Yesterday, the second-scariest thing that I’ve ever experienced took place. To put it in perspective, the scariest thing that ever happened to me was when I was working with a horse who took a shot at my head with both hind feet, and came so close I could see the wear on the bottoms of his hind shoes! That would have been death, for sure.
So, short of death: Yesterday I was working with my table-mounted router, bit surrounded by a clamped down template but no guard in place. Took the little piece of stock out and flipped the switch (OFF I thought). Realized the vacuum DC didn’t seem to be working well. Started lowering my palm down to the bit area to see if there was air movement, and my brain (just in time!) processed the fact that the bit was spinning!! Oh sh__!
I had my earmuffles on and didn’t realize that instead of turning the router off, I had switched it to variable on the speed control, and it was set so slow I didn’t really hear it any more. (I have a foot-switch, that puppy’s going on today!)
Too many switches on this router — I could have turned off the power box switch which controls router and vac simultaneously. Damn well should have had my little guard in place. Certainly will hook up the foot switch. Sheesh!
[cstan, we’ve already heard it, don’t waste your time.]
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” …. :>)
Replies
Here's a little secondary check you can do. When doing out of the table routing with either the router or laminate trimmer I use a foot switch too. Problem is, if you've got ear protection on or the stereo in the shop is on, it's still hard to tell if the bit is spinning. If you bump the footswitch without realizing it, bad things can still happen. I started hooking both the router and a tripod mounted halogen worklight to the power from the footswitch. Initially, this was just to throw better light on the workpiece and router during cutting. But it's got an added bonus.
Lights On = Router On
I love the smell of sawdust in the morning.
D2C -- excellent idea! That's one that I'll definitely set up, maybe not halogens, but some kind of warning light. Really cool, thanks!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" .... :>)
Don't ever trust a switch or an indicator light. Always disconnect the power, then try the switch to make sure you unplugged the right one. Take it from somebody with a re-attached thumb. It was almost all eight fingers.Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
I had two amazing and similar experiences recently. Twice - twice, mind you - I put my hand in the wrong place while using my radial arm saw and actually touched the spinning blade. Both times I miraculously escaped with no more than a shock to my nervous system.
Believe it or not I'm glad you weren't hurt. Router damage is gnarly- makes it tough for surgeons to re-attach stuff.
Obviously, ear protection takes away one of your senses but must be worn anyway.
I helped my neighbor with a project the other day - I ran his PC router almost all day. It actually was pretty fun.
Edited 1/26/2005 3:02 pm ET by cstan
Thanks, everyone, for patting me on the back and also for sharing other near-miss stories. These recounts help all of us I think, because we can say to ourselves "Ahhhh, yes, I think I tried that once. Definitely won't try it again!" or "Hah, that's something I might've tried. Guess I won't!"
Actually, I may swap #1 and #2 scary moment with each other. With the horse thing, I'd have felt no pain, I'm sure. That definitely can't be said about lowering one's palm into a spinning 1/2" plunge bit! Ach! My skin crawls every time I think about it.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" .... :>)
One of these days I'll tell you about the piece of plywood that caught on fire when I was routing dadoes.
It was a human-powerd router to which he had rigged up a sewing machine foot treadle for power.
And he had made the "plywood" himself, hand planing the veneers and gluing the plys in a hand-cranked veneer press.
Rich
I just finished laughing for a good 20 seconds. Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jeff
That was pretty good.
Oh, don't wait cstan, tell us now! Sounds like fun.....hopfully whatever happened it wasn't as dumb as when I set up my stacked dado with the interior blades in backward. Got quite a bit of smoke out of that (plywood), but no actual flames! I'm jealous :-)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" .... :>)
"as when I set up my stacked dado with the interior blades in backward."It took me a few passes to figure out why the thing was so loud. No flames here either but does plywood really burn that well anyway?
Forestgirl,
How we allow ourselves to do things that in retrospect are so careless as to be completely unthinkable when we are not in such mental lapses?
Not too long ago I had my bandsaw apart for the purpose of figuring out how I was going to attach a brush to keep the lower tire clean of sawdust. The band was off and I had the lower wheel spinning under power. I was looking at the accumulation of material on the tire and sort of daydreaming about the bracket to hold the brush.
I picked up a small block of wood and held an edge against the tire, surprised at how tenacious the accumulation was. I couldn't get more than a few percent of it to scrape off. So I reached over for a chisel and gently and "carefully" brought the edge down on the tire, AGAINST the direction of rotation. The chisel was at a tangent to the tire.
The accumulation slowly disappeared as the chisel's edge bit into it. My attention wandered. The chisel caught the surface of the neoprene. The chisel butt was driven into the heel of my hand and my elbow was driven into my rib cage so hard the blow knocked be off my feet. The chisel flew away and I was on the floor on my backside.
The pain in my forearm was excruciating. I was sure it was broken. Somehow the force must have been just shy of that or it was so perfectly in line with the bones that no break occured. It was so bad I couldn't catch my breath. I thought my ribs were broken, too. I was in agony for what must have been several minutes before I could move or stop the tears. I would never have believed I could feel such pain (I must have actually bruised the periosteum). I was also terrified. Part of the fright was that the thing happened in a micro-second. I was drenched in sweat.
I found the chisel on the floor. The shaft was bent at about 30 degrees! How it had not been driven into some body part, I'll never know. The neoprene tire was almost cut in half.
I lay on the floor for a long time. I didn't go back into the shop for the rest of the week and I hid the injury from my wife. (fortunately there was nothing visible) She did ask why I was so quiet. I answered I was tired. The intense pain subsided that day, but I was real sore for a while. I contemplated never going back into the shop! I just couldn't believe how abysmally stupid I had been. I thought, if I could act so stupid after all these years of knowing how to behave around power tools, I was too dangerous to be in the shop.
I got over that. I hope that such experiences result in better awareness and vigilence that will help in the future for those of us who have gone through such things.
I'm glad to hear that you avoided any injury. When you think back to the event, it's spine-chilling, isn't it? I still break out in a little bit of sweat. A little PTSD for woodworkers?
Rich
Glad to hear that you didn't actually put your hand down on the bit. I narfed my index finger in Feb with my T&G bit (the router's in an insert in the extension table on my TS) and it was due to my thinking that "it shouldn't be a problem, it's a new(supposedly sharp) bit". Speaking of which, I'm going to go out and look at to see exactly how sharp it is. My finger isn't bad and I consider myself extremely lucky. Any time I want to see how well the dust collector is working, I toss some sawdust at the opening. I have done it this way for years. Not only does it let me see how well the dust is collected, it also lets me see that the cutter/blade is turning. The next time I was going to use the router, I walked up to it and said "So, we meet again". I will still use it, I just work with it more carefully now. Rich- your arm may have hit the edge of the table. Good to hear that you weren't seriously injured. Experiences like these definitely make us think about what could have happened. I may put up a PAY ATTENTION!!! sign in my garage. Only problem is, I may be looking at that when I'm suposed to be concentrating on my tools. NAH!
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Happy to hear that you weren't seriously injured. If nothing else it's a wake up call that we probably all need from time to time. I had an incident last week that ended up being nothing more than a few chunks of skin missing from my thumb, but could have been a missing thumb just as easily.Of course I was doing something stupid...I have a sliding compound miter saw tht I was using to crosscut rough maple prior to milling. Well, as I said it was rough and it bound in mid cut, stopped the blade and sent it flying back (as I said, it's a sliding mitre saw). It jerked back so violenlty that it threw my hand off of the handle/trigger and the blade that caught the back of my thumb (I can only guess as it was so fast I didn't really see it...).Like you I walk away from this kicking myself foor being careless. At the same time it's a lesson that I neeed to learn.Be safe.--Michael
This all reminds me of the radial arm saw we had at the lumber yard I worked for about 30 years ago. 7.5 HP DeWalt with 16" blade. Badly sharpened, always. Steel, no carbide and we tried to get the yard manager to go to carbide but he didn't want to. Anyway, the old guy who sharpened them must have seen one of those matchbook covers with "Make money in your spare time! Choose one of these exciting blah, blah, blah" They didn't stay sharp for long and the tooth set was inconsistant, at best. The blade would dig in when we cut rough hardwood, mostly oak that hadn't been dried. Good thing it was pushing 4" thick, or the saw would have taken off some digits. After the blade caught and smoked the motor, he started to listen to us.
Then, there was the 20 HP table saw and the same blades, trying to cut some wet 3"x6" elm. Not bad enough that elm is as stringey as it is, but the same bad sharpening caused the blade to heat up and warp. I had never seen scrollwork done on a tablesaw before. Good thing the throat plate was screwed to the table. Once the wood was removed, we just stood back and let the blade straighten itself out.
After this one, we went into the office and told the manager that we were having a meeting.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Highfigh
You must have worked at the same lumberyard I did when I was in high school. I remember that same saw, with the same dull blades. We called it the SpearChucker due to all the 2-By missiles it launched on kickback whenever somebody paid to have something ripped to a special width. I remember a 16 ft 2x12 being shot back so hard it knocked out 3 or 4 cinder blocks in the wall of the shop. That was the one that finally forced the owners to go and buy a table saw for ripping. Fortunately the old-timers that worked there knew how dangerous that beast was and wouldn't let us younguns use it for ripping.I love the smell of sawdust in the morning.
Speaking of Horses, My sister actually did get kicked in the face by a horse when she was, I think 13. Right on her left cheekbone. It was the only place that she could have got kicked without getting killed or brain damaged. Her bone was shattered, not to mention she had a brutal cut, horse foot shaped, 4 inches long on her cheek. To make a long story short, she had a wonderful Plastic surgeon who did a great job and the scar is noticeable, but not terribly so. She could have had plastic surgery to make it dissapear, but she decided against it, because she wasn't ashamed of it.
She had a hard time getting over her fear of horses, But she actually just bought one this winter, and she is enjoying horses again.
Jamie,
Sure glad to hear everything turned out OK. Just shows how aware we have to be when working around all these wonderful tools. I've used ear plugs for noise reduction, but recently switched to a set of earmuffs that do a great job of reducing noise -- so much so that I was leary of using them at first. I know I have to be so much more aware of what's happening by watching the tool closer than ever. It's a bit of a catch-22 when it comes to knowing you need to listen to the machine but protect your hearing at the same time.
Regards,
Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Click Here if you're interested in a good,inexpensive website host.
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
FG
Sometimes I think incidents like yours is the only difference between those of us that have never lost a digit and those that have. I say that as I knock on wood.
We have all(well most of us)been very lucky once or twice.
Just don't push it!
Doug
Dear FG,
Freaks me out, just thinking about it. I made a sign out of the cabinet door that my tablesaw tried to kill me with, that simply says, "In a hurry?". Although haste does not seem to be the culprit here I would suggest to you that you did something quite right. You listened to the "red flag". You listened to the voice that I ignored when I shot a 2 1/2" finish nail up the end of my finger. It banged off the end of the bone and made it just shy of the second knuckle. (Try that with a hammer!) Same voice whispered in my ear when I tried to make a "QUICK" trim of the afore mentioned cabinet door. I was in a hurry so instead of setting up a sled I thought that having the door kick out of hands, into my hip, across the room and into the drill press, so that the door was firewood, plus the added bonus of being both shaken and bruised, would save me so much time. We play with scary things sometimes, your instincts saved you, good for you!
Still With Ten,
John
PS The horse thing is MUCH scarier to me!
THICKNESS PLANER EXPERIENCE:
I'll add personal experiences to this important post. Several years ago my father was planing a supply of stock through his thickness planer. He has always practiced safety in the shop, and is a lifetime experienced woodworker. He had been at it for a long while. Dust and shavings routinely build up on the outfeed of his planer, and he shuts it off periodically to clean it out. This one time he simply forgot to turn it off first, and stuck his hand into the spinning knives. Tiredness, or "stupidity from repetition" cost him his little and ring fingers on his left hand.
TABLESAW EXPERIENCE: One day I was ripping several freshly planed boards through a large commercial table saw. I worked at a professional cabinet shop at that time, and did this routinely every day. Unfortunately, we did not employ safety guards at that time. Suddenly, I was lying on my back staring at the ceiling. A board had gotten in a bind and hit me in the chest. Unhurt, I was amazed at how quick this can happen, and at the destructive force of a table saw.
We cannot be too careful in the shop. Repetitive tasks are dangerous because the mind wanders, and NEVER work when you're tired.
JimS
Speaking of farm animals, I've taken a few kicks to the head from beef cows. When we take them to the fairs, we pretty them up, curl their hair and paint their toe nails. I was painting a heifer last season when she let me have it, good thing they don't wear shoes. We have to keep the young bulls in a tie up in the barn so they don't cause trouble in the pasture. When you go in to clean them up, they like to play, head butting and kicking. Even the young ones can give you quite a thrashing. A few months ago I was getting the females locked up in the head stocks for a vet visit, like the idiot I am, I got between two 1000# heifers. They just lean on each other, talk about a jam sandwich. If I ducked below they would have stomped me to crap in the crap. I managed to squeeze myself on top. Good thing they were locked in or I would have had a good ride.
My wife was out trail riding with a friend. The friends horse went to bite my wife's horse but got my wife's thigh instead. Horses bite down then pull away. My wife was black and blue from shoulder to ankle, that was a bad one. She could have lost some serious flesh a fair distance from help.
I'm always nervous at the fairs. City folks think the animals are cute and cuddly. They think petting a cow, sheep or goat on the head is OK. We have Belted Galloways, the oreo cookie cows. A young girl ran up and jumped on a bull that was laying down in the stall just to give him a big hug. Somehow the animals sense children, he didn't budge. The fairs can be stressful for the animals, they aren't use to all the people and other animals. It's always surprising how well they behave, at least until you get them in the show ring. That's when they become experts in making you look like a fool, some of the time.
One of the scariest stories my wife tells is the time she was standing on the tractor hitch, riding with Grandpa while he was tethering the hay. Tethers are those machines with the long spiked wheels. She slipped and managed to hang on to the hitch. Grandpa was deaf and didn't realize he was dragging her. I guess he went around the field a couple times before he realized what was happening. Needless to say, nobody rides on the hitch anymore.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
Ahhhhh, yes, ranch/farm life involves a level of danger that most people don't realize. Some reflections on your post:
"Even the young ones can give you quite a thrashing." Young horses are much more dangerous that older ones. They simply don't give signals! I was injured more times in 3 years of working with babies than in 15 years of working with mature, trained steeds.
"Horses bite down then pull away." A major factor making their bites truly wicked is that, anatomically, once their mouth is open, it must close before they can open it again. This means that even if they realize, as teeth touch skin, they've made a mistake, it's too late! Boy do those bites bruise! Ah, yes.
"she was standing on the tractor hitch" Ohmigod! That wasn't a good idea. 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" .... :>)
Jamie:
Woodworking.org's Accident Survey for your reading pleasure. Periodically reading the surveys will keep you honest in the workshop.
Edited 1/27/2005 4:13 pm ET by cstan
To put it in perspective, the scariest thing that ever happened to me was when I asked her father for her hand!
Yup me too.........John
FG,Good to hear your okay. I took the end of my index finger off a few years ago by reaching over the TS blade to get a piece which I had just cut. Spinning tools are not kind. You might consider a noise cancelling head set. They sell these mainly for shooters and they only attenuate noise when there is noise. Otherwise you can talk and still hear. I use them all the time. A little expensive but long after you've forgotten what you paid, your left with what you bought. Cabelas has them. The link below will give you just one example.http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jhtml?id=0020897225846a&type=product&cmCat=search&returnString=No=40&hasJS=true&Nty=1&Go.y=0&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Go.x=0&Ntt=Noise+cancelling+Head+sets&N=4887&QueryText=Noise+cancelling+Head+sets&noImage=0&_D%3AhasJS=+&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jhtml.20&Ntk=Product_liberal&_D%3A%2Fcabelas%2Fcommerce%2FCabelasCatalogNumberFinder.giftCertificateURL=+&%2Fcabelas%2Fcommerce%2FCabelasCatalogNumberFinder.giftCertificateURL=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Ftemplates%2Fgiftcertificate%2Fgiftcertificate.jhtml%3Fid%3D0005586990011a%26podId%3D0005586%26catalogCode%3DIB%26navAction%3Djump%26indexId%3D&returnPage=search-results1.jhtmlTDF
Hi Ya FG,
What douglas2cats wrote. Lights on Tools on. I'm using that one.
My folks raised horses when I was growing up and my job was feed, water and stable cleaning. I was about 15 and it was mid-winter and I walked out into the pasture with slab hay and turned just in time to see our Missouri Foxtrotter mare with both rear feet in the air and incoming, couldn't tell you how long I laid out in the pasture but when I came too I was one hurtin boy , one hoof hit the hay and my chest, that took most of the blow the other hit me right on the belt line. any lower and or no hay ????????????????. I remember a chat about the little voice in the back of your head that speaks up just before we do something bad. Listen or not. Stitches or not. Been there done that. Very glad you are ok . All these tools we love are great fun to work with with no respect there very dangerous. Rick
Forest girl,
I have been reading your posts for months now, and I finally feel like I am not the only one! The first and second scary things are identical! for me at least. I built a sliding cross cut jig for my table say a couple years ago, was so proud of myself because it was dead true! What I forgot was to know where the blade came through at the end. So I now have matching scars on the left and right thumbs! However, I have added a plain old piece of 2 X 4 at the exit point and I still have both thumbs!
The best to all,
A little sawdust in the lungs is not a bad thing!
FastEddie
Holy Smokes, Eddie! I'd say you're very lucky to have thumbs! That's super-scary. I haven't made a X-cut sled yet, but plan to use one of the designs with a guard at the back, for sure.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" .... :>)
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