A Little Reminder About Safety

[unclej]

i've been involved in woodworking one way or another for the last 20+ years and have been well aware of the dangers of power tools. over the years i always try to stop and think before i crank up any power tool. plan the cut or the route, figure out how the wood is going to react, etc.

this morning i had five or six band saw boxes to cut out. i use my band saw nearly every day and am super cautious with it. that thing can cut fingers off, ya know? anyway, on the second cut i experienced one of the scariest and luckiest things ever to happen to me. somehow i wasn't paying attention to where my ring finger on my right hand was and as i guided the wood through the cut i cut the fingernail right off my finger without drawing blood. hard to believe but it cut it just like you would with a pair of clippers. no blood...all digits still attached. lucky...very lucky.

anyway, just a reminder that no matter how much experience you have..be careful. if it can cut wood it can damn sure cut off fingers and i'd really like to have all of mine when i die.

[Southpa]

Yessir, I agree. I've seen enough foolhardiness on the job, especially those jobs where the contractor is NOT getting paid by the hour. They figure the way to make money is to highball. And they try to make their employees work the same way. I saw one young guy feeding blanks into a table router, cutting molding profiles on the job site. He had to go to the hospital.

So theres a tidbit of advice for anyone who works in the construction or industrial trades. Your employer might be getting paid by contract where in turn, you are getting a crappy hourly wage from him. Don't let him push you into working faster. All it does is make him more money, you less money and the potential for carelessness and accidents. I'll bet a lot of accidents happen for that very reason.

Edited November 29, 2006 by Southpa

[JohnRossitter]

Amen to that.

I had the unfortunate luck of actually slicing into my left thumb on the band saw a few months ago. What I learned was don't force a tool to do a job faster. Let the tool do it at it's own pace because sometimes there is a soft spot in the wood and the band saw does not ever loose thumb-wrestling matches.

[ToneMonkey]

So theres a tidbit of advice for anyone who works in the construction or industrial trades.

Don't work on sites where the site manager lets the builders bring in their air rifles to shoot the pigeons. Especially when you're one of the blokes who walks around sites in a suit

[Doeringer]

Good stuff! I had a friend that taught police how to ride motorcycles. He would always say "If you ever get on your bike, and you are not at least a little bit afraid and cautious of it...get off immediately, as that is when you are more likely to have an accident" Same thing would apply to power tools.

[Desopolis]

Yessir, I agree. I've seen enough foolhardiness on the job, especially those jobs where the contractor is NOT getting paid by the hour. They figure the way to make money is to highball. And they try to make their employees work the same way. I saw one young guy feeding blanks into a table router, cutting molding profiles on the job site. He had to go to the hospital.

So theres a tidbit of advice for anyone who works in the construction or industrial trades. Your employer might be getting paid by contract where in turn, you are getting a crappy hourly wage from him. Don't let him push you into working faster. All it does is make him more money, you less money and the potential for carelessness and accidents. I'll bet a lot of accidents happen for that very reason.

actually, the contract is ALSO based on a standard hourly rate, and assumes a preset schedule. IF a job were to run over the contracted rate either a change order or reschedule is needed.

I guess you could PUSH the job, and finish early, but generally the price also reducts..