Fine Woodworking and Tablesaw Safety

[Shrubby]

Given that many beginners will pick up potentially dangerous tips from American websites and youtube, could there be a link on the forum to the HSE woodworking site.It has pages of clear simple advice on working with machinery,dust ,chemicals etc
Matt

 

[Steve Maskery]

Matt, you don't have a signature at the moment. You could use it for that, if you felt so inclined
Mine's already populated with helpful links...
S

 

[Losos]

I have, with the utmost reluctance, come to accept that workshop safety culture is simply different over there.

Steve - IIRC FWW did a piece on workshop safety about ten years ago and it began by quoting the number of table saw accidents in one year which had resulted in a limb amputation. (They were quoting the most recent year for which statistics were available, late nineties I think) I can't remember the exact number but I do clearly remember it was over one thousand :shock: OK I'm well aware that the US population is at least ten times that of the UK but even so to think that there were that many people who had their lives ruined for want of a few simple precautions is unbelievable.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Yes Losos. I quote a stat that says there are 30 TS accidents requiring A&E treatment per DAY in the US alone. Not all will be amputations, but nevertheless. Unfortunately I cannot remember where I saw that figure, so I can't really justify it. But I didn't make it up.

 

[Eric The Viking]

After a couple of attempts to sort it out, the guard on my mitre saw (old Elektra Bekum) still sticks when you release the trigger. There's no blade brake at present (still working on that one!). I've replaced/renewed everything that ought to affect it, and I can't see why it might catch. You have to use considerable gripping force to hold it up, so the fact it won't return makes no sense.

The thing now frightens me hugely. The trouble is that the design puts the vital spot just out of my eyeline when using it. On a couple of occasions I've passed my hand under the blade, thinking the guard was covering it, and felt air movement on the back of my hand! Millimeters more would have been very unpleasant indeed.

There's no point in being foolish (I was, very!). I now make a point of not reaching under the blade at all when it's in use. Instead I use a push stick to fetch smaller offcuts and pieces of work. I'm also going to paint the inner end of the guard a bright colour and weight it with some lead, so that it's encouraged to move and I can see immediately if it hasn't.

 

[stuartpaul]

Whilst it's easy to criticise our cousins across the pond shouldn't we also be giving them some credit?

You don't have to go back very far to find a complete lack of guarding and riving knife, - so the fact that they are now showing them is a major step forward.

The sport of critcising Americans ceased to amuse me years ago, - it's simply far too easy!

They need saving from themselves but whilst they're happy to defend there second amendment rights table saw guarding isn't going to be very high on the list is it!

My son has a tee shirt that says 'Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups'. When he wears it I always think of Americans!

PS - the spell check on here is an american version!

 

[dickm]

You don't have to go back very far to find a complete lack of guarding and riving knife, - so the fact that they are now showing them is a major step forward.

don't know how far back you'd regard as "far back", but the 24" logging saw that sat in our Herefordshire farm yard in the 1940s (and pre-dated me, so it was probably there in the '30s!) had both crown guard and riving knife.

Mind you, it was always driven by a totally unguarded 4" flat belt off the John Deere parked several yards away...........

 

[Alex H]

For those of you who want to look at the statistics there is a lot on the web, but apparently I'm not old enough to post links yet

There is an article by Popular Woodworking magazine, which addresses the problem

The article does put the injuries in perspective somewhat;

"While reviewing the numbers, I wondered about how the figures on table saws compared to other items. In 2009, there was an estimated total of about 22,000 finger amputations due to accidents of all kinds in the United States. There is no doubt that table saws are a significant portion of that number. Once again, the database sample is too small to provide estimates for many other items, but there was one item that caused about the same number of finger amputations as table saws, and about 10 times the number of total accidents. In addition, this product caused enough finger amputations among children under the age of 18 to generate an
estimate of total occurrences, about 45 percent of the total. Five children a day are enduring finger amputations due to this hazard.

The name of this product? The door."

Article for and against on the National Consumers League

In the article it states "Guards must be removed in order to perform many tasks on a table saw, such as cutting a notch in a board."

Isn't that a case of using the wrong tool for the job? :shock:

 

[Eric The Viking]

Certainly the wrong guard for the job!

 

[stuartpaul]

You don't have to go back very far to find a complete lack of guarding and riving knife, - so the fact that they are now showing them is a major step forward.

don't know how far back you'd regard as "far back", but the 24" logging saw that sat in our Herefordshire farm yard in the 1940s (and pre-dated me, so it was probably there in the '30s!) had both crown guard and riving knife.

Mind you, it was always driven by a totally unguarded 4" flat belt off the John Deere parked several yards away...........

The point I was trying to make is that American practices have changed. To see a crown guard was almost unheard of and to hear the type of explanation about a riving knife is certainly a step forward.

There's hope for them yet, - it'll just take a few more fingers!

 

[CHJ]

Reading about the welding accident with a ring, brought back memories from long ago, one of my workmates at Pershore airfield working on Valiant WP200 did not observe the correct routine for changing the battery pack in the forward end of the bomb bay, his ring completed the earth path between the mounting tray and the fusilage.
Now those were heavy duty 96 Volt battery packs, I'll leave the result to your imagination.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Not nice.

A friend who used to be a GPO engineer (Chartered, not a wireman!) remembers being in the central Bristol exchange when someone dropped a spanner across the 50V battery bus bars.

It glowed, and then melted.

E.

 

[Tony Spear]

I'll leave the result to your imagination.

I can well imagine Chas - you should have seen some of the things I've seen working on big pumping stations in places like Nigeria! :shock: :shock:

 

[Jacob]

It can happen on a small scale too.
Many years ago, on a dark, wet and wintery night, I was driving on a dark unlit road in my Bedford CA van. I suddenly noticed, glimmering away in the darkness, the ghostly shining image of a key, glowing red. It was down just below the steering column and had the profile of a normal Yale house key.
I thought at first it was some sort of weird hallucination, or perhaps a message from the other side; key to the universe etc (this was the 60s :shock: :shock: ) and stopped to investigate.
It turned out that the house key on the large bundle of keys attached to the ignition key, had managed to locate it's tip on the live connection of the heater switch just below (primitive device) and was taking the full 12v current to earth with little resistance and becoming red hot in the process.
Good job I didn't pick it up first or I'd have had 'Yale' permanently branded on my fingers.