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

[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....866-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....866-Sam-Maloof

If I do find his recording, I will share.

Simon

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]

[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.