What's the most stupid thing you've done in woodworking?

[marcros]

My father - a genuine Sheffield steelworker - had a tablesaw he made himself from angle iron and plate. It had no guarding whasoever - no riving knife or crown guard, and all that was under the table was exposed, just an open frame of angle iron. Watched him use it many a time, and amazingly he still has all his bodyparts. He still has the saw, but is too old to have the energy to use it. I hope.

I think my worst woodworking scar is an axe cut to my wrist. Knocked it off the block picking something up from the floor. Some of my friends have done much better. One fronted up at Addenbrooks A&E with his leg held together with gaffa tape having missed the workpiece with a hewing axe.

Green woodworking seems more dangerous than I ever imagined!

 

[Spectric]

There is an amazing number of nasty accidents that have occured over the years but most were not accidents in the true sense, they are what is classed as preventable incidents. Examples are fitting oversize grinding wheels into handheld grinders and the bloke ends up dead with it embeded in his head, failure to secure full isolation and release all stored energy, the guy is crushed in the machinery or the guy working on overhead power lines and did not use the right PPE because it was in the van below and got fried, the list is endless but all due to human error. One accident I do recall is the bloke on a building site that was pined to the ground by a scaffold pole through his shoulder and out just above his hip that had fallen from many floors above, to him it was an accident as he had no played no part but it was still preventable.

As for me the worst thing I have done was end up with hinge thumb, cutting wood with small axe and got distracted! I quickly wrapped it up and went indoors where the missus looked and said I was lucky because I had only partially chopped through it just below the nail and the top bit was now hinged over and next to the rest, it is now back to normal.

 

[SammyQ]

I ended up with an angle grinder cup wheel bristle (singular) embedded in my forehead. Thing just fell apart and linear shrapnel went everywhere.
I was SO grateful - as I had no face shield on - that it had not been 2" lower and blinded me.
Mission Control laughed like a drain, then said "you look like an anorexic unicorn"...

 

[Ttrees]

Biggest accident, really an error rather than a mistake, I had.. was cutting old shuttering ply, mainly unsupported on a wheelbarrow whilst using an old handsaw with a plastic handle.
The sheet pinched the saw plate and the handle shattered, which sliced the tendon on my ring finger.
I would get a glove now and stick it over the knuckles if I had to do the same again,
perhaps maybe I'd have a bit more insight and less enthusiasm.

Maybe the stupid thing yes, but still som how seems less embarrassing than cutting into a tenon rather than the waste.
Maybe time is the cure for that.
Large graphite stick or carpenters pencil on the waste for me anymore!

Tom

 

[Dr Al]

I've been relatively lucky so far, although I did rather stupidly pick up a piece of steel I'd just been welding to have a better look at it. It was surprisingly hot!

When I was renting a flat many years ago, we had some contractors come in to replace the boiler. They had to drill a new hole in the wall for a flue. We were sitting at the other end of the house and the lights suddenly went off. The contractor had drilled through a mains cable and given himself a nasty shock. I can see how that could happen (the cable was going up the wall at about 70° rather than straight up). What struck me as stupid was that having just got a nasty electric shock that had apparently made him jump back a foot, he went to the consumer unit, turned the power back on and then had another go.

 

[Doug B]

Most Stupid thing I’ve done is buying Axminster brand machines, an expensive mistake.

 

[Sru]

When I was very young, we lived in Kenya. My Father had a rigging company that employed carpenters etc. One day, during the hols, I was pestering him in the office too much so he took me out the back and told one of the carpenters to look after me and make something to keep me amused. He decided on a small boat and got me to hold the end while he chiselled out the inside. Yup, you can see it coming ... the chisel slipped all the way down and dug 3/4 way into the top of my finger. Luckily they stitched it back together and all was fine but felt so bad for the poor bloke.

New to table routing, I have been every so careful but one morning, tired due to darn cats waking me up, I pushed a bit of wood left to right across a straight bit. Gosh wood flies fast and furiously when that happens

I also suffer from buying cheap and regretting ... constantly. Wife always p*ssed but did get me permission for a Festool router when the 2nd cheap bit of rubbish from Amazon failed 30 mins after arriving.

 

[artie]

I also suffer from buying cheap and regretting

I had that problem all my life but I seem to have got over it, now that there's no mortgage, no HP and no kids at uni.

 

[Keith 66]

I had just acquired a boat hull & I decided to split some old hosepipe to clip over the hull edge to protect the cover. Thought to myself "Better cut away from yourself" I was using an old lino knife, very sharp with a pronounced hook on the end. Anyway it slipped out & i was driving it with both hands. It swung up & i drove the point of the lino knife into my forehead just above my eyebrows. I let go & the knife was left stuck there.
Took quite a bit of force to pull it out & had a massive bump on my forehead! It wasnt the first time that boat drew blood nor the last!

 

[kinverkid]

My upholsterer friend gave us a large amount of upholstery quality leather off-cuts. My wife thought she would have a go at re-covering the dining chair seats with it. My air guns are brad nailers and staplers so my friend lent us his spare upholsterers stapler which I connected to the airline for her then told her it won't fire unless it's pressed against the piece to be stapled. I then demonstrated this by pulling the trigger while pointing it in her general direction. A staple came flying out lightly piercing her forearm. The limp is almost unnoticeable and I can pass urine with almost no pain at all these days.

 

[DBT85]

My father - a genuine Sheffield steelworker - had a tablesaw he made himself from angle iron and plate. It had no guarding whatsoever - no riving knife or crown guard, and all that was under the table was exposed, just an open frame of angle iron. Watched him use it many a time, and amazingly he still has all his bodyparts. He still has the saw, but is too old to have the energy to use it. I hope.

There are millions of people that used a table saw with no riving knife and no guard and have all of their body parts. Sadly that is the part of the problem as they show others and say "It never happened to me before","I know what I'm doing", "I'll be extra careful", "guard removed for filming purposes".

 

[AESamuel]

Cutting dovetails and cut out the tails instead of the waste.

 

[LBCarpentry]

Oh I’ve just thought of mine.

When making window frames used to run a mortar groove round the outside of the frame like ye olde days. This required dropping timber into the cutter block one end, and stopping before the end and dropping back out.
One time dropping in, the block just snatched the timber & spat it straight out whilst my hand went with it, brushing past cutter block by millimetres!

Jesus Christ a pooed a brick, turned it off and just sat down for a bit to calm down. I said I’d be dammed if I lost my hand for the sake of a mortar groove. So have never bothered doing them since

 

[Jameshow]

Just been cutting some mortices for a little bedside table I'm making.
Selecting the knot free sides as face sides...
Only I've landed knots right where the mortices need to go.

Rookie error!

Cheers James

 

[Doug71]

Am I allowed 2?

First one I don't really count as my fault as it was about 30 years ago before I knew any better. We were hanging a BIG pair of doors on a barn, all going well and nearly finished just the bolts to drill through for the band type hinges. We were putting a hole through for one of the top hinges, my mate was inside up a ladder with the drill (corded in those days so more powerful/faster), I was up a ladder outside holding a short piece of 6x1 against the outside of the door to stop the drill bit (flat high speed bit) bursting through and splintering the face of the door. One of us had got our measurements wrong and instead of the drill going in to the middle of the sacrificial piece of 6x1 it burst straight through the face of the door about an 1" below the 6x1 and straight in to the fleshy part of my hand just below the thumb! I have a lovely circle shaped scar to remember it by.

My second one I still do on a regular basis, it's normally when I'm hanging doors. Does anyone else hold screws between their lips when hanging doors and their hands are full? It's not a problem until you pop a screw in your mouth that you have just unscrewed out of a hardwood door with your cordless drill on speed 2, it's surprising how hot those screws are , can't be just me that does it.

 

[LBCarpentry]

Once whilst trying to remove big black T hinge from an old door, I laid the door on trestles, removed the screws until I was left with just the bolt that goes through the entire door. Took a drill and ratchet drive, full power reverse and yes you guessed it.....

The entire hinge spun round and cracked me straight in the side of the head. Blood everywhere. Staggered into the clients studio who was doing a photo shoot at the time

“what the £uc& happened to you”??

 

[Trevanion]

If we're talking about injuries, I (kind of) remember changing out the blade in a Wadkin BRA Radial Arm Saw when I was an apprentice and the blades were kept in the cabinet underneath the saw so I squatted down and pulled out a fresh blade and shot up fairly quickly, forgetting that there was a very solid cast iron arm right above my head.

Damn near knocked myself out and probably caused a bit of drain bamage.

 

[owen]

Am I allowed 2?

First one I don't really count as my fault as it was about 30 years ago before I knew any better. We were hanging a BIG pair of doors on a barn, all going well and nearly finished just the bolts to drill through for the band type hinges. We were putting a hole through for one of the top hinges, my mate was inside up a ladder with the drill (corded in those days so more powerful/faster), I was up a ladder outside holding a short piece of 6x1 against the outside of the door to stop the drill bit (flat high speed bit) bursting through and splintering the face of the door. One of us had got our measurements wrong and instead of the drill going in to the middle of the sacrificial piece of 6x1 it burst straight through the face of the door about an 1" below the 6x1 and straight in to the fleshy part of my hand just below the thumb! I have a lovely circle shaped scar to remember it by.

My second one I still do on a regular basis, it's normally when I'm hanging doors. Does anyone else hold screws between their lips when hanging doors and their hands are full? It's not a problem until you pop a screw in your mouth that you have just unscrewed out of a hardwood door with your cordless drill on speed 2, it's surprising how hot those screws are , can't be just me that does it.

I've done the hot screw trick a few times, doesn't half make you jump

 

[glenfield2]

I was putting down some chipboard flooring in a bedroom of a house we were renovating. The end of one sheet was temporarily hanging over the open stairwell. ‘Careful you don’t step on that’ I warned wife and kids. Ten minutes later....
Result of my short cut downstairs was all the bones across my foot broken. I waited patiently in a cubicle at the hospital for the specialist to come while everyone else was dealt with. He arrived with two nurses, one quickly stepped either side of me and held me down while he yanked my foot - hard! My bellow of profanities was obviously why they left me until the place was empty.
‘Sorry about that but it was quicker than a trip to the operating theatre’ he smiled. Two months in plaster and all was well.
I hate chipboard floors!!

 

[greenfingers2]

Not stupid - just funny!! Some years ago a fitted glass/ ceramic? hob in the kitchen was broken by something falling from a cupboard above. This was covered by household insurance but the nearest size I was able to acquire was slightly bigger. I told the insurance company that I would fit it, but was informed that as I was not a qualified electrician they would need to send 2 "men" to do the job. The 2 men, about 17 and 19 arrived. The unit beneath the hob held about 100 tins of food. Yes, the wife likes to keep a good stock and this was long before Covid-19. Reluctant to remove them I gave the younger fella a hoover with it's pipe and attachment and told him that when the other fella starts the jigsaw he was to turn the hoover on and follow him. He looked at me a little puzzled but I left them to it. On hearing the hoover start I was pleased to know it was to be a nice clean job. Not to be! I went into the kitchen and saw that while the elder guy was jigsawing the worktop opening slightly bigger, the other was standing behind him with the pipe held upright. I then had a mad rush to remove most of the tins after all and clean the cupboard up before the wife got home.