Poll: Do you wear a watch while woodworking?

[Van Huskey]

But doesn't that visual at some point just become attached to the number? Like way 100 yards is a football field.

I can't speak for anyone but me but when I look at an analog watch that displays 11:49 AM I do not "translate" that in my head to 11:49 unless I am communicating it to someone or memorializing it by writing or typing it. To me, my brain sees it as a chunk of time prior to the middle of the day. I don't think of that chunk of the watch dial as eleven minutes but as an amount of time that I have a rough understanding of completely separate from minutes and seconds.

My brain works the same way with measurements like your football field. I would not translate the distance to feet, yards or football fields unless I needed to communicate or memorialize the distance. The times I am most interested in measurements of that distance is on the (ball) golf or disc golf field. Looking at 100 yards I am thinking a strong pitching wedge (ball) or full control driver (disc) not in feet or yards.

With time and distance, the "native" language of my brain is not minutes or feet those are just constructs that allow me to translate time and distance to a common language in order to effectively communicate. In the end, many of the constructs are still pretty poor. A person that has never seen a feeler gauge or light peeking out between 2 pieces of metal are unlikely to be able to visualize .005" even though they know what feet and inches are. That is one reason people use a football field instead of 300 feet when describing something the same way with a piece of paper in regards to thickness, or a human hair.

[Matt Mattingley]

Van, I don’t want to quote you when your whole post so... I actually get my students to measure that piece of paper. I consider it a standard protocol. Use a micrometer, vernier, then I get them to use depth mic’s , Gauge blocks, Gauge pins.
No what is exceptable tolerance for a pre-ream hole, Proper counterbores or counter sink sizes or how to layout a bolt pattern. Our training generation does not know how to lay out a bolt pattern using a spring gage/compass. They don’t even know what SOHCAHTOA stands for.

I have tested a few mature adults and they come in stellar....What is happening with our junior adults?

[Derek Cohen]

But doesn't that visual at some point just become attached to the number? Like way 100 yards is a football field.

Not quite. Analogue offers a time frame, which may end at a specific point, but also has a starting point. As time progresses, the time frame remains fixed, and time is a moving position within it. Digital time only offers an isolated point, that is, the numbers one sees, and this does not create an awareness of a position, unless it is converted to an analogue time frame. Keeping track of time on an analogue simply requires a glance to determine the position of the hand. Keeping track of time on digital requires a calculation, mental arithmetic.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jon Shank]

Any time I leave the house I will have a watch on my left wrist, a ring on that left ring-finger and a pocket knife in my pocket. Usually a leatherman(left front) and a pocket knife(right front), definitely a creature of habit. In the shop, no. No major reason, I don't use many power tools anyway, but I guess that's where the habit of taking it off came from.

And an interesting side topic that I have been really enjoying reading, always an analog watch. The only digital watch I ever owned was one I got as a gift when I was a kid, didn't like it and went back to wearing the old analog within a couple days. There is something just more human, more cyclic than scheduled about an analog watch. It only takes an instant to glance at the face and have my brain translate what I see to the time, but it's an instant in context to the rest of the day I guess. I've had fancier, mechanical and automatics and such but my current watch for the last couple years is just a nice solid battery powered Seiko. Nothing fancy, simple dial, face size that doesn't make my wrist look like an infants, so not the huge diver/astronaut/pilot/linebacker/submariner/jolly green giant size that seems like it's been popular for years. Just a nice round face with normal numbers, not roman numerals, and the day of week and day of month, cause frankly things just run together sometimes. And yes, I feel naked if I'm not wearing it when I'm out and about.

I set reminders and alarms on my phone, keep a calendar synced up with all kinds of different stuff, absolutely fantastic utility that I don't know how I would get by without nowadays. But when I want the time I look at my wrist. Unless I'm in the shop then I look at the old boom box on the mantel, heh. Really gotta get or make an analog clock for the shop. Old table saw blade with a movement in it or something similarly goofy/woodworky.

[John Sincerbeaux]

I always wear a watch and my wedding ring when woodworking with one EXCEPTION. I dont follow many hard and fast rules when I woodwork. Rather I rely on situational awareness...that little voice in your head that starts sounding an alarm BEFORE you hurt yourself. The only situation I hear that alarm is at my lathe when I turn large hollow form vessels. The initial rounding of a 150# log is the scariest thing I do in all of woodworking. If your finger(s) slip off the toolrest in between it and the facets of the log your finger(s) will be torn off. Its the only time i take off my ring.

995F1B26-7D8F-49C8-878C-E82A154B4391.jpg

[Zach Dillinger]

I wear an actual, according to Hoyle, watch every second of every day. Even while sleeping. So, yes, I wear one while woodworking. I have a collection of more than 30 pieces so it varies day to day which I wear for that duty but there are a few that I won't wear in the shop including my higher end stuff.

[Ted Phillips]

I wear my exercise tracker all the time on my wrist - including in the shop. When I do final sanding on a project, it usually thinks I've run a full marathon.

[Jerry Wright]

I was always taught never to hire a man that smokes a pipe or has a beard. They are too contented! I would add not wearing a watch to that statement. Of course, I wear an analog watch.

[Doug Landphair]

Sure, I wear a watch - unless I know it's going to get in the way or roughed up while I'm handling lumber. I do not under any circumstances wear rings, necklaces, bracelets or other loose fitting items. Too easy to get caught in dangerous places.

[Martin Wasner]

What's it mean when your watch is analog, but it's a LCD screen?

[Thomas L Carpenter]

Yes, I wear a watch in the shop. I don't wear a wedding band for the weak reason that I nearly lost that finger nearly 35 years ago due to the band. Time to me is like a number line. As a retired analytical chemist I guess I'm anal enough to always (or nearly always) want to know where I am and what time it is. The where I am part is the reason i bought a car with a nav system.

[Greg Hines, MD]

I have no TV in my garage workshop, so nothing. That said, I will sometimes listen to an Audible.com book, usually something from Stephen King.

Doc

[David Helm]

I am astounded at how long this thread is and also surprised that I chose to add my two cents. My (analog) watch, like my glasses, goes on my wrist when I get up and leaves my wrist when I go to bed (the glasses of course go on my head not my wrist). Can't abide digital watches. Don't take my phone to the shop. If someone wants to talk to me they can leave a message. Wedding ring never comes off. I like the way Derek thinks re time. Still think the best safety practice is an engaged brain.

[lowell holmes]

I don't wear a watch, but I have a battery powered watch hanging on the wall of my shop. I have watches, just don't wear them.
SWMBO tells me when and how I need to do things.

[Vincent Tai]

You would be surprised. I faintly remember there being analogue clocks as a subject in HS math for kids who struggled enormously with math. I was one of a handful of kids who actually wore a watch daily (and as far as I remember one of the very few to wear analogue), I have done so since I was 9; unfortunately I've gone a bit haywire this year and after the battery died on my last ticking one I still haven't gone to the guy to get them all replaced. I still slap a watch on out of habit when I wake up every now and then. Flicking my wrist up to get the sleeve of the watch and the watch raised to view is a habit that hasn't died at all during the last few months of no watches.

But for the majority of people the lack of being able to read analogue has gotten ridiculous. I worked at a local small ski hill and there was a big digital clock mounted at the base lodge so you could see the time from the top of the hill or turn around when sitting on the lift. This was important because a lot of people either lived or parked in the community on the hill top and would need to know when last chair was so they weren't stranded and forced to walk ages up the hill because of missing last chair. The digital clock broke and some of my bosses wanted to put up analogue ones at lift stations etc instead of shelling out near a grand for repairs but apparently the teens and young adults can't read analogue and someone mused about liability. The digital clock didn't get fixed either so idk what management was thinking. A real eyebrow raising moment for me.