When arm saw ruled

[David Utterback]

I’ll suggest the idea that LESS people got hurt back in the day. The people that ran those saws knew what they were doing. You couldn’t buy one of those size at your local big box stores like today where every bozo can buy one and cut their fingers off.

May be fewer people but many more workers, i.e. employees, were injured. Industrial safety standards, many of which originated to protect the enhanced value of human output during WWII, were often developed by what are now called consensus groups which included business owners and workers' compensation insurance company safety officials along with the contracting government agencies. The latter, in the War Dept., relied on these products to win the war so the incentive to keep production at near full capacity was very high.

[John Gornall]

I started in a shop of this type in the early '60s - WWII vintage and worked it's way through the post war housing boom. 6 of the big Dewalts. Not a finger missing - safety was serious. First day the boss handed me a broom and told me not to touch a machine untill I was trained and he approved. The boss traced his hand, cut out a template leaving one finger off and painted red hands missing a finger on every machine. He fired anyone not serious about safety. And the swing saws for cutting the big fir. 36 inch blade and 40 hp on a swinging arm - shop built, well guarded. Big fir - 16 inch beams, fir plywood 4 feet by whatever length you wanted - I ran red cedar through a planer all shift and never saw a knot. Miss those days,

[Darcy Warner]

One of my favorite videos, which always gets ruined by the nanny state safety police.

If you want to avoid any accidents, stay in your living room and don't use tools.