Alan DuBoff
04-04-2006, 2:26 AM
I had an incident in my shop recentely which made me realize I shouldn't do stupid tricks, to sacrifice not having the proper tool.
I got a few pieces of walnut that a friend has been burning in his wood stove...:eek:
I used a hand saw to trim things up, but couldn't get things as square as I wanted, it was tough trying to secure a chunk of firewood to cut...so I got this bright notion that since it was too big a piece for the tablesaw, maybe I could use the 12" miter saw which would cut the height...(in hind sight, I should have tried using a hand plane :rolleyes: ).
Bzzzttttt, not a good idea...but in my quest to get the wood into a usable chunk, well, darn if that piece of walnut didn't fly quickly across the garage and slam into the wall.
But not to be outdone, I figure I would carefully try again, only to jam the wood into the blade guard and wedge the blade.:(
That's basically my incident, but it made me realize that it sure would be stupid to loose a finger by reacting to something like that with your hand close to a 12" spinning blade...that doesn't seem wise...
It was a way for me to convince myself to buy a band saw. I wouldn't call this a gloat at all, but after pondering over this, I ended up with a Jet 18X.
Moral of the story for me was don't do stupid shop tricks...that's how serious accidents happen...maybe someone else will think twice about doing something stupid in their shop. If so, I'm glad to have at least reminded you of the danger most of us face using power tools.
I'll be honest, somehow I'm always in fear when I'm using power tools, even if it's a router. But any of them, I'm always on alert trying to prevent myself from doing some stupid shop tricks like the above...and always trying to make sure I keep my fingers/arms/self away from the blades. Too easy to cut a finger off, slice open skin, etc...
Even though I still cut myself, slice my skin, scrape myself, or even hit objects while using hand tools, I just don't have that fear when using hand tools (arguably as or more dangerous). I 'spose that "ignorance is bliss".:rolleyes: But if I don't have the fear while using them, all that much better! :D
I got a few pieces of walnut that a friend has been burning in his wood stove...:eek:
I used a hand saw to trim things up, but couldn't get things as square as I wanted, it was tough trying to secure a chunk of firewood to cut...so I got this bright notion that since it was too big a piece for the tablesaw, maybe I could use the 12" miter saw which would cut the height...(in hind sight, I should have tried using a hand plane :rolleyes: ).
Bzzzttttt, not a good idea...but in my quest to get the wood into a usable chunk, well, darn if that piece of walnut didn't fly quickly across the garage and slam into the wall.
But not to be outdone, I figure I would carefully try again, only to jam the wood into the blade guard and wedge the blade.:(
That's basically my incident, but it made me realize that it sure would be stupid to loose a finger by reacting to something like that with your hand close to a 12" spinning blade...that doesn't seem wise...
It was a way for me to convince myself to buy a band saw. I wouldn't call this a gloat at all, but after pondering over this, I ended up with a Jet 18X.
Moral of the story for me was don't do stupid shop tricks...that's how serious accidents happen...maybe someone else will think twice about doing something stupid in their shop. If so, I'm glad to have at least reminded you of the danger most of us face using power tools.
I'll be honest, somehow I'm always in fear when I'm using power tools, even if it's a router. But any of them, I'm always on alert trying to prevent myself from doing some stupid shop tricks like the above...and always trying to make sure I keep my fingers/arms/self away from the blades. Too easy to cut a finger off, slice open skin, etc...
Even though I still cut myself, slice my skin, scrape myself, or even hit objects while using hand tools, I just don't have that fear when using hand tools (arguably as or more dangerous). I 'spose that "ignorance is bliss".:rolleyes: But if I don't have the fear while using them, all that much better! :D