horseshoes, hand grenades, and tablesaws
What price, hubris?
I am home alone with the kids. They’re getting along fabulously, so I decide to try to get a couple small projects done that have been hanging around the “shop” for too long.
Everything’s going great and I’m moving along, full steam ahead. I’m like one of those extreme makeover guys. In fact, I’m impressed with how fast I’m working and how well it’s going.
Now, as a rule, I ALWAYS unplug the TS when I’m making changes. ALWAYS. Except tonight. And I’m fully cognizant, aware, that I’m not bothering to unplug.
My two year old daughter wanders in during a lull. I’m absent-mindedly talking to her. I’m measuring the distance from the blade to a sac fence. And I hear the most terrifying words in any language:
“Daddy? What’s this?”
The tablesaw screams to life, the wind created by the blade rushes underneath the palm of my left hand, she bolts, I shout “OH MY GOD!” and yank the cord out of the wall.
To our credit, neither of us cried.
Replies
You are one incredibly fortunate guy! Next time there's a 2-yr-old around, I'd suggest throwing the main breaker.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Well. . .the new rule is: I don't run the tablesaw if I'm the only adult in the house.
Sounds like a good rule, at least until the little ones are a bit older.
Seems to me I remember a Knots story about a youngster tossing a ball in the shop and hitting the On button on the tablesaw, hence the rule that "Child in shop, saw unplugged." Thing is, with kids, if it can happen it will!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Sorry about the late post but just read your new rule. A little story...
A good woodworking friend was trying out his new tool. One of those chain saw like grinders for fast wood carving. Seems it got away from him and ground through his hand. His wife was gone. With the grinder on the floor running, he set out running next door. With a stream of red following him, he was able to get his neighbor to slow the bleeding and take him to the ER. Lots of stitches later, he came home to his wife who first wanted to know why one of his tools was left running in the basement and then seeing the bandage almost stroked.
It was months until he was able to do woodworking again.
Now for my rule:
No power tools, no sharp tools, and no potential injury-causing activities when my wife is not home. Our nearest neighbor is several miles away. That is the time for drawing, measuring, ordering, wishing, etc.
I can always take another day on the project.
So, why endanger yourself with an injury you can't handle by yourself. All woodworkers should consider making a rule of NO power or sharp tool usage when alone.
Sorry about the long winded post but I'm extremely safety conscious.
Safe woodworking!
A bad day woodworking is better than a good day working -- yes, I'm retired!
Well, I can't go for the "no WWing when alone rule" since my hubby works out of state and is only home every other weekend. I do have a phone in the shop, and the Fire Department/EMT's (and Medivac helicopter pad, heaven forbid) are less than 1/2 mile from the house. That's the best I can do!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Hey Jamie,Ditto here. With my shop four city blocks from home, and the wife away for weeks at a time, I'm on my own.I think that among the fundamental skills of wood working is knowing how to set safety rules for yourself, and sticking to them. This is where a good grounding in the basics pays off, in an silent unextrodinary way. Working alone has its pros and cons, and its own responsibilities as well.Tom
Edited 4/25/2005 12:42 am ET by tms
Understood. Just be safe, we don't like to hear bad stuff. :-)
A bad day woodworking is better than a good day working -- yes, I'm retired!
I live in abject fear of this sort of thing.
Not for me or my safety, but for my girls'. The minute my seven year old comes into the shop, it's hand tools only (except cordless drills, and she's tried out the drill press). I've managed to put the fear of God into her when it comes to my machines, but I know the one year old will be different, I can see it in her eyes.
Doors locked, safety keys removed, blades below tables, etc. when I'm not around. When I am, the little ones aren't. I couldn't live with myself if they got hurt.
I had the same experience, my daughter comes into the shop and heads for the table saw...all sorts of thoughts ran through my head. After that to save me from telling her (read with a loud voice) all the time (No, Stop, Don't do that, etc., etc.) I stop what I'm doing and pay attention to her.
Gotta wonder how common it is for a child in a woodshop to at some point turn on the table saw. Once. My son did when he was three or so. By freak luck I happened to be checking the blade/fence distance at the time. The blade of my steel engineer's scale was beneath a blade tooth at the time. All I heard was a sharp click as the tooth dropped against the scale. The scale jammed the saw. I figured out what had happened instantly and had the saw off again in a second. No damage to the scale. Wonder if that would have been the result with the cabinet saw I use now - instead of the contractor saw I was using at the time?
Well, I don't know which saint might have been watching over you, but you owe him one.
I just thought it might be in place to balance the picture a bit. There is a very natural tendency for parents to get hysterical about kids in the shop, and your experience brought it home in a way that you will never forget. But please, don't keep the kids out of the shop on account of it.
I spent a lot of my childhood in my father's basement shop. (This was 50 years ago). The machines were strictly off limits, and he let me know it. But on the other hand, I knew all the hand tools better than I knew my regular toys. He was never afraid to let me experiment with them, even if I got into some minor incidents with a chisel or a hand drill. That way I learned to respect them and appreciate them before I was 6 years old.
It may not be a popular way to do things nowadays, I really don't know. And I wouldn't presume to tell anyone the right way to deal with their kids. But I couldn't replace those early impressions in the shop with anything I learned afterwards. Just a thought...
DR
P.S. - my own 3 kids, all grown and parents themselves, are all in the woodworking business nowadays.
Ring:
I agree with you! Unfortunately there are to many people that just produce kids without being a parent. We too had 4 children (2-girls/2-boys), the youngest now is 30 and each can cook, sew, learned to make their beds when they could start walking and are now teaching their children to be self sufficient.
I might add that they each have their own tools and know how to use them. The few minutes spent with them each day pays back a hundred fold. It is great to see what they learned and listen to what they now say to their children when I didn't even think they were listening or watching.
Roger
God bless knowing grandparents. I never was allowed to use any power tools in my GP's shop, except one, the bench grinder. I spent many days making nails in to nice sparks and a pile of dust. I must of looked funny then, but now I'm a high school woodworking teacher. Something must have sunk in...
I'm with you on this. My kids have been in the shop since they were very little. I hung the jumper thing in the shop when I would do assembly and hand work. When they were older they were alowed in and played with chunks from the scrap bin. They are very clear about power tools being off limits. Though they are allowed to use the scroll saw and cordless drills under direct supervision. Now at 5 and 8 (boy and girl)they have their own work bench full of hand tools where they work at their own "projects". My 8 year old daughter loves to do relief carving, and scroll sawing. My son builds "sculpture" that uses so much glue I have to often have to used a hammer and chisel to remove them from the workbench.(exactly why they have their own bench) They know that when the tablesaw is running to wait until it is off to enter, and they have hearing protection and goggles of their own.I would rather not shelter them, instead teach them. We never had a gate on any stairs, we taught them to go up and down as soon as they could crawl. They each have their own BB guns and bows and arrows, that they are free to use UNDER SUPERVISION.I am not advocating free reign in the shop for kids, but I would encourage bringing them in while supervised and teaching them as they are able to learn.EDIT: Ooops, I meant to reply to Ring.
Edited 4/22/2005 10:02 am ET by BrianF
Brian, and everyone else -
I salute all the parents who are making the effort to responsably bring the kids into the shop. Whatever they eventually do in life, it will always be a meaningful part of who they are.
Personally, I am on my way over to my eldest son's place for dinner with his family. I have it in mind to drink a toast tonight to whatever saint watches over us.
DR
Edited 4/23/2005 3:30 am ET by ring
I plan to do something similar with my son (who is currently 3 months old, so he has other skills to master first, like bowel control). I had unrestricted access to my father's shop at as young as I can remember, but he must have put the fear of God into me about his radial arm saw at some point-- I used to play with it, sliding it back and forth and turning the elevation crank, but would never have dreamed of actually turning it on.
Though the tool that always sent me running from the shop was the bench grinder, which vibrated the entire house and made lots of big scary sparks.
All the best to both of you.
DR
I'm very glad to hear that no one was hurt!!! I feel funny about my TS. My shop is in a detached garage and I have no children, but if my girlfriend, landlord, or landlord's dogs and cats are outside I try to steer clear of the TS. I have no idea why, its not like one of them is going to walk over turn it on and push me through it (though I'd be surprised if my girlfriend hasn't thought about it at times...LOL). I think I'm mainly afraid of one of them doing something and catching my attention for that split-second that something goes through the blade that wasn't supposed to. There is almost always something else I can be doing. My father put the fear of God into me about his TS and I think my anxiety might be a latent effect of this. It's odd how comfortable I am using it when no one is around and I can put all three remaining brain cells to work concentrating on just the TS. Anway, enought from me. Unplug (whoever said the pullout method doesn't work), and be safe.
-Art K.
Pull out plugs! I've always wondered why equipment from the USA comes with two-pin plugs. In South Africa we use three pin plugs with the cord entering at the bottom end and the earth pin, thicker than the live and neutral, at the top. You'd break the plug top before you could pull it out by the cord. You okes are clever, hey!
I always thought it was horseshoes, hand grenades and girls where close counts :). I'm glad things didn't turn out badly. Had a close call once or twice myself. I had to train my older kids and wife not to distract me or worse yet, sneak up on me when I'm running a finger eating machine. I tell them to just get in my peripheral vision and wait for me to shut down.
John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
The more things change ...
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Petronious Arbiter, 210 BC
Unfortunately, I've worked in a production shop and seen when things go wrong. As the WSIB certified member, I've taken the courses, taught others, and seen what still happens. Sometimes it's not just the wee ones who need to learn to respect tools.
The fear of god really comes when you've been nipped by a 14" Tablesaw (10yrs ago, and still hurts when I think about it), or seen a coworker get his hand put into a 10HP shaper (and he had done nothing wrong). Teeth break on sawblades and come out. I've seen fingers go into the jointer because of gloves, and we even a knife come out of the shaper at full speed (didn't hit anyone, but loosened a few bowels).
It takes time to teach the little ones that this is dangerous stuff, and that the tools are just waiting for you to let your guard down. I grew up around my dad's power tools, and was always afraid of the circular saw. Now I cope crown moulding on site with a wormdrive, freehand (don't ask- I'll never tell).
I love it when my daughter comes in to "help"; we clean up together, she likes to hammer nails (even used the nailer a few times), drill with an old Stanley eggbeater drill I got for her. And I look forward to involving her more in bigger projects with more tools. And the 1 year old will want to get involved too.
I would just rather my girls didn't learn the hard lessons the hard way. If that makes me a suck, so be it.
The danger isn't always with power tools. One day many years ago I was splitting firewood using what I call a go-devil, one of those heavy mall type splitters, blade on one edge, mall head on the other. One of my sons came out to help his Dad. He was probably 8-10 years old at the time. He was standing up the chunks of wood and I was splitting them. All was going well until this one piece started to tip over. I had already started my swing and the mall was coming down when his hand darted out to catch the chunk and keep it from tipping. His hand was right on top of chunk when the mall came down. To this day I still get a queasy feeling in my stomach when I think about what could have happened and didn't. When the mall struck the chunk it landed right between two of his fingers and never touched him. Seems like there's always danger even in the simplest of things.
Oh my god. That's providence watching over you there.
But on a lighter side of that kind of story:
My wife's uncle Bill had a Great-Uncle (a long time ago) who had a working farm. Uncle Bill went to stay with them for a visit when he was about 5. He had a tiny little hatchet and was going around chopping kindling, and generally being a 5-year old boy with a tiny hatchet.
The Great Uncle comes out and says (jokingly) "Hey Billy boy, tell you what: My little finger here has been hurting me something awful. Do me a favour and just chop it off for me, right here, and I'll give you a nickel" Or something to that effect. So being a 5-year old who likes nickels......
He still remembers his Great-Aunt, with a stern look on her face, saying "well, give 'em his nickel...., then go see the doctor"
That gave me a queasy feeling all through my body. Man, the close calls we can have. You and yours were definitely being watched over.
Creekwood,
..and that queasy feeling never leaves your mind..
I brought my ten year old son up to see his new bedroom during construction on a Sunday. There was a contractor saw in the room, scrap 2x4's and I decided to put a point on a piece of scrap that we could then launch on the pond. Freehanding a ten inch long piece of pine to cut a 45...from the outfeed side...still queasy after 20 years...
Yep, I'm sure. When we look back on some of the things we've gotten away with, it's amazing we're still here.
my chilren were allowed into the shop, but touched nothing until daddy over saw them. When they went to grade 9 they took shop. There they could touch nothing until they recieved their lisence for that tool. now when i come home and hear the tools, it is most likly my daughter making something. She is now in college and made a wooden box for her food weight scale. sliding top and all. I stayed out of her way until she was finished. She no longer needs daddys help. we grow old to fast .
Thank God your daughter's OK.
My 4 1/2-year-old son hates it when "daddy goes into the shop" instead of playing with him, so I let him in when I'm there and he can either help me with things like gluing or hand sanding (wearing a respirator and goggles - he also has ear protection) or watch as I operate a power tool.
The rules are very simple - Never, ever enter the shop when I'm not there, or haven't given permission to enter. Never touch anything sharp without my permission and supervision.
I like having him around, although he's still a bit young yet to be all that interested in the wood - It's more spending time with daddy - and that's a wonderful thing.
Take care,
Mitch
"I'm always humbled by how much I DON'T know..."
My little girl was never in any danger. It was my hand that almost got launched against the wall.
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