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Caution: Hard Hat Area

2009 In Review: 5 Most Dangerous Home Building Videos

By Official Fine Homebuilding Post
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Don't try this at home.

Every now and then Fine Homebuiding editors and readers come across a video on the Web demonstrating a dangerous or crazy technique that sends shivers down our spine. And in some cases, we’ve shared those videos with you in the blogs for two reasons: they make great entertainment and they make great examples of what NOT to do.

As we take a look back at the year in review, we assembled our top five list of the worst home building videos we’ve come across in 2009. This is by no means an endorsement of techniques. Watch these at your own risk. And, if you’ve seen a dangerous video that should top our list, post a link in the comments section.

 crazy shingle tear-off method 1. Craziest Shingle Tear-Off Method Ever?
This video of a crane operator using a excavator bucket to remove the cedar shingles from a roof with some fancy steering is a real nail biter but got a lot of people talking.
 customers who don't pay 2. How do You Handle Customers Who Don’t Pay?
One UK builder’s approach: knock down the finished work with a sledgehammer. Watch the unfortunate demo set to music and read the original news article to prevent this worst-case scenario from happening to you.
 sawstop 3. SawStop Inventor Walks the Walk
Tired of the hot dog demo? The inventor of this safety-centric tablesaw puts his finger to the blade to demonstrate how the blade break works.
 shingle mill 4. That Can’t Be Safe! A Visit to the Shingle Mill
Luckily this wasn’t followed up by “A visit to the Emergency Room” though the gigantic exposed blade used for cutting shingles might just be the most frightening tool we’ve seen.
nail in nose

5. Man Coughs up Nail after 30 years
Perhaps this is every carpenter’s nightmare? Or you all just enjoy watching train wrecks. Whatever the case, this video clip from CNN.com of a man who had a nail stuck in his sinus for 30 years was a big hit.

hammer juggler

BONUS: Effective Nailing Techniques
We’re giving out an honoroble mention to this unnamed hammer juggler who demonstrates a unique way to hammer a nail.

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View Comments

  1. MikeGuertin | Dec 11, 2009 01:29pm | #1

    Dead link on Bonus

  2. MBerger | Dec 11, 2009 02:24pm | #2

    sorry, mike. link is back online.

  3. jtcrea | Dec 14, 2009 10:43am | #3

    Per the SawStop video, moving a finger into the blade at the slow, controlled rate that is show is NOT anything like a realworld incident. Would love to see them video a hotdog or a finger moving rapidly into the blade to see what actually would be the real life result.

    Yes, sometimes it would be slow, but I am SURE that sometimes the user moves his wood/hand at a higher rate of speed into the blade and in the interest of truth in advertising it would be nice to see a realworld scenario video

    John

  4. nhtutor | Dec 14, 2009 03:36pm | #4

    jtcrea - I don't blame the sawstop guy from inching his finger in the saw so I won't argue there - but they rammed that hot dog in there like they were ripping wood all day. Watch it again and you will see the speed - I was kinda disappointed they did it so fast because I couldn't tell what happened at first but I am sure they did it just to answer comments like the ones you made. For me its impressive as it gets...

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