don't expect. Doing what this guy does in his video just increases the possibility that something bad will happen. Who needs that? More to the point, people who don't know anything about safe practices see the video and think this guy is an "expert". At that point, unsafe practices are passed on to new generations of woodworkers and used until something bad happens to them, or worse, to someone they taught the unsafe practices. I hope this guy, and none of the people who don't follow safe practices never have a finger cut off or some serious injury. Regardless of how safe I am, I still count myself as lucky that nothing causing a permanent injury to my body has happened in over 40 years of woodworking. I still think about it whenever I use a table saw, bandsaw, router, router table, jointer, planer, a chisel, a hand plane, a drill press, a lathe, and even a sander. I only hope that, some day, I don't forget to do one thing that causes an injury.

[Jacob Mac]

I don't know guys, it is just YouTube. Why would you assume that anyone posting a video is competent at the craft, or competent at teaching their craft? I love watching YouTube videos, but I never assume that any of these guys are competent. I am always trying to learn, but I try to avoid blindly accepting things as being true.

[brent stanley]

I don't know guys, it is just YouTube. Why would you assume that anyone posting a video is competent at the craft, or competent at teaching their craft? I love watching YouTube videos, but I never assume that any of these guys are competent. I am always trying to learn, but I try to avoid blindly accepting things as being true.

I think you're wise, and I do things the same way, but it's human nature to refer to the experts about how to do things, because who other than the experts would know best? This chap is a well known, YouTube woodworking personality and I think because of how human nature is, it's not a foolish idea to think there may be some social responsibility to say "this isn't the safest way to do this. Click on the link below for material that describes alternate, safer ways to produce this component." It costs nothing, takes no effort, hurts nobody and may save some digits because humans are just humans......so I say why not?

[Joe Calhoon]

Hi Joe,


Every thing that you do in the workshop is dangerous to some degree.
The only things that are not dangerous are things that are done by an automatic machine or done by someone else.
If you want to arbitrarily assign a level of danger on a scale of 1-10 what then is an acceptable level on that scale.
Is your posted method 100 % safe? or where on the scale would you rate it? Who should be the one to decide?

Explain to me how anyone could have got injured using my method.

It cannot kickback when starting the cut. It is firmly registered against the stop, table and fence. It cannot go anywhere so how is is "dangerous"
My method, at the worst will only pull the stock flat to the table.
Your method uses a table, a fence, and stops. My method used a table, a fence and stops, and eases the stock into the cutter.
There is, for all intents and purposes no difference at all in your method and my method.

My students were hobbiest students and i showed operations with the kind of equipment that they would have at home, most did not have $30,000 shapers in their basements with $10,000 worth of Aigner fences and accessories.

My methods worked fine and were "safe" within reason, decided by me. I was the one teaching so i made decisions to the best of my ability, no one ever got hurt using the methods that i taught.

You could have developed a 100 % safe method and it would not have changed the outcome of this incident because the student ( a full grown adult man in his 40's) did not use the prescribed method.

if all of your methods were better than mine it would not have changed the results for any of the 400 plus students that i taught.

My classes were hobby classes I had usually 8 people to a class, various ages, various skills and abilities, and comprehension level, i had them for a total of 24 hours. To teach them how to do woodwork, use and understand machinery, and complete a project.

Mark,
Everything in the workshop can be dangerous even automated machines and there is no foolproof method for any methods. I was only pointing out a safer way to do what you described, especially for inexperienced woodworkers. I believe if you try it you would feel the difference in the support of the workpiece.


Yes, I have a well equipped work shop and will not apologize for that. As I mentioned all the Aigner gear can be shop duplicated. Here are a couple examples.
381573
381574
I take workshop saftey seriously and also realize it takes personal responsibility of the individual. My positive take on the debated video in this thread is that I can show a better, safer method to do every operation he shows. Nothing is foolproof but certainly his methods can be improved upon greatly with no loss in productivity.

[Mark Hennebury]

Joe you made a couple of statements one about the method that I used , you said that you disagreed that it was safe and said that it was prone to kickback and not a good method for beginners, I asked you to explain. l believe that is a fair request.


I had a few nice machines also, I was just explaining my reason for the choice of equipment in the classes.

[Mark Hennebury]

Joe I joined this discussion to debate some issues . I have made statements and offered opinions and I have defended my position to the best of my abilty when it was questioned. That is what I believe a good healthy debate is about.
You joined in the discussion and made statements that my teaching methods were not safe, and that yours were the safest.
Those statements reflect directly on my reputation, and I have a right to ask you to back them up. By what method did you determine those positions, are they facts or are they simply your opinion passed off as facts? You have said that I put my students in danger and I want you to explain that.

[Joe Calhoon]

Joe you made a couple of statements one about the method that I used , you said that you disagreed that it was safe and said that it was prone to kickback and not a good method for beginners, I asked you to explain. l believe that is a fair request.


I had a few nice machines also, I was just explaining my reason for the choice of equipment in the classes.

Mark,
i used your method many years without incident, but it is prone to kickback. All I am saying is that a better safer method is to support the workpiece at both ends that way you can control the entry into the cutter in a manner less prone to grabbing. This method also makes for a cleaner entry with less chance of burning.
I am traveling at the moment or could illustrate this better with pictures from my shop.

This may help explain.

https://www.bghm.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Arbeitsschuetzer/Praxishilfen/Arbeitsschutz_Kompakt/PDF/044-Ask-Tischfraesmaschine.pdf

[Pat Barry]

One stuck two fingers into a spinning blade and had to get them amputated. His little finger and the one next to it.

Have you ever tried to watch eight or ten adults in a workshop using machinery.
Not an easy task.

I had two extra people in the shop that night they had doubled up from another class to get their projects finished.
The class was split into two groups based on what parts they were working on.
One group I set up to cut stopped dados.
The stock was 1 ¾” square pine.
Two different lengths 18” and 36”
The dado was ¼” wide x ½” deep stopped about an inch from each end.
The machine was like a mini table saw it had a 3 wing slot cutter router bit that would cut a ¼” wide slot in the stock.
There was a long fence set to center the cut.
There were two sets of stops clamped to the fence, one set for the short length stock, one set for the long.
I demonstrated how to execute the cut, by placing the end of your stock against the table, fence and end stop, then lower the other end carefully onto the blade until the stock was flat on the table , then sliding across to the other stop and lifting.
A fairly straight forward operation.
I got them started, then went to the other group to set them up on their task.
The first group finished and moved on to another job, I was dealing with the second group, when the accident happened.
One of the first group had forgotten to do two of his short pieces, and went back to do them, but the short stops had been removed and just the long stops were there. He decided to not bother putting the short stops back and just do it by eye.
He told me that he did it and ran the two slot without stops and got away with it, but went back again to make the slot closer to the end, and when he laid the stock over the cutter he pushed it the way that the cuter was spinning, and right near the end of the stock, with one hand on the end.
The cutter grabbed the stock and shot it out, his fingers went into the cutter and got chopped up.
The surgeon said that he mangled one and cut the tendon of the little finger, so it was better to remove both as the little finger wouldn’t operate anyway.

So do you expect me to predict what people may do? That is a big responsibility to put on someone.
After the fact is no problem.
It is tough to watch one person, but in a shop class with 10 adults all working on different things, and people talking to you, it’s impossible.
You have no idea of what people will really understand or what they might do.
What do you hope to achieve by putting a 10 second disclaimer on a 15 minute video.
Woodworking used to be a profession where people had apprenticeships and were trained.

This sounds like a very dangerous method to create a stopped dado in a very narrow piece of material. There must have been other, better methods available to make this dado, for example, a router table with a straight or spiral bit?? If not, maybe a better project for the folks to learn on?

[Mark Hennebury]

Mark,
i used your method many years without incident, but it is prone to kickback. All I am saying is that a better safer method is to support the workpiece at both ends that way you can control the entry into the cutter in a manner less prone to grabbing. This method also makes for a cleaner entry with less chance of burning.
I am traveling at the moment or could illustrate this better with pictures from my shop.

This may help explain.

https://www.bghm.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Arbeitsschuetzer/Praxishilfen/Arbeitsschutz_Kompakt/PDF/044-Ask-Tischfraesmaschine.pdf

I would like you to explain to me how this can kickback. The stock is firmly registered against a stop, a fence and a table, and held with two hands and eased onto the blade. How exactly can it go back? It can go only one way and that is down to the table covering the blade. It is 1/4" cutter in 2x2 pine.
381626

This i understand is the " safest" method as you have explained it.

381629

[Mark Hennebury]

This sounds like a very dangerous method to create a stopped dado in a very narrow piece of material. There must have been other, better methods available to make this dado, for example, a router table with a straight or spiral bit?? If not, maybe a better project for the folks to learn on?

Please explain in what way it is very dangerous; please describe the danger, what will happen and how will it occur? Then please describe in detail your safe method with the router table and straight or spiral bit.

[Joe Calhoon]

I would like you to explain to me how this can kickback. The stock is firmly registered against a stop, a fence and a table, and held with two hands and eased onto the blade. How exactly can it go back? It can go only one way and that is down to the table covering the blade. It is 1/4" cutter in 2x2 pine.
381626

This i understand is the " safest" method as you have explained it.

381629
Mark,
thank you for illustrating that. Yes the top method is safe most of the time and most likely you will never have issues especially with small cuts. If the cutter grabs it will slam the material against the fence and if your stop holds no problem. The UK safety standards actually show the top method in their publications. My argument is just that the bottom method is safer especially when it comes to larger cuts.

These pictures show putting the stopped groove for a spring balance in a double hung sash. This is where the top method could get dangerous. This is a fairly large cut. Something like 3/4” wide X 7/8” deep. With the bottom method you can ease into the cut with no grabbing.
381630
381631
381632

[Mark Hennebury]

Mark,
thank you for illustrating that. Yes the top method is safe most of the time and most likely you will never have issues especially with small cuts. If the cutter grabs it will slam the material against the fence and if your stop holds no problem. The UK safety standards actually show the top method in their publications. My argument is just that the bottom method is safer especially when it comes to larger cuts.



Thank you Joe,
I have always the utmost respect for you and your opinions, I now have more.

Mark Hennebury

[Joe Calhoon]

Mark, likewise to you! Sometimes on these forums the tone of a conversation can come off wrong or insulting and sorry if I came off that way.
Joe

[Pat Barry]

I would like you to explain to me how this can kickback. The stock is firmly registered against a stop, a fence and a table, and held with two hands and eased onto the blade. How exactly can it go back? It can go only one way and that is down to the table covering the blade. It is 1/4" cutter in 2x2 pine.
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I dont think that the person has any good way to securely hold that part on that machine to start or finish that cut. A loose grip at either end could easily result in kickback. Doing the dado on a router table using a straight fluted bit and similar stops would be much preferrable because kickback is not as likely to occur. Try your method with just dropping the wood onto the cutter like could easily happen witha poor grip and the wood will be repelled from the cutter quite forcibly. Also at the end of the cut (unless your instructions were to shut off the machine and wait for the cutter to stop turning. Maybe i don't understand where you instructed them to put their hands? Also, why no outside featherboards to keep the part registered. Why no provision for a push stick. Why risk getting hands so near the cutter?

[brent stanley]

I dont think that the person has any good way to securely hold that part on that machine to start or finish that cut. A loose grip at either end could easily result in kickback. Doing the dado on a router table using a straight fluted bit and similar stops would be much preferrable because kickback is not as likely to occur. Try your method with just dropping the wood onto the cutter like could easily happen witha poor grip and the wood will be repelled from the cutter quite forcibly. Also at the end of the cut (unless your instructions were to shut off the machine and wait for the cutter to stop turning. Maybe i don't understand where you instructed them to put their hands? Also, why no outside featherboards to keep the part registered. Why no provision for a push stick. Why risk getting hands so near the cutter?

Any time the operator has fewer forces to manually restrain the better. More focus can be put on other tasks at hand, and should anything go wrong, that force won't do anything on it's own. Gravity must be resisted by hand with one method, with the other, the spindle moulder table is doing the job of keeping gravity from moving the piece on it's own leaving one less task for the operator to be concerned about. My guess is that this is why Joe continues to suggest the shaper method is safer.

[Rick McQuay]

People are in more danger driving to church on Sunday than working in their shop. But the danger of driving is familiar so we ignore it. But I've seen what can happen in a car crash and losing a finger is about a 3, on a scale to 10. Try working on a farm with machines that will rip off your arm so quick that it will come out the other side before you even know it's gone. Or worse, pull you in and jam, leaving you stuck there until someone comes looking. It's hard for me to get upset when the potential injury is a bruise or cut.

[Warren Lake]

dropped on hundreds of times with stops and as many with no stop. Dont recommend that to anyone but sure there would be a small group of guys here that do that. You have a stop you wont have a kick back. When i started I didnt use a stop once on some small parts and they stitched up 1 1/4 " on my hand signal finger. Not from the blade but from the part ripping it open.

Joe the guy in the purple shirt his arm is blocking the view but it looks like he has the leading edge against the fence and back of the part against the stop but out from the fence and is working that end in?. Dont see doing it that way if that is what he is doing. His left hand position should not be in front of the cutter looks like it is.