What's that sound?

[Alden Miller]

Last night I was cutting some face frame pieces for a bookcase I am building. When I finished cutting them and took off my hearing protection I kept hearing a high pitched squeal (not tinnitus).

I thought that maybe one of the ballast's on my lights was going. I shut the lights off but could still hear it. Then I shut all the power off to the shop. I could still hear it.

Thinking I was going nuts I shut the lights off again and thought the sound went away. I was sure it was a ballast now.

I climbed on top of my saw/workbench so I could get closer to the lights to hear which one it was (here it comes you say). Nothing!

But I can still hear the squealing. I went back to turn all the power off again. Standing in the dark I thought of something. This past weekend I was teaching my brother how to build cabinets. He was using my sound cancelling hearing protection...

I looked over on the saw, found the ear muffs and found that he had left them turned on, microphones facing the saw. They were generating feedback.

It only took about five or six minutes but when I was done I thought it was pretty funny.

-Alden

[Tom Pritchard]

Alden, it's always nice to find out you aren't loosing it!

Glad you found the problem when you did. Must be the week for Shop Gremlins to come out and play!:p

[Tom Jones III]

Thanks for the laugh. I read an article once about cycling. The author had spent an enormous amount of time trying to determine the cause of a rattle of his several thousand dollar bicycle ... took everything apart, rebuilt all the pieces, replaced pieces, etc. The rattle was only there when he was riding on the road. Just before he lost his sanity, he finally determined that there was a loose piece of his helmet that was rattling right next to his ear.

[tod evans]

alden, your hearing is far better than mine! anymore a router doesn`t sound loud......

[Jim O'Dell]

That is good. Ihad a car come on to our service drive one day with a squealing noise in it, engine running or not. Finally found a hearing aid that had fallen under the seat next to the trans hump!!!! We've also found a pager under the seat that would go off at times and the customer not know what it was. Jim