Axminster - the knowledge - a bit naughty

[graduate_owner]

I was just browsing the Axminster pages on table saws and was reading the health and safety bit. Current H & S requirement is the hands must not be closer than 450mm to the blade. Interesting photos both immediately above and below this section show an operator with hands about 150 - 200 mm away.
Perhaps the saw was switched off? Well actually the teeth are a blur so I think not.
Perhaps it is not a real hand, but a plastic mock up?
Perhaps I'm in a very picky mood today.

K

 

[transatlantic]

450mm?

That seems very inpractical. Most jobsite saws don't have a table much bigger than that (per side of blade), and the mitre slot distance to blade is always less than that???

Are you sure that's not for a much bigger saw?

 

[finneyb]

Hands no closer than 450mm is not quite HSE Guidance http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/wis16.pdf page 2

' A push-stick should always be used when making any cut less than 300 mm in length or when feeding the last 300 mm of a longer cut. Push-sticks should be at least 450 mm long with a ‘bird’s mouth’ (see Figure 3). The leading hand should never be closer than is necessary to the front of the saw and hands should never be in line with the saw blade.'

Brian

 

[graduate_owner]

I was quoting the Axminster site. 450mm seems over cautious to me too.

K

 

[Steve Maskery]

But it is the pushstick that should be 450mm. The handle on it is probably about 150mm, so that leaves a distance of 300mm from blade to skin. I'm happy with that.

 

[woodbloke65]

I was just browsing the Axminster pages on table saws and was reading the health and safety bit. Current H & S requirement is the hands must not be closer than 450mm to the blade. Interesting photos both immediately above and below this section show an operator with hands about 150 - 200 mm away.
Perhaps the saw was switched off? Well actually the teeth are a blur so I think not.
Perhaps it is not a real hand, but a plastic mock up?
Perhaps I'm in a very picky mood today.

K

I assume this is the page you're referring to?

http://knowledge.axminster.co.uk/table- ... 1491294312

If it is, all of the cuts shown are either cross or mitre cuts, where it's difficult/awkward or possibly even unsafe to use push sticks. It's not ideal, but hands do come that close when doing these sorts of cut, but yes 450mm I think is the current H&S distance - Rob

 

[lurker]

HSE DO NOT make requirements.

They make recommendations of application of the law and sometimes they get it wrong. Most of these myths are cooked up by the non competent, mostly propping up a bar somewhere.

 

[lurker]

please re-read the HSE document cited above by Finney.
Nowhere is there any reference to how close your hand should be to the blade.

Like Steve says; personally 300mm is what I am comfortable with.

 

[novocaine]

ah well Lurker, you see, you can prove anything if you misinterpret the recommendations.

 

[lurker]

ah well Lurker, you see, you can prove anything if you misinterpret the recommendations.

Except as a Chartered Safety Practitioner with 30 years experience of machine tools, I am less likely to.
I may be c r a p at woodwork but I'm red hot on pragmatic safety (is there a swollen headed smiley, please apply it here!)

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

I'm overly cautions about everything myself and have all the protection gear to keep me safe even if there's just 0.1% chance something can happen,+ I always think 2 steps ahead.. however.... Use your common sense guys!
If you are born without one, than just do something else and don't get close to such tools.. No HSE guidances will keep you safe...

This nanny state produces individuals who aren't capable of doing anything else than a 1 set of tasks they have learned and lives their whole lives without knowing basic things outside their 1 set of skills they have learned.
For example why would there be a need for such mindblowing thing such as - certificate on how to use a ladder... Common sense goes a long way...


Mr ''Chartered Safety Practitioner for 30years'' what's the point from all that if you said yourself you are carp at actually doing the thing you preach?

 

[stuartpaul]

......
Mr ''Chartered Safety Practitioner for 30years'' what's the point from all that if you said yourself you are carp at actually doing the thing you preach?

That's not what he said though is it? Even with a smilie there you're misquoting.

And common sense isn't all that it's blown up to be so if that's what you're relying on better check the insurance

 

[Steve Maskery]

SP - You beat me to it.

The other point about the length of the pushstick is that at the end of the cut the end of the pushstick is beyond the blade, let us say by another 150mm or maybe more. And the blade itself sticks up above the height of the timber (only a bit if it is adjusted correctly, but above, nonetheless). All those bits add up, each one putting my hand closer and closer to the part with which I don't want to become intimate.

 

[lurker]

Indeed why would you need a certificate to use a ladder. No where does the HSE say you need one.
If you have come across a requirement, it's down to those incompetent people I mentioned

 

[tomatwark]

I am sure that the length of push sticks and using one on the last 300mm of wood has been the recommendation for a long time, predating the HSE info published, I was certainly taught that a college in the 80's.

How many of you looked further down however and noticed the bit about grooving.

 

[graduate_owner]

Well my post got some discussion going anyway.
I have several home made wooden push sticks, the sort with a notch cut out of the end, and really I can't understand why everyone doesn't use them. They are easy enough to make from scraps and so cost practically nothing.

K

 

[Peter Sefton]

The images on the Axi site look quite reasonable to me, the user is holding the timber against the mitre gauge which positioned by the mitre slot he couldn't hold the timber 350mm alway from the blade.

As I understand it the HSE say you shouldn't have your hands any closer than 300mm in line of the blade and a push-stick should always be used to remove the cut piece from between the saw blade and fence, unless the width of the cut piece exceeds 150 mm.

Cheers Peter

 

[TFrench]

Indeed why would you need a certificate to use a ladder. No where does the HSE say you need one.
If you have come across a requirement, it's down to those incompetent people I mentioned

I've done the BLMA course for ladders and steps (somewhere required us to have it). We were told that the employer has to demonstrate that you've been trained to use something or they'll be liable if you **** it up, which even extends to ladders. As I understand it, the HSE say you don't HAVE to have a lot of things, but it can't half come back to bite you if anything winds up in court.

 

[Steve Maskery]

A million years ago, when I was still a teenager, I had a holiday job in a company that made glazes for the pottery industry. I was sent up into an attic full of industrial detritus, no breathing protection and just a pair of gloves.

After just a few minutes my gloves disintegrated as I scraped out the rubbish that was up there.

On the way down, I fell off the ladder, no injury, but it had to be reported.

I signed a statement that I was using a pair of stepladders i the closed position. The bloke who was dealing with this incident smiled. I had admitted my fault. But there had been no training at all, I was just a kid, given a pair of gloves and a stepladder and told to get on with it. So using a closed stepladder leaned against a wall was my fault.

The gloves were not up to the job, whatever it was I was shifting could disintegrate them in minutes, yet this was my fault. I have no idea what my skin came into contact with.

As far as I can tell, I've not had any long-term consequences, but I would not like any other young lad to to be so badly treated in one of their first jobs.

Ladder training is OK in my book.

And gloves, if it comes to that.

 

[Farmer Giles]

I was talking to a lady yesterday who stopped a worker on a stone conservation job from applying hydroflouric acid without any PPE, gloves, nothing. Definitely a Darwin award moment avoided. It's times like this when you think a bit of training is a good thing, some people can't be bothered to read the safety blurb so you can't rely on common sense, and the only way of dealing with them is to exclude them from site for their and other's safety but also to avoid subsequent litigation.

There's nowt common about common sense