Dangerous tools

i learned that to. i was drilling a hole through a knife blank. it would have been safer but the clamp the blank was in was on the ground not mounted to anything and i was holding down the anvil side of it. the bit grabbed, hard, and the blank came out of the vice and hit my hand about an inch down the bone from where the thumb starts. the unsharpened edge hit bone and i think i have permanent loss of felling on the top of my thumb
 
My dad is a journeyman carpenter and the one tool he said he always hated most was a radian arm saw. If used wrong they have a dirty tendancy to jump across the board straight at you. That's the one tool I was never allowed to use in the shop when I was young. Being in construction I have seen a few things, from body parts spiked to stuff with an air nailer, to dirty cuts and gashes. Quite possibly the stupidest use of any machine I have ever seen landed two guys in the ER. In northern Manitoba while on a job, one guy on our crew shot a nail into his thumb and had to go to the hospital. While we were there two guys came in with bandaged hands. The back story is that these two morons decided they didn't have a hedge trimmer and would use a lawn mower instead. One grabbed the wheels on each side and attacked the hedge, and when the sticks started flying they dropped it and then tried to catch it again. Needless to say neither of them can count to ten now unless they take their shoes off.
 
Been mechanic/fabricator/machinist for over 30 years I've used nearly every tool available, believe it or not I've seen more injuries from screwdrivers than I have from power tools, most people have a healthy respect for power tools, any idiot can grab a screwdriver. ;)

BTW I've drilled, sawed, ground, sliced, burned, broke and abused my body one way or another more than I can remember but as I aged, (and as a result learned to be obsessively safer) realized most accidents are the result of distraction.
It's unusual to find people in my profession in one piece, most of the older guys I used to work with were missin' at least the tip of a finger if not a whole finger. Be careful of the chemicals used to, they can be silent killers along with all the dust.

Seems to me, knife makin's dangerous work best left to the professionals.... ;)
 
About a month ago in my High School Metals class it was the end of class and I was sanding something on the lathe. We had about five minutes left in the period so I decided to stop the lathe and take my piece out. Took the chuck key and twisted it loose and left it in the chuck, but for some reason I totally forgot that I did that. And I proceeded to start up the lathe (it was at a high speed for sanding), so the chuck key flew out and hit me in the finger. No injury not even a bruised bone. But I suppose it's instances like that you were safety glasses for!
 
sintro said:
About a month ago in my High School Metals class it was the end of class and I was sanding something on the lathe. We had about five minutes left in the period so I decided to stop the lathe and take my piece out. Took the chuck key and twisted it loose and left it in the chuck, but for some reason I totally forgot that I did that. And I proceeded to start up the lathe (it was at a high speed for sanding), so the chuck key flew out and hit me in the finger. No injury not even a bruised bone. But I suppose it's instances like that you were safety glasses for!
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That's a #1 no no in a machine shop.
 
Has any one seen the horrible pics of that guy that was sucked in that huge lathe? I saw them a while back and it was horrible. Gave me so much more respect for these tools. I would post em but they are extremely graphic and I'm not sure how that would go over with everyone
 
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I grew up in a woodworking shop..A lath is dangerous when you dont know hold to hold the cutters..I have a big scrar my palm from a table saw that threw a board away from me and ran my hand into the blade..I also saw a lath throw a chuck key across a room and knock a chunk from a block wall when the lath was turned on..
Know a welder who had a mig wire ran about 12" into his thigh when he bent down and hit the trigger..Before you ask how when your welding production parts over and over you eventually get good enough to where your welder is turned up to a rediculously high speed..Bright red hot wire end fresh off the bead, shooting out of the gun at top speed and bam! Through the cloths,skin and meat in a split second..
The one thing that is pure evil, is the buffer..Its a demon posing as a tool..Its out to hurt you, it means you serious bodily harm..
 
Oh, are you talking about leaving the chuck key in T Erdelyi? I didn't mean too, just had a lapse of memory.

@Leethal Saw those pictures, and they are HORRIBLE. Must've been really painful too. At least he didn't stop it halfway through, that would suck even more.
 
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For me the most dangerous thing in the workshop is other people.
Especially people who walk up from behind and yell to be heard over the machinery.
 
Burl Source said:
For me the most dangerous thing in the workshop is other people.
Especially people who walk up from behind and yell to be heard over the machinery.
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Or when people are being hooligans and shoot rivets from an air hose at people. The teacher gave the kid who did that a stern talking to. And then last week the same idiot stuck a welding electrode into a 480volt socket, on purpose. There were a bunch of sparks obviously but the thing that saved the kid was the flux coating, without that don't know if he'd be alive.
 
I have a lot of respect for the table saw and chain saw, I have seen some pretty horrific accidents in person and in pictures/videos. I would like to buy my own table saw in the next few years and when I do it will be a Sawstop, worth every penny IMO. I am not affiliated with the saws, just think it's a fantastic idea. How much is your hand worth?

As stated wire wheels deserve lots of respect too but they sure are handy.

[video=youtube;fq3o0VGUh50]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3o0VGUh50[/video]
 
The closest calls i've had are with the buffers.I've always lucked out.(so far) but i do believe they are the most dangerous tool in the knifemakers shop.I dont even want a table saw in my shop.I have been a machinist many years of my life,professionally and as a hobby,but im no carpenter and have huge respect for those things and prefer to just steer clear.Chainsaws don't rattle me,although i've only used the small ones and am very careful.Yea,the chemicals and dust is bad and cumulative.
 
Blownnova said:
I have a lot of respect for the table saw and chain saw, I have seen some pretty horrific accidents in person and in pictures/videos. I would like to buy my own table saw in the next few years and when I do it will be a Sawstop, worth every penny IMO. I am not affiliated with the saws, just think it's a fantastic idea. How much is your hand worth?

As stated wire wheels deserve lots of respect too but they sure are handy.

[video=youtube;fq3o0VGUh50]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3o0VGUh50[/video]
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These saws at an awesome idea, however they work a hell of a lot better on hot dogs than hands. My buddy is a high school shop teacher and they have these saws, and they have tripped before potentially saving kids fingers. However if your skin is dry or has sawdust on it like his did, the saw doesn't trip fast enough. He knows this because even with the sawstop he now has one finger that's shorter than it used to be.
 
Wire wheels and buffers are the worst IMO. I have a professor who was an industrial machinery inspector, he wears a bow tie to this day due to some near-death experience with getting a neck tie snatched up :o
 
SunsetFisherman said:
Wire wheels and buffers are the worst IMO. I have a professor who was an industrial machinery inspector, he wears a bow tie to this day due to some near-death experience with getting a neck tie snatched up :o
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I once had a boss who wandered into the shop and nearly strangled himself when he got nosy and his necktie got sucked into the side of a squirrel-cage fan. :eek: Luckily someone was right there to unplug it, and it wasn't a very powerful fan.
 
My friend had some business dealings with the Sawstop guy. I'll have to ask some details.

Wire brushes are a hazard because those pieces of wire can break off -you don't want one of those in your eye ! Of course both wire brush and buffer love to grab and throw !!
 
Hell boy's,

It's a dangerous world, ain't none of us getting out of here alive!

And, buffers SUCK! Don't even use one.

I have always been intrigued by people's anxiety over certain tools or items (guns come to mind) then they load up the kid's
jump in the car and subject themselves to the irresponsible attitudes of thousands of folks they don't even know without a second thought.

Food for thought, or so I think.


Greg
 
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Table saws, don't like using them as I find them aukward being left handed, seems like my fingers want to gravitate towards the raging blade. We had a novice using one in the shop at work, and a piece of wood he was cutting came flying out of it like a missile and right through the window pane with quite a bang.

Don't underestimate the drill press either when work that is not properly clamped down spins like a blender. We had another guy at work attempting to polish a pool cue tip (stupid) placed in the drill press using steel wool. The steel wool nearly took his finger off when it wrapped around the spinning cue tip and his finger got caught up in the works;.... lots of blood, like a stuck pig.
 
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