Fun place to find a razor blade

[Steven Peters]

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[Steve Clardy]

Ouch!!

Blade damage?

[Don Bullock]

It's a good thing that you didn't cut that plywood on a SawStop.;) :D

[Greg Deakins]

think I would track down that sheet supplier if I were you, thats clearly done with malicious intent.

[glenn bradley]

If it wasn't for the fact that you probably experienced some cutter damage, that would almost be funny. Glad there was no injury and I hope that was an accident and not a digruntled employee. That would not be funny.

[John Schreiber]

Ooh. That has the potential of ruining your whole day.

How would something like that happen?

[Bob Wingard]

It's a good thing that you didn't cut that plywood on a SawStop.;) :D


Why not ?? ?? ??

The embedded metal appears to be insulated by the surrounding wood .. .. . I doubt the SawStop would have recognized it.

[Don Bullock]

Bob, what you say might be true. I'm not sure, but I think if any of that metal, as it was being cut, made contact with the table, the brake would have fired.

[jeremy levine]

think I would track down that sheet supplier if I were you, thats clearly done with malicious intent.

I would at least ask what thier QA dept. had to say. As for intent maybe not, I bet in any factory where they make plywood someone needs to scrape glue off of a lot of things.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

It's a good thing that you didn't cut that plywood on a SawStop.;) :D

I am pretty sure that it wouldn't cause it to trigger the brake. Now I think you can not cut Alum or brass on a saw stop unless you wear rubber gloves and maybe insulate the metal from the table.

[Steven Peters]

It was embedded in the plywood from the factory. I've heard of people finding things in MDF and particle board, but I've never had it happen to me. I was in the middle of a drop cut when the blade sparked. It surprised me but did no damage to the blade. This is just a good reminder to wear safety glasses when you are working on the saw.

[Rafael Carias]

i am not surprised to see that at all because I have also found stuff between the layers of the cheep borg ply

[Rick Hubbard]

I spent quite a few years in the plywood manufacturing industry so I think I have an explanation for what you encountered.

If you will notice, the blade is buried cross-ways into the grain of one of the inner plies. Here is how I think it got there.

Super high-quality lay-up operations often go to great lengths to assure that the cross-band plies are tightly abutted. In some cases, the cross-band veneer pieces are not quite straight and the core-layer (the guy who assembles the glue covered cross on top of the lateral sheets) will sometimes actually use a box-cutter type knife with a razor blade in it to trim the edge of the cross-band veneer. I would guess that when the worker withdrew the knife, the blade came loose and stayed in the veneer. When the plywood arrived at the press, the pressure drove the blade into the plies below. It is doubtful that this was done maliciously. Instead, it is a sign of a conscientious assembly operation (but probably an inattentive worker). I’m sure the next time he tried to use his knife, he realized the blade was gone but by then, it was too late.

Just as a note: at the opposite end of the quality spectrum are plywood sheeting operations. Very little attention of this nature is paid (or used to be paid) to quality in these kinds of operations. It was all about production. The quality control process accepted 5% defects as acceptable, but I remember seeing defects as high as 20% in some mills. As far as stuff inside of panels-- I’ve seen nuts, bolts, nails, rags, rubber gloves and once we found what appears to have been a cat (or maybe some kind of large rodent) inside pieces of plywood (and that is just the stuff we caught before it went out the door). Back then (1960’s, or so) workers were paid by the square foot of assembled plywood, so once they started laying up a batch, there was no stopping.

Rick Hubbard

[Adam Grills]

For the Sawstop to detect it, would the razor blade not have to be in contact with something grounding it?

[Dan Lee]

Jeesh how do so many threads turn into a SS

SS would not have triggered

There needs to be lower, than dry wood provides, electrical capacitance contact between the blade and your body and ground which your feet provide.

In this case your body is insulated from the razor/blade by the wood