You folks are submitting some great topic ideas on the other post. Thanks for that and keep it up! I also received a few “quick tips” from members of the community and I thought this would be a very cool thing to explore as well. So if you have a quick tip that helps make things safer in the shop, let me know about it and I’ll try to demonstrate your idea in a video (give you credit of course!). You can submit them to me directly using our contact form or simply leave a comment here.
April 20, 2011
Safety-Related Quick Tips
Hi Marc
Thanks for your fantastic website and videos!!!!
One thing I though of which can add to safety for woodworkers. When clamping up a project, you can be left with the sharp ends of a lot of clamps sticking out, and it would be easy to injure yourself by walking into the end of a bar clamp, or worse still catching the end of a quick clamp in your eye as you position more clamps. If these are at head height they can be quite hazardous.
One simple solution would be to make an x shape cut in an old tennis ball, or squash ball, (depending on the size of the clamp), and insert the sharp end of the clamp into the ball. The bight colour of a tennis ball will help make the clamp end more noticeable.
Its probably not the most dangerous thing in the shop, but an easier solution than a trip to the ER.
Hope this helps!
Thanks
Mark
According to the OSHA website, the #1 cause of death on the job is falling. The #2 cause of death is stuff falling on people. Gravity is a killer! lol.
Seriously, respect your ladders and lumber racks. Try not to store too much stuff over your head, and if you have to climb up on something, make sure it’s stable. Don’t try to climb a ladder with too much stuff in your hands, that’s what tool belts and bucket caddies are for, always keep at least one hand free enough to help you should you start to fall.
When using a table saw, ALWAYS use a push stick/push guide. Personally have two family members who are professional carpenters and have lost fingers. Thank God, they were successfully reattached through surgery.
Keep fingers away from powerful belt sanders or wear gloves. I’m just regrowing my finger ends and nails due to a slip. Mind you, this is a good time to go safe cracking….no prints.
Yes, this is a good one. I accidentally took the skin off a few of my knuckles while using a belt sander.
Gareth: Gloves may be a bad idea to recommend. My theory is, that if the glove gets grabbed by an imperfection on the belt, your hand could be pulled into the machine, and then not only is your hand being abraded, but you do have an entrapment problem; Particularly if a phone is not nearby, or you don’t have someone at home to call EMS services for you.
Ben: To add onto yours, if you don’t mind. It is important to use LADDERS. At school, we somewhat precariously(sp?) use a sawhorse to get upto our lumber rack. Those kinds of objects are not designed to support a 200lb man, with perhaps a couple tools in his pockets, while he searches for that nice piece of spalted maple he misplaced.
Mark L.: To add onto yours(It seems theres aways stuff to add.. lol) if you don’t have a tennis ball, or squash ball, nearby, atleast apply some electrical tape to the end of it. Preferably a safety orange, or yellow, to help remember where the clamp is. The tape will not give as much protection, but it does help a little bit in terms of preventing yourself from taking a chunk out of your arm with a, so kindly, razor sharp, bar clamp end.
A safety tip that most people forget; When you are done using a tool, lower its blade/bit below the table surface, if possible. While a stationary blade will not do as much damage as a rotating blade, it will still leave you with pretty good stiches. To get mathematical: The average human walking speed is approximately 1.39 metres per second. If your weight is approximately 90.71 kilos; then your net force upon the blade is somewhere about 12.85 kilos. That is nothing to joke about, that is stitches… and possible amputation if you were to get the blade to hit at a joint.
So lower your blades after you are done! Especially if you are like most of us, who secretly take the guards off of our tools(ie: TS) and put them in the rubbish can, I mean the draw, for “safe keeping”… With a guard the danger is midigated, but it is a good habbit to get into.
The only tool I must not recommend you lower is the Mitre saw, if yours is like mine. On mine, with the blade raised, the entire blade is shielded by the guard. For comparison, mine is the Ridgid 10″ CMS. However, when the blade is lowered, over 2″ of blade becomes exposed in the front of the saw. and 6″+ in the rear, since the guard retracts,up and over the top part of the saw, such as most(makes me wonder why they didnt keep the guard style such as is on Norm’s Mikita…
So my advice there, is keep the MS in the upright position.
Another thing I reminded myself of last night is, well, two parts: Always wear boots in the shop if you can, and take screws out of any scrap on the floor.
Twice, I managed to step on a piece of wood that I had carelessly disgarded on the floor, with a nice 2.5″ screw sticking up and out.
Thankfully I was wearing boots, because the screw must have went into the boot 1.5″ of its legnth. It didnt punch through, but came rather close, the second time sheering off, resulting in a fishing expodition….
But carelessly disguarding scrap with fasteners in it, onto the floor is bad news. Most of us say to ourselves “Oh, ill get that later, its out of the way”… until we step on it…. If I had been wearing sneakers, chances are, I would have been a little more unhappy…. Coffee, lots of throw able things, and getting a screw through your foot do not go well together…. lol….
This is not only from a perspective of steping on though. If you fall, you could get the screw through any part of you. From painfully in the hand, to fatally through the neck. Particuarly with the longer fasteners. As ben said “Gravity is a killer”…
Just my couple cents.
Well I dunno, I wasn’t really recommending gloves, I don’t have the experience to advise and recommend but I do have the experience of losing a couple of flaps off my finger tips and damage to the nail beds. Seems to me you need to identify the hazard, assess the risk of injury to the operator and identify protective or preventative measures. I know that if I’d been wearing a glove when my hand slipped off the workpiece, the glove tips may have been shredded, depending on the material, my fingers not. Not every belt sander presents a risk of trapping and dragging. Case-by-case assessment.
There is always an entrapment hazard. Right where the belt enters the table/housing. You would be amazed what can get dragged in. I believe OSHA has a segment on the importance of not wearing gloves around machinery. All I am saying, is gloves are a bad idea for most tasks.
I believe ANYTHING that is loose is a bad idea. I don’t like the idea of wearing gloves for the reasons already given and remove jewelery and tuck in any clothing that could be pulled into a machine. Last is something I don’t have to worry about is hair. Just this last week a woman was killed when hers was caught in a lathe. These machines that do so much work for us deserve our utmost respect. Please give it.
Vic: Yea, wasn’t it a Harvard Grad Student, or a Junior maybe. But as I said below, Metalworking machines just pull and pull and pull…
Machines do tend to like to grab stuff and suck them in… Matter of fact, I think it was my grinder with wire-wheel that did it to me a few weeks ago…. it grabbed either my hoodie or my pant leg, and spun right up into it, before I could even shut it down…. luckily I did the later, before any real harm was done… but stiill, reminds you of what can happen… especially with something a little sharper than a wire wheel(cup).
My number one safety rule is if there is a guard for your machine use it, If you don’t have one get one. I recently bought a new Kreg fence for my router but it was missing the t-bolts for the little guard that goes over the bit. So while i was waiting for them to ship I thought whats the harm to route some rabbets, I’ll wear my safety glasses for any stray sawdust… instead the 1/2″ bit exploded into fragments and shards of flying metal! Luckily the little circular guard thats in the router table plate had was in place and the shards were contained. Do you know how many videos of people using a router without that guard I have seen? Not this guy, ever again!
That is one reason I really really hate routers… at 35,000 RPMs, 10x what your TS rotates at, nothing can be good. I had a bit someone forgot to tighten the collet on. It was a router table, performing an operation with no guard(freehand). Luckily it stayed in, but I learned to check it every time now… Glad to hear you are okay though….
You should do your salute to feather boards again too Mark, Indispensable safety tool as far as I’m concerned…
Since I’m a Normite at heart I’ll throw the safety tip that it took my wife to point out to me. Use ear protection! Ear damage is cumulative which means it probably won’t cause you any problems until it becomes a real problem. This one is especially good for guys like me who love the whirl of electric motors. Although, I’m trying to learn to use planes and handsaws.
The smartest advice I’ve ever heard: If you find yourself saying to yourself ” I probably shouldn’t be doing it this way,” you shouldn’t be doing it that way.
Second tip: If you’re having a beer, don’t use any tool sharper than a fishing pole.
DD
Thanks for the tips, I do have to agree with the no gloves. I was a toolmaker for more years than I care to remember,seen a lot of bad things going on with gloves, drillpress ,and lathe are among the worst.
Yep, those metalworking machines are nasty. Woodworking machines you can usually stall out, like a lathe(done it before)…. but with the metalworking machines, they just pull and pull and pull… They seemingly have more torque than their WWing counterparts.
I was once at a blacksmithing convention where they debated the benefit of using gloves. The only benefit they could come up with was heat protection, when putting metal into the fire. But the major draw back to that was a loss of sensitivity, so you were less likely to know where the impacts were and what affects the hammer blows were having.
The general consensus, after the weekend had finished, was that the gloves only came out for welding.
I only reach for the gloves for the hand holding the pliers when I go to my grinding wheel. The rest of the time, I prefer to drape leather in front of me when sharpening my lathe chisels, or use a plastic shield when working on the lathe (chip protection). The gloves stay in the winter hat, for shoveling the snow otherwise.
The one thats always running through my head is ” no power, no problem”
when it comes to blade or bit changes or for closing down the shop, especially when you have little ones around.
Very True… If I am making a blade change, I always either unplug, or if I am changing out a couple blades, I flip the circuit breaker.
When little ones are around, tools instantly go off, and the breaker is flipped…
If old men are around, the tools are UNPLUGGED AND the BREAKER FLIPPED…. lol…. I have a grandfather who seemingly believes that he knows how to use everything…. He once cut some 1×2″(1 long 2 wide 1-2high) on a mitre saw.. after that I learned to kill the power, since blood is a pain to scrape off the tools.. I also saw him once try to walk off with my cordless tools to drill out a stump… safe to say batteries also get locked up…
I second the comment about hearing protection. Essentially every power tool in the shop requires hearing protection with the possible exception of the drill press. And don’t forget about hearing protection when you are using your shop vacuum.
Lest not forget about when emptying your compressor too. Many a time where I have emptied it, only hear ringing… 150PSI in an enclosed space(ie a shop) always makes a noise…
Here’s an interesting thought… how does how often you get to spend in the shop relate to how safe you are in the shop? For example, if you are there all the time, it might lead to complacency, but if you only get into the shop occasionally, you might forget how to be safe because thinking about safety isn’t a habit. It’s like there should be some sweet spot of how often you should work in the shop to stay sharp and focused and stay safe without getting complacent.
Unfortunately, I don’t get nearly as much time in my shop as I would like, so I’m hoping there is a valid argument that I could make to my wife that I need to spend more time in the shop for safety reasons.
I have watched a number of people get hurt over the years. In all different ways doing all different things not just in the shop. Yet there is almost always a common factor. Force and the resistance to that force giving way. If you push a chisel into wood you are using force. If you push wood into a saw blade you are using force. If you are pushing a knife into to cheese you are using force. When the resistance to the force suddenly or finally gives way what happens? Boom, a sudden rapid shift and acceleration of body parts, sharp things or other dangerous circumstances that are all basically out of control. Whatever body parts are applying the force (or in the way of that force) can get hurt. It really does not matter if you are applying 1 pound of force or 1000 pounds, you can still get hurt. People need to learn to think a head about the resistance to force giving way, and not to have any flesh in the way or in harms way of the result of the use of that force. I like to think the word FORCE in my minds eye whenever I start to use force. That is cue to stop and ponder the direction of the force and what will occur when it gives way. Think about some of the injuries you have had or observed, and how many happened in this way.
Back to the old Boy Scout Handbook for this one…
The process of earning the right to use a pocket knife included a weekend long instruction and hands on usage of all skills required to earn your “Totin’ Chip.” This included a category on the proper way to carry axes, hatches, shovels, knives, and bow saws. One other thing that was covered was the creation of a firewood cutting area, roped off from the main camp site. Only one person at a time was allowed in.
Second to this cutting area was the caveat. You held the tool by the sharp end (usually an axe), using both hands, and slowly rotated the tool all the way around you. You were to make a 360 degree circle with the handle. The object was to verify your workspace is clear. A tree branch in the way only provided an opportunity for accident.
So my tip is to verify that your workspace is clear. Fortunately, you don’t have to try to heft your bandsaw onto your shoulders, but do watch out for head room, and clearances for flipping your stock over, or rotating it to get to the other side.
I would like to clarify, for safety’s sake, when I stated “hold by the sharp end,” I’m referring to holding the whole axe head, not the sharpened cutting point. At no time is it ever encouraged to run a finger over the cutting edge in the Handbook I mention.
The process for the camp saws is similar: hold the saw by the back edge of the handle, just above the blade. This allows for the largest length of blade to be rotated (not swung: that’s just as bad as running into a branch) to verify clear space.
I think they followed that one up for us with “How to throw a hatchet”… lol….
But yea, it is a good idea to make sure you have ample room.
However, feel free to put your table saw on your shoulders and rotate it… it’ll only hurt a little… lol…
I do a lot of pocket hole drilling. After drilling a hole and moving to the next, I never set the drill down until it is completed stopped. There are too many things that can go wrong with a whirling bit getting tangled up with unsuspecting items.
Likewise, when using the TS, as soon as a cut is completed I turn the saw off and wait until the blade comes to a dead stop before moving any of the wood from the table.
I’ve been doing woodworking for 50 years or so and I still have my original 10 fingers.
Hi Marc
One more post from me. Its a little funny my offering advice as my skills are so limited! but I guess we learn from our mistakes (hopefully anyway :-)
I think one of the most important things to ensure is that you have your workpiece clamped down properly. Whatever you are doing. (Unless of course if the tool is stationery).
If you have your workpiece properly clamped down to a firm base, it will make it much less likely to give way under pressure. Doing this may just help in forgiving any lack of skill in using the particular tool.
Maybe this is quite obvious to the more experienced woodworkers, but as I am just starting out, and don’t have a proper bench as yet, it seems like a good suggestion.
Thanks again!!
Mark