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Power tools that scare you

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Leros said:
Table saw and handheld circular saw

I don't mind using a table saw with a friend to help, but I don't like to use it alone. I absolutely refuse to use a handheld circular saw.
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Yep. Circular blades scare me the most.
 
Humpy said:
The injured guy was a new employee who was provided a cheap plastic table saw and taught to make free hand cuts without the fence in place. It wasn't totally his fault. Lawyers took it from there.

Anyone looking to get a decent table saw should look into the Saw Stop brand. Along with having a brake they are excellent tools in general.
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They've come a long way, but I still prefer my Delta with Biesemeyer fence.
 
I used to work in a machine shop that made heater manifolds.....well, at least that's what they were called lol. We would start with sheet metal and pipe and go thru to the finished product (basically a pipe with holes in it with a couple brackets welded on).

Anyhow, part of the process was to get the little 4" metal plates bent to 90 degrees. And we used some ancient HUGE press. You'd put the flat piece of metal on the form, press a button on either side of the press, and the big press part would come down and bend it pretty as you please.

Well, one day someone found a 'footswitch' that you could use on the press. You could just stand there with your foot on the footswitch and not have to press either of the buttons. I'm sure you know where this is going. The owner was not too happy when he had to clean up chopped off fingers not long after.........

Also, planars. The guys there would always say 'watch your ring as it might get caught on the blade and rip your finger off'....D:
 
mrblotto said:
Anyhow, part of the process was to get the little 4" metal plates bent to 90 degrees. And we used some ancient HUGE press. You'd put the flat piece of metal on the form, press a button on either side of the press, and the big press part would come down and bend it pretty as you please.

Well, one day someone found a 'footswitch' that you could use on the press. You could just stand there with your foot on the footswitch and not have to press either of the buttons. I'm sure you know where this is going. The owner was not too happy when he had to clean up chopped off fingers not long after.........
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he's clearly a genius. why have to move your arms to press buttons on the sides of a press when you can just tap your feet. who doesn't like tapping their feet?
 
Wood chipper.

Chainsaws earn lots of respect from me but don't scare me so much as the things I'm cutting falling the wrong way do. Like onto my house or self.

I cut down a bunch of pines last year with my chainsaw and had a few moments of struggle trying to persuade stuff to take a different path falling down than it was wanting to.

My Dad taught me as a kid though to always be prepared for what your cutting to snap back or jump up on you. As a kid we had a few acres for our home and then a few more for some rental cabins on the other side of town and between snow storms and tornado's I spent a lot of time clearing out a lot of fallen pines in my youth.

Also table saws do freak me out in the sense that one dumb move and you can lose your fingers. Actually used to know a guy that had a few beers and made one dumb move while working on a table saw and lost the tips on 3 fingers. Freaked me out.

Working under heavy things that are jacked up also freaks me out a bit. I always use jack stands but still something deeply ingrained in me of fearing a car coming down on me and crushing me to death. Guess it's from seeing those damn "Faces of Death" videos as a kid and one of them being something to that extent.

But nothing really now days freaks me out more than being up high and feeling like I don't have safety.

I went up on my roof a few years back to clean off some pine needle build up around my chimney and it looked pretty safe from the ground/ladder but as soon as I got my feet on the roof I realized it was actually much steeper than I thought and the tar paper wasn't enough to keep me from sliding towards the edge. I truly felt like I was at any moment going to lose it completely and go flying off the edge and wind up with terrible injuries.

I yelled down to my wife to hold the ladder and it was so damn scary trying to get from that unstable situation to the ladder.

Really freaked me out more than anything in recent memory.

And to think, I used to laugh at my Dad when he'd be scared out of his mind of heights which I was a kid 🙁

I guess it's just a getting older thing that makes one really appreciate what falling from a height really means.
 
Miter Saw, I hate when you hit a knot in a block of wood and it jumps on you. I almost broke my finger the last time I used one, even though I had the wood locked in it still jumped.
 
PottedMeat said:
he's clearly a genius. why have to move your arms to press buttons on the sides of a press when you can just tap your feet. who doesn't like tapping their feet?
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All of our manual press breaks in our shop are foot pedal operated. You have to hold the work piece by hand. But this is not meant for repetitive tasks, doing 200 of them at a time. It's for custom work. Repetition is always dangerous because of complacency.

We have one small press break that is great because it has a linear control foot pedal, movement is directly related to how much pressure you put on the pedal. You can inch it down as slow as you please. But we have another fairly large press break that is quirky. For some reason, when you first push the pedal, the top punch will drop about 3 inches in half a second, then it moves slowly. Manufacturer said it was operating properly. 🙄 I don't use that one.
 
I have a healthy respect for chain saws and so on, but the stuff I'm really terrified of is farm equipment. If that counts as tools.
 
Howard said:
Did your workshop offer (mandatory) safety training on the available equipment?

EDIT: Does your name have anything to do with your old job?
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I went through an apprenticeship where the safe use of every tool was gone over and no one would ever ask an apprentice to do something without showing them how. That doesn't mean that at some point in time you're not going to do something that starts pushing the envelope and then you go too far. A pedestal grinder can be operated in a safe manner and I have all my fingers to prove it. The problem comes in that a lot of stuff that you can do with it can be done a little differently in an unsafe manner. The differences are often subtle and when you cross the line into unsafe use, no lights or bells go off except in your mind.
 
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Howard said:
Wear a thick shirt and pants and good safety glasses (preferably a face shield in addition). Flingy pieces can hurt.

EDIT: You shouldn't actually be using it without a guard anyway.
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No guards found.

airgrinders.jpg


First of all guards on airgrinders are something they just started making in the last few years. Second, you can't get into tight areas with guards on. Finally, you can't see what you're doing half the time with a guard on.
 
No real issue with the chain saw, but I only use a small bar (like 14") on fallen trees and small stuff. Always have good footing and make sure I'm careful to avoid pinching and kickback.

No issues at all with a circular saw. I don't really understand the fear there.

The table saw is the one thing that I own that I really don't like using. It's just a wickedly dangerous device that I will only operate with a 2nd person to help guide/support. And I'll never use it for ripping small stuff. I'd never be a good trim carpenter I just have no desire to get my fingers that close to a blade.
 
vi edit said:
No real issue with the chain saw, but I only use a small bar (like 14") on fallen trees and small stuff. Always have good footing and make sure I'm careful to avoid pinching and kickback.

No issues at all with a circular saw. I don't really understand the fear there.

The table saw is the one thing that I own that I really don't like using. It's just a wickedly dangerous device that I will only operate with a 2nd person to help guide/support. And I'll never use it for ripping small stuff. I'd never be a good trim carpenter I just have no desire to get my fingers that close to a blade.
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Push sticks, FTW.
 
oldsmoboat said:
Push sticks, FTW.
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I've tried some that I've bought and some that I made from templates I found on the web and still don't like it. Something about the disconnect in feel and fear that it'll slip off whatever I'm trying to rip still bothers me.

If I need to rip stuff down I just prefer to set up a rip guide and use a table saw. Not as precise as a table saw, but it works for my casual needs.
 
GoStumpy said:
I borrowed an angle-grinder from a metalshop before... damn thing had no guard whatsoever!

Holding the machine with my hand 2" from the 10k RPM blade was the most nervous I've ever been with a powertool...
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My dad is an old-school mechanic and has one like this. He uses it like it's nothing, but I hate using it. I managed to take some skin off my finger once with it, and that was enough for me.
 
mrblotto said:
Well, one day someone found a 'footswitch' that you could use on the press. You could just stand there with your foot on the footswitch and not have to press either of the buttons. I'm sure you know where this is going. The owner was not too happy when he had to clean up chopped off fingers not long after.........
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I thought most stuff like that required the buttons to be pressed for the foot pedal to operate, the buttons serving as the safety step. Sounds like that one may have had some safety devices circumvented.
 
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