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I am cloning this topic from over at the woodworkers cafe
I have made many stupid workshop blunders—–this is my first one-
7th grade woodshop class—–my project—make a pair of bookends
The teacher TURNS us loose on the equipment—I go over and claim my territory—the table saw– no guard on it either
After studying it awhile, I figure how to adjust the fence and find the power switch—–I flip it on and am ready for some action
After staring at the spinning blade like a steer that had been clubbed in the head,, and a few minutes of analysis deciding which way to run the block through the saw, I slowly reached over the blade with my block. I crept up on the rear of the blade and just as soon as the blade kissed the block, it had already rebounded off my face. I am 47 and EVERYTIME I turn on a table saw, I think of that moment—-EVERY FREAKIN TIME!
Sometimes I am as dumb as a steer that has been hit in the head!
Replies
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We are close to the same age and I did shop for 3 years in high school despite going on to become a scientist - something that confounds people who think shop students are dolts.
Any shop teacher worth his salt would have taught how to use every tool and supervised first use. The blunder was the teachers - he should have been fired on the spot for letting untrained kids near a power tool.
Mr Wells & Mr Findlayson - if you are listening - you did a hell of a fine job.
My biggest blunder was my own fault. I shot a 3 1/2 inch common nail through my ring finger. Fortunately, I was wearing a glove, so the look of the injury was rather comical despite the pain. I am sure I couldn't do it again if I tried but I managed to miss the bone on a through and through shot. No permenant damage, just a cool scar.
Needless to say I removed all the contact triggers from my nail guns.....
*b Another Homeowner. One day we will rule the world.I suppose I could tell you about the time years ago when I had the bright idea of ripping a 2x4 on a radial arm saw. The javelin went sailing across the room and stuck in some osb nailed across a window, but the guy a couple years ahead of me back in highschool takes the honors. Cut the end of his finger off in shop class and the next year in shop class went and did the same thing again. Funny part is after going to college and becoming a teacher, he came back to the hometown and became the highschool industrial arts teacher teaching shop class.ain't life a gas.
*No injuries here, but...Spent a great deal of time making a new top for my Radial Arm Saw, complete with all the fancy adjustment screws to keep the table top level, and a precision guide line for keeping the blade straight when cutting. Well, I stood back, admired the work, pondered how to keep the sawdust out of the recessed screw holes, decided to blow them out when necessary, and felt good.Then I glued the laminate right on top. Hope I never have to make any adjustments cause the laminate doesn't have any holes... last time I listen to Creed and Kenny Wayne Shepherd while I concentrate!!! James DuHamel
*Metal shop, 7th grade - Making our own cold chisels. I need to heat mine up, and turn the gas valve on that goes to the furnace thingy. (ALL the way) Throw the blank in, close the door,and then try to light it. b BOOM!!!Door to the furnace blows wide open and knocks me over backwards. Shop teacher comes over and yells at me for not following instructions. (I probably didn't listen - don't remember) No real harm done, just scared the crap out of me.
*I cut and pasted this from the thread at FWW. i think its a crack up man I was covered from head to toe....Ok here we go since I went to the woodworking 12 step program I can fess up. My dust collector (single stage 1hp jet) started making a funny noise. So I check the bags and it was full up into the top filter bag. So I empty it and put the bag back on. I fired it up again same noise. So i take off the top bag to check and there was alot of dust in the housing between the top and btm bag. So i thought I can fire this up and It will suck the dust into the bottom bag. As soon as i fired it up the dust blew in my face on my clothes /hair/ shop covered everywhere also at that very moment wifey walks outta the house and looks into the shop and sees it all starts laughing and back into the house she goes not being able to contain herself. So after about a hour of cleanng the shop up and myself, i catch it from her and she makes sure all my buds know it too. I am still finding dust all over the place..
*My FIRST blunder came at the age of about twelve.My brothers and I decided we needed a camp.There was an old 10 x 12 shed next to the barn that had seen use as a hen house and a storage shed previously. We spent a day or so cleaning out the chicken dust and the next day we figured we had better take an old bundle of shingles from the barn and instal them over the shed roof. We had a long conversation about whether to lay bottom up or top down. It seemed easier to lay from the top down and having nerver watched it done before (this was in the days before HGTV - heck it was almost before the days of TV period), that's the way we did it.Needless to say our sleeping bags got wet that night in a spectaclular cloudburst. Ever smell wet chicken dust?
*I told about my "first blunder". That one will never change. Now---about my "last blunder", running a tooooooooo long of pin nail out the side of a handrail,, that was last week. The bad thing about "last blunders", is what blunder I am going to do next to shove it back to "next to last blunder"..
*High School shop class, one of the class freaks sends a piece of 1x4 through the shaper backwards, the missle crashes into the tool crib beside me, I freak, half scared , half livid, grab a pair of pliers, skip them off his head and through a garage door window. Teacher is standing right in front of me(can't see how I got the shot off around him actually) Freak gets 24 stitches, door gets new glass, and I get suspended for 1 week and banned from shop forever. Lucky I did'nt get sued.
*I wont talk about the piece of wood that just kicked back and flew across my shop this afternoon.
*When I was 9 or so I decided to cut a 45 in the end of a 2x4 to make a stand for an old hand crank grinder . So i try to start the cut at the outside corner with the 2x stiking up in the vice so that i could cut straight down . Saw slipped cut my thumb most to the bone. Still have a nice scar there.
*Rabbeting a bookshelf side for fixed shelves on my unisaw. Instead of using my sled I set up the fence. The kickback was so fast that I was setting on my butt in the driveway befor I got out the oh sh**. The welp, strawberry, bruise wrapped from just left of my navel to three or four inches aruond my back. Ever see a semi-circular rabbet?
*Hey Stan... I for one am just glad to see that my hero is actually human and can blunder with the best of us. I have conveniently forgotten the first, or for that matter many of the earlier shop "oops's" that I have been the principle cause of. However I do remember the most recent, and probably the most stupid. I was making ornamental caps to gp on top of some outdoor handrail posts and was running the little pieces (about 2" square) through the table saw to make a beveled edge on them. As I was doing the very last one I was orating to the kid helping me about how you have to "be firm and forceful, and maintain 100% concentration or it may get away from you and become an instant weapon." As you might guess, before I new what happened the block became that very weapon, bounced off my collarbone and went completely THROUGH the aluminum soffit about 15 feet away! The kid kept a straight face (musta been awfully tough for him, I couldn't have done it) and said very dryly "I'm sorry, what was that you were saying?"
*I've got one fingernail that grows in the exact same arc as the edge of a 10-in. rip blade....My favorite blunder, though, involves no blood. Anyone else ever mistake an 1 5/8 in. screw for an 1 1/4 in. screw when fastening a countertop? That's a very important 3/8 in.Andy
*Mark: I will be the first to say that I am overated on this website. I like to see other peoples projects and likewise I like to post some of mine. The biggest teacher sometimes is mistakes. I feel I have made a lot of mistakes and have learned a lot from them.
*Ah, but it's how you HIDE your mistakes that makes you a Master Craftsman!
*If we're talking FAVORITE blunder, Has anyone not nailed a pocket door open?
*piffin: I forgot that one! I was nailing base like mad one day, and later on my foreman said, Foster, why wont this pocket door move. After that, I wrote "think" on the pocket door wall by the floor.
*i Anyone else ever mistake an 1 5/8 in. screw for an 1 1/4 in. screw when fastening a countertop? Unfotunatly, yes.Even worse, it was on my own house with my wife watching.Terry
*Terry,It can't get any worse than when your wife actually SEES you screw up. Your buddies will forget or forgive. Your wife never forgets...
*Keith: Thanks for the comments, but master craftsman I am not. I have never even considered myself as one, I am striving to be one,---------- someday. Maybe by the time I am 65 I can be closer to one.
*I once forgot to frame in one of those cheesy cantilevered vinyl sided chimneys for a zero-clearence fireplace on a 2 story house for some 25 yr.old "contractor". He says" where's the chimney?"as we are sheathing the roof. I respond without a pause " we do that last". Crew is biting tongues till he leaves, we all roll laughing. He sticks me for $550 on 1 window that is 12" off center of a bedroom(print was computer drawn on an 8-1/2 x 11 paper and I mistaked a 5 for a 6 on the "print". I let the crew know how I got stuck for the $550. Big deal, who cares ......crew is very loyal and sees him at the speedway gas station/conveinent store a few months later. Neil takes the opportunity to dump a 32oz. french vanilla all over him in the checkout line..."ooops sorry dude"..... I LOVE these guys............EVERY time I have screwed something up in the past 3 years, all I ever hear from these guys is " yeah, we do that last" no matter what it is. I can see it now, when I'm dead and gone all these youngins will be saying " we do that last an laughing"....now that's a LEGACY.
*The worst blunder I ever saw was when I was in trade school and the shop teacher was cutting a board on a tablesaw. The board kicked back into his nuts and he managed to just about saw off all of his fingers. They grafted him back together with some skin from his butt and then sewed his hand into his stomach to heal, then later took it out and cut up the hand mitten to resemble fingers. Lovely, he was a walking reminder for shop safety for quite a while, probably still is.
*Place I worked at had a big project- precast wall panels. The GC calls and is furious .... panels too short, won't fit etc. I was the QC guy ...... stomach churning, getting screamed at .......how could I miss that. Turns out they erected the panels in the wrong place.
*I was on a remodeling crew gutting a burn job in Missouri. We had a new guy from Arkansas who was still in that, 'let me impress you' stage. We were cutting 4' wall sections with a chainsaw and dropping them two floors into a dumpster. He was at the top end of the wall, I was working the base end. I was still getting my hands set trying to stay away from the porcupine bottom plate when he lifted his end driving a 16d nail through my leather glove and ring finger to the point of sticking out about an inch. It went through on an angle where nearly an inch of nail was inside my finger. Mr. Arkansas grabs his framing hammer and says, "Oh, I'll get that for you..." I grabbed my framing hammer, claw side sticking toward him and said, "(*% *&@ f&^$ OUT OF HERE" all the while pinned to a 4' section of wall. It took me cutting the nail with some side cutters close to my glove, then slowly prying for a couple minutes to get free of that wall. When the boss showed up, I threw my bloody glove at him, said, "you owe me a pair of gloves and by the way, your new guy didn't work out" and went back to work.
*"still in that, 'let me impress you' stage."LOLLove it!Is it fair to talk about somebody elses blunder?If not quit reading now.....There were two steel beams on this job. Marked "A" and "B" very clearly.Plans said that "A" was for the main floor, set into pockets in the concrete."B" was for the second floor to set on studs, so it was a foot longer.When the crew went to install "A" it was too long so they cut a foot off and set'r in.Come time to set "B" they found out why.They were labeled backwards and nobody checked before getting out the torch.
*My absolute worst one: Appropriate add on to Andy's tractor post. Replaced the clutch on a D2 cat, had to remover the FOPs (falling object protection) cage to get at it. Thought I could get away with using it for a few weeks without reinstalling FOPs. Woke up in hospital 2 days later. 28 years ago this month, won't get on a tractor without a good cage around me now.Similar to Stan, I never start anything that can kill without recollection every time.
*I have too many to list. To respond to the 1 5/8" or 1 1/4" post with a joke a plumber pulled on me. I was under the counter securing an undermount sink to a butcherblock counter, with the plumber holding it. I'm sure I have 1 1/4" screws, but I hear an 'Oh, S___! from the plumber. I jump out and see two screw tips sticking up next to the sink. It took me a while to realize they were cut offs. The laughing plumber tipped me off.-Chris
*I don't know if this counts but..........This winter, we had rats in the shop.At night, they would set off the motion dectectors.I've been charged by the Dallas Police for $100 worth of false alarms so far, and had to go to false alarm school put on by the Dallas Police. No kidding.I bought some rat poison, and the rats ate through the bag before I could put it out.No more rats.My blunder was not getting rid of them straight away. I thought I'd do the humane thing and try to catch them alive and relocate them. silly me.Who knew they could set off the motion dectectors?I know now.Ed.
*Bats will do it too!
*about critters in the shop setting off an alarm:some alarm sensor makers will have a 'pet resistant' version of the motion detector that is designed to react to an object with greater mass than standard. Of course the larger you allow for, the more chance that a human body could be missed (a robber that has been dieting).Ademco makes one that goes up to ~40 pounds (allows for medium sized dogs) and another, more sensitive one (for if you only have a cat, I guess) but I forgot how many pounds that was (maybe, like, 20).Of course, in your case rat poison worked.
*More high school shop stories: Took a bunch of welding classes in high school and was pretty handy around a cutting torch. I wasn't so handy about following the warnings and instructions from the instructor. Most of the tank sets had two torches running off them; we were admonished to check the other torch- to make sure it had been turned off- before turning on the tanks. So, having had quite a few classes and feeling just a little too cocky, I pick up a cutting torch, turn on the tanks and light up. Check the other torch? Nah.... Heating up the piece of steel and hit the oxy lever. Just as I did this, it occured to me to look for that other torch. Well, the sparks started flying just as I noticed the hoses laying on the ground- with no torch attached to them. I've yet to witness a flame of that magnitude. It was HUGE and LOUD. I quickly turned off the tanks and the flame went out. As the teacher walked by, his only comment was "one of these days you guys are going to blow yourselves up". Sam
*ok little off the subject but its still highschool shop class. working on my 73 f100 pickup truck when I got in to start the engine to see how it was running I reved the engine and forgot that it was in gear (automatic with netral safty switch disabled). needless to say the tires sqauked and I ran into a co2 cylander against the wall of the shop. the shop teacher came running in and just shook his head.sam
*I wonder why "shop teacher" is not near the top of the "most dangerous jobs in America" lists?My shop teacher showed up for 7th period metal shop class with bandages all over both hands. It seems that one of the boys had used the Oxy-Acetylene torch without checking that the connections were all tight. The leak was near the tank and the shop teacher (now I feel bad, I can't remember his name...) stuck his hands into the flame to wrench it shut before everyone was blown up. His hands looked mighty tender for weeks after (scabs, etc). I ALWAYS check everything twice now that I've got my own set.
*Once, when I was young and unbreakable, I had a hardwood floor repair and sand. I borrowed wy fathers little 8" red Makita chop saw (red Makita places us around '90). I didn't have a table saw, but it was only 1"1/2x3/8 so I could chisel away the few rips I had on the mitre saw. The key word in the whole post is "hard" wood. Those itty bitty carbides can really grab. I tipped the oak stock at 45 deg. as I've seen done before and started to chip away. Fortunately, the saw fence was ABS plastic as it absorbed quite a bit of the shock when my hand snapped against it. The moral of the story is that I now have a 12" DeWalt. Call me stupid.
*7th grade woodshop, cutting a bowl blank on the bandsaw. Table not level or square to the blade, my eye is on the cut line on top of the blank, blade exits the bottom of the blank while still in the wood at the top of the blank. 10am in the emergency room seated next to a guy whose whole thumb is in a bowl of ice. He was cutting a bowl blank on the bandsaw. All I got was 7 stitches. 7th grade metalshop. Some nimrod thought it funny to turn the gas on to the furnace without lighting it. I come along without thinking that perhaps the furnace is already filled with gas vapors, turn the gas on, push the ignite button, WHOOMPH! in my face. Instantly, no eyebrows, eyelashes, receded hairline and a nice sunburn.8th grade woodshop. In the varnish room--a closed off room with it's own air filtration system. Happily varnishing away on a couple of skateboards, a bookshelf, cutting boards, etc. 20 minutes later I'm really happy. 10 minutes later I pass out. Come to with the class standing around me, gawking. Some idiot, not naming names, forgot to turn on the fan.10th grade woodshop. I'm turning a bowl made of Orange (the citrus variety) wood. Ready for a light sanding, I crank the lathe up to high speed. Just as soon as I touch the bowl it shatters. The biggest fragment hits the wall behind the lathe, arcs through the air and lands on the instructor's desk across the room. He's sitting at his desk at the time. Just shakes his head. 15 years ago, I shoot not one, not two, but three 2 1/2" staples into the same index finger through and through. First staple was because I had my hand in the wrong place. Others because I behaved like a hysterical woman when I tried to pull the first staple with pliers. I hadn't thought that perhaps I should put the gun down first.12 years ago, set up the table saw for some production ripping. An aluminum framing square which was formerly nowhere near the blade has somehow vibrated in close, catches the blade, hums through the air just missing my head and sticks like a thrown dagger in the shed door behind me. Didn't happen to me because I had finally wised up: one year I decided to turn a couple of large bowls made of laminated stacks of birch ply. Down to the lumberyard to buy a couple sheets of 3/4" ply. After I told the kid what I was gonna' do with them he offered to rip and crosscut the sheets into 24" squares. Great, I thought, saves me from having to deal with it. He sets up the table saw without the fence. Whoa, sez I. What you gonna' do when that kicks back? It won't, he sez, 'cause my partner will help guide and feed. Okay, but I'm gonna' duck behind the corner of the saw shed 'cause I don't want to see this. After a couple of cuts I hear Turn it off! Turn it off! I look and see the kid fallen over backwards in the dirt with a quarter sheet laying on top of him. His big belt buckle is smashed. He drops his jeans and there is a punture wound about an inch deep the shape of a 3/4" plywood corner just above his privates. Blood gushing and all.Not construction related, but a good one. When I was 10 I was practicing my aim with a Hawaiian sling (spear gun). Folks were at work so I though it okay to shoot the side of the house. From 20 feet away I shoot, the spear glances off the siding into an adjacent wall and completes the triangular trajectory by nailing me in the forehead right between the eyes. I have a circular scar of about 3/16" dead center 'tween my eyes. My left eye I keep trying to put out. Save it all for a different thread.
*Rich, You deserve an award for just being alive still!
*Wow...some people really ARE their own worst enemy!
*This one is from my father (I wouldn't know where to begin on me).Years ago, Dad had hired a carpenter to help build a new house on his ranch, miles from town. The carp was quite a craftsman and proud of his skills. While in the construction process, Dad decided to reroof the old house using corrugated barn tin and had the carpenter help him. Their nailing away and the carp smacks his thumb, not too tough to do on that dang sheet stock, which was evidently kind of embarrassing to the ol craftsman. A few minutes later he does it again. This time, he lays his offending digit on the roof, rears back, and centerfires his hammer on it. "There you sonofabitch, now hurt!" Climbs down off the roof and heads for town.After about two weeks, Dad went to town and found which bar he was in and convinced him to come back to work. Guess I would have waited at least that long to go look him up myself.
*Since this thread has diverged from exclusively "shop blunders" into "Since we are online and none of you really know me, I can tell this one without too much embarassment" I might as well let you guys know to just what profound extent my stupidity has the capacity to reach. I think I may have already told this one on a similar thread last year... we had just got the propane tank installed in our new house and I was preparing to light the water heater pilot light. The heater and furnace were located in a small closet just inside a half bath. (Does the term "confined space" mean anything to ya?) I figured I needed to bleed out the gas line coming from the outside to the water heater and didn't feel like sitting there until I was old and grey holding that little button down, so I lossened up the connection and let it "hiss" for a few seconds until I started to smell gas. (see if you can guess where I'm going with this) "well that ought to just about do it" I says to myself as I retightened the fitting. I got my book of matches, struck one, began to reach for that little red button.... when I noticed a flame traveling away from the match. in the ensuing 1/1000th of a second the following series of thoughts went through my mind: "well now that's odd, I wonder what that is, hmmm I bet I must've let a little too much gas escape while I was bleeding the line, looks like there's gonna be a heckuva flash here I guess I'd better at least shut my eyes so's not to get blinded...." I just managed to get my eyes shut when KAAAAWWWHHOOOOOMMMMMPPPHHHH!!!!! I opened my eyes, sprung up off of my back in the bathroom, scampered back into the closet, slapped out the couple of fires that had sprung up ( the rest of the matches, the paper plate that my lunch had been on , etc.). waited to see if my wife had heard the "disturbance" . When she didn't come running in I went ahead and lit the pilot, cleaned up my mess, and went about pretending nothing had happened and waited to see if she would notice my sudden lack of eyebrows 'n stuff.
*Doug,Nobody installing corrugated roofing has ever hit their thumb only once! After the hammer gets zeroed in it just kind of gets in the habit. The old carpenter was experienced enuf to know this and that he was in for a bad day so he took pre-emptive action.
*I was working at my dads lumber yard when 100 shts of paneling was odered delivered. I put them in a pickup truck and slammed the gate on my way around to get in the cab.I need to mention I was 18 at the time.I was going up east hill when I hit 2ond gear on the column. Wondering if I could get "scratch" with all that paneling aboard. Yes you guessed it. 100shts dominoed down east hill because the latch wasnt secured. That was the biggest mess Ive ever seen ,in rush hour.
*Rich, I hope you don't live anywhere near me. LOL You're a walking time bomb.This didn't happen in the shop but on the job. I was having a bad day. Blood pressure was up. My help was hung over or just acting stupid. We were on the 3rd deck of a big frame. I was wrestling with one of the wall jacks and I was losing. On a normal day I can set up the jack by myself no problem. Not today. Finally I lost my cool and had the jack up over my head horizontally and I was going to huck it right off the back of the house. Just a pinch of common sense came back to me and I turned toward the middle of the house and threw the jack down on the gable. Guess where the cable was. Wrapped right around my neck. The jack yanked my neck down like it was going to rip it right off. Then it dawned on me that if I had thrown that thing off the back of the house I would have definitely gone with it. I'm quite sure I learned a lesson from that one.
*Tim - A similar thing happened to me when I worked for a lumberyard and was 18. Had to deliver a load of paneling, and had it in the back of a pickup. Decided to go by my girlfriends house on the way and see if she was home. Just as I turned the corner in front of her house, the tailgate latch popped open and I spread the panelling out all over the street. I hopped out and started reloading the truck, hoping no one had noticed. But no such luck. Pretty soon GF and most of her family wandered outside to watch me work. They all thought it was pretty funny.
*I guess this qualifies as a shop blunder. I was in the shop.Getting ready to add an exterior light, I needed to look at the inside of the gable end wall. Standing on top of a six foot fiberglass step ladder( yep, right above the do not stand above this step warning), I tried to slide a piece of plywood across the colar ties. The ladder went one way and I went down.Fortunately I was able to catch the next colar tie with my left hand. That was enough to let my legs move from the horizontal to somewhere closer to vertical, and pull me away from the table saw. Unfortunately, I am pretty close to 55 years old and that left arm is no longer capable of absorbing the shock it once could. I am not sure what let go in there, but if it doesn't get better in another two weeks, I'll go to the doctors. The other bruises have pretty much started to return to normal color.I use ladders every day at work. I won't use them incorrectly there, nor will my coworkers. I guess my comfort zone for stupitity is in my own shop.
*Yes, it's best to act stupid where no one can see!
*My roomate in college and I took a welding class in Mechanical Engineering. The teacher was a crotchedy old fart, a real stickler, and the day we started arc welding he asked us to take a scrap piece of steel and run some beads on it.I, along with every other person in the class except my roomate, welded about a dozen beads across a single piece of metal.My roomate took about 30-50 pieces and welded them all up into this gigantic mass of spattered up steel scraps jutting out at every possible angle.The teacher had a field day. He saved a barrage of jabs, lances and harpoons for my buddy, and he made an example out of him every single day for the rest of the class. They ended up kind of liking each other...and kind of not!~
*I got done with a bobcat early on a day rental. I took it home to move some big logs I wanted to rough for timber frames. Only problem was how to get them down a hill, around the back of my barn. The big one was an 18 foot elm about 24" in diameter (remembering unfondly)Hmmm. (Thinking)Took the small one first, had good luck picking up the front of the log with a chain from the bucket, and dragging the back of it as I backed down the hill.Big one, different story. Tried the same approach. Was going well until I've got the cat backed partway down the hill, log is hanging up on the crest of the hill in front of me. Getting kinda scared now. Raise bucket a tad. Good, log is freed up. Oh no! looks like it's coming straight into the cab...Lower bucket...Log slows down, but cat starts moving down...Log still coming, boom!@ Hits a little metal tabby my feet; I had kicked at the oncoming log to slow it and force it down away from my body...Now I'm really freaking out. I've got a balancing act going on, and am strapped in with a (800 pound?)log facing me, just being held off by a 3" piece of metal from penduluming into my chest. don't dare move the machine, though it wants to move anyway. Not sure which way to move the bucket, if at all. Pretty sure if I shut it off and unbuckle, let go with my feet that the cat will move some, and the log will pop up and drill me. Even if it slips and I can hold it off of me with a superhuman effort, I'm still a dead man if the machine moves, and I would have to move the machine to get out of it with a log in my face.It seemed like the best thing would be to lower the bucket and hope the log would just rest harder on the thing that was holding it back but I just didn't know. This thing was just there, ready to crush me like a bug.Finally decided to try that. It worked, and I crawled out, laid down for a while, unhooked the log and let it roll down the hill, hooked it up and dragged it where it needed to go... ...and went inside to call a few friends to tell them how dumb I am, and not to tell my wife!Not sure if I caught the drama here, it was a really bad situation that I shouldn't have gotten myself into. Damn lucky to be here typing to you guys!MD
*Back to junior high wood shop...Routing out the corners on a V-shaped guitar where every corner was acute and came to a point. I knew that the router would roll off the corners if I tried to use it, so I decided to chuck the router bit in the drill press. For some reason, the bit kept grabbing the maple. I held on tighter, and when the bit finally got a good grip, my hand was dragged in.All it needed was four stitches. I still remember telling my teacher that it didn't hurt, I was more worried about the blood on the wood, and if he would just let me, I could get some salt from the lunchroom to use like a styptic pencil. I'm glad I couldn't talk him into that one. The next day I checked out the drill and the router and realized that a router spins ten times faster than the drill press was set for.
*MDknow the feeling - you caught the drama good enough for the last page of FHB - submit it with a little dressing. Unless you still want to keep it from the DW
*John,Same thing happened to me. Only I was using an RAS with a drill chuck on the so-called auxillary shaft. 30 yrs later & that finger still don't look rightDan
*Pif, et al: yeah, go ahead and laff. I don't mind, just go right on and laff. We'll wait until you're through.... ....Should be any time now....Okay? Right, I kid you not, my Dad carried multiple ins policies on me when I was a kid. Several million worth. Thought he'd strike it rich someday.By the grace of God am I alive. Truly. Left to my own devices I should have been dead 10 times over by now. Gawd, the stories I could tell...some of 'em quite funny too.Did I ever tell you about the time I was driving my sister's Gran Torino over 100mph? Coming downhill along a straight stretch of hiway starting to round a gentle curve to the left. Next thing I know I'm on the right side of the leather covered bench seat holding the steering wheel with my outstretched left hand. That was before seatbelts and guardrails.Const. reference: I had my nailbags in the trunk.
*Dan,Don't feel to bad. Crapsman says that is what you can use the auxialry spindle for. I guess anything goes when it comes to selling accessories, including customer appendages.
*Rich,I can remember doing 115 in a Pontiac once and it occurred to me that maybe I ought to back off a little for this turn (a gentle one) coming up. Good thing that I did! Halfway through the turn a tire blew out at about 95 MPH.I could write a book about experiences in that old car.
*When I was 18 I joined a framing crew. Towards the end of the job it was my assignment to go up in the trusses and install cross blocking for the walls that run parallel to the trusses. So I cut a stack of blocking and up I went. I carefully placed the stack diagonally across two top plates. Very near the open stairwell. The stairs have not been installed yet. This stairwell is directly over the stairwell to the basement. The basement stairs have been installed. As I turned around to get a piece of blocking, I knocked off the top piece and down the stairwell it traveled. It hit the basement stairs on end and bounced straight into Bill's face. I didn't come out of those trusses all day.
*Andy, I worked with a guy who had the heel fall off of his boot. Rather than take off the boot to fix it he decides to screw the heel back on while he is still wearing it. He picks up a screw gun and drives a too-long-of-a-screw through the heel of the boot into his own foot. (Then he files a state industrial accident claim with our employer over his injury.)My first mistake occured at age five when I was trying to drill a hole in a wooden thread spool. I was using a yankee driver and holding the spool in the left hand. The drill slipped off the round part of spool just as I was pushing down with the driver. Drill went through my thumbnail and came out the other side. Ah, lessons learned.I can relate to hammer hits. I was driving metal screed stakes and every day I would seem to hit my left hand with the 4# hammer. Then one day I commended myself for going all day with out injury. You guessed it -- next swing.
*Going 90 on a back road in a big old Ford LTD with a gentle curve coming up. Halfway through the curve see a UPS van stopped in the road. Hit the brakes, tires squealing, car slides around sideways. Still flying right toward the van. Finally come to a stop maybe 10 or 20 feet from the van. Delivery guy, jaw dropped, between me and the van. Absolutely no construction referance whatsoever.
*UPS guy S##t a brick. There's your construction ref. (Sorry Andy).
*So that's what happenned to Luka's UPS deliveries!!!!!!!1
*I had a route delivering fresh fish twice a week. The emphasis was on hustle through the route. Boss' jaw dropped when I told him I passed the UPS truck one day. That's flying.Const. reference: I saw a guy fixing a flat on the side of the road and he was using tools.
*Demoing plaster off a brick wall to produce an exposed brick look, I was using a 12 pound sledge. The very first swing, I misjudge the point of impact, miss the wall entirely, and take out a window.-- J.S.
*I hate it when that happens. At least you didn't hit yourself in the shinns and follow the sledge of the staging plank...;>)
*19 yrs old- demoing stucco from around a window I was replacing at best friends parents house- 3rd or 4th swing of the hammer finds a really hard spot or something-hammer bounces off wall, then claw of hammer bounces off forehead.was merely a fleshwound.had worse than that in the holy wars...
*Just this past year;Installing windows in doors of seclusion rooms (I work at a psych. hosp. which can start a whole nother group of stories). I'm showing the new byy how to rip the small piece of trim (1/4 x 1/2)and in a hurry. Thekickbackck sends the 6javelinlin through the back of my hand entering just below the indfingernger and exiting just below the pinky.iLuckiestckiest injury I've ever had.
*rudy58- Do you find yourself having a 'Jesus complex' these days?
*Greg, had one like that.I was nailingoff top plates or sr nailers as backup framing inside a closet area on an addition. Not much room to back up and swing hammer so there I was on top of a stepladder tapping a 16d in when the hammer head sliced of the nail head and that explains the chip out of my front tooth.
*piffin, I remove the string from hooded sweat shirts for the same reason. It is really surprising how much a string can throw off you swing when it is hooked in the claws. No broken teeth, but got the claw print and trip off of the ladder. It kinda sounds like we all went to different schools together?
*b Another homeowner. One day we will rule the world.A friend decides he's going to cut down a large old maple in his backyard. smalltown neighborhood. has to fall just so to miss house, garage, neighbor's house etc. you get the picture. doesnt do it right and it gets to leaning the wrong direction. they call me for a come-a-long. In the meantime dark storm clouds are forming.Everyone's in a hurry. I arrive and his brother is way up in the tree hammering metal wedges in the chain saw cuts with a hatchet. He's wailing away on a wedge and the backside of the hatchet glances off the wedge and hits the bark of the tree and bounces up to put a nice slice in his lip with the blade of the hatchet. Could of been a lot worse.Oh ya, they finally got the tree down and all it did was put a limb thru the neighbor's drivers side window of his caddie. I can't believe his insurance covered it.
*still in high school,pulling nails out of ceiling joists right next to the wall while on a ladder thats sticking thru floor joists on uneven dirt- one stubborn nail, I wedge my elbow against stud to give me leverage, while muscleing against nail, claw slips loose, I hit myself in the nose so hard I knock myself off the ladder-hurt so much didnt know if I should laugh or cry...
*i've had one encounter with my makita power planer that i'd rather forget about but i'ts hard to with one finger thinner than the rest let's just say i won't wear gloves while using it again.
*I had a partner who was running stock through a joiner and had been working too many hours each day. The combination of overwork and a hypnotic repetitive motion led him to feed three digits to the blade gods.
*I have worked in tool shops, wood shops, and on construction sites all of my life.I have known a lot of fine workman in my time. None of them would ever stand for stupidity.I have never seen a person get hurt. When someone starts to do something stupid, one of us packs up their tools and goes home.The only person I knew who got hurt was my father-in-law. He lost several fingers to a table saw. I never asked about it, but I would never work on any project with him.
Squeezed in behind a fridge and trying to remove the ice maker feed line. Only the 1/4" bolt to remove from the pipe clip and using my 12v bosch cordless in the wrong direction, it spun from my hands and smacked me on the nose. I saw stars for five minutes.
dear George roberts, i think being ''stupid'' and being under time restraints are two different things. to say that you've never seen anyone ever have an accident is absurd. everyone,from time to time has worked under pressure,with an apprentice or someone with less experience.i my self have been in the trades since i was sixteen years of age.(now thirty-one).most of the injuries that i;ve recived have been by the result of other carpenters.sadly,most of the jobs today are being pushed too fast as speed is increased more people will be injured.i;ve worked on quite a few sites where no one has had a scratch on them.as much as some people like to . i can;t see myself ''help them pack their things up''.i try to help them understand them why they shouldn;t do certain things that would cause harm to me or others.there are enough screamers on these big jobs. as there are people who ''aren't good to teach''.
Edited 3/23/2002 6:57:53 PM ET by SCOTCLARKE
In high school we had a terrorific shop, 24" planer, 12" jointer, shaper,radial arm, a couple o' table saws and a couple o' lathes. It was a great shop. We had to learn all the safety problems related to each machine. Then we had to take a test for each machine. Then we were monitored during our first use. It was a great system. I learned alot about respect for those machines. Thanks Mr. Duling.
Now every time I even think about pushing a strip of wood past the blade of a table saw I remember the finger saver rule........ I know its prevented a trip or two to the Emergency Room.