Lamar Horton
12-01-2005, 12:17 AM
After reading the recent "injury" posts and all the responses about them being a "wake up call" here is what happened to me (or what didn't happen).
I was breaking down a piece of 3/4 plywood for a drawer side when it skewed about halfway through the cut. Instead of it kicking back, it bound the blade and stopped it (unisaw w/3 hp motor). So there I am with my hands on either side of the blade pushing down on the table scared to let go and the motor humming trying to start back up. What do I do, I say to myself. I'm too far into the cut to try to back out and I don't want to "unskew" the piece for fear of overskewing the opposite way and losing control, but I have to do something. I can't just stay here forever. This was all of about two seconds that seemed like two days. Ater the two days the breaker tripped and everything stopped. I was very fortunate. It also got me to thinking. I reset the breaker and finished my cuts then had to switch to the dado blade the groove for the drawer bottoms. I unplugged the saw (SOP) to change blades and had to take a hammer to the wrench because the "incident" had torqued the arbor nut down so tight. I got the blade changed and my grooves cut without further incident. When I went to change back to the plywood blade I reached out to unplug the saw (SOP) when my hand slipped a little and upon my regripping the plug I noticed I had laid my finger across one of the progs of the halfway pluged in plug. Since I had already "been thinking" I said to myself "self, its time to close up." I finished unpluging the saw and walked out and locked the door.
I don't have an excuse for the things that happened today, I wasn't tired, I wasn't doing a lot of repetative work these things just "happened".
These recent posts have caused me to be more aware of potential accidents and I feel they are a good "tool" for us to use. I cannot say I would have stayed and finished the day had I not read the recent happenings but I can say these things being fresh in my mind helped make the decision to close up for the day.
To Shelly and Matt, I am very sorry to hear about your injuries and wish you both a speedy recovery. I also wish to thank you for your posts as they do help me to be more conscience about my surroundings.
Sorry for being so long winded, I don't usually like long posts but I thought I should share this.
Thnaks
Lamar
I was breaking down a piece of 3/4 plywood for a drawer side when it skewed about halfway through the cut. Instead of it kicking back, it bound the blade and stopped it (unisaw w/3 hp motor). So there I am with my hands on either side of the blade pushing down on the table scared to let go and the motor humming trying to start back up. What do I do, I say to myself. I'm too far into the cut to try to back out and I don't want to "unskew" the piece for fear of overskewing the opposite way and losing control, but I have to do something. I can't just stay here forever. This was all of about two seconds that seemed like two days. Ater the two days the breaker tripped and everything stopped. I was very fortunate. It also got me to thinking. I reset the breaker and finished my cuts then had to switch to the dado blade the groove for the drawer bottoms. I unplugged the saw (SOP) to change blades and had to take a hammer to the wrench because the "incident" had torqued the arbor nut down so tight. I got the blade changed and my grooves cut without further incident. When I went to change back to the plywood blade I reached out to unplug the saw (SOP) when my hand slipped a little and upon my regripping the plug I noticed I had laid my finger across one of the progs of the halfway pluged in plug. Since I had already "been thinking" I said to myself "self, its time to close up." I finished unpluging the saw and walked out and locked the door.
I don't have an excuse for the things that happened today, I wasn't tired, I wasn't doing a lot of repetative work these things just "happened".
These recent posts have caused me to be more aware of potential accidents and I feel they are a good "tool" for us to use. I cannot say I would have stayed and finished the day had I not read the recent happenings but I can say these things being fresh in my mind helped make the decision to close up for the day.
To Shelly and Matt, I am very sorry to hear about your injuries and wish you both a speedy recovery. I also wish to thank you for your posts as they do help me to be more conscience about my surroundings.
Sorry for being so long winded, I don't usually like long posts but I thought I should share this.
Thnaks
Lamar