Better than a neighbor my uncle always told us about when driving fence posts. The wood post was splitting so someone told him to put his thumb on top to cushion the next blow. The guy with the sledge did manage to not hit with full force.....

 

NE_Frm, That just made me gasp and that doesn't happen often. Geeze, nice neighbor. A few years back I had to pound a few hundred posts to reinforce the fence between us and the neighbor's cow pasture. My friend who mentors me on all things farming brought over his post pounder and taught me how to use it. The very first thing he taught me was to never, ever, ever hold the post within the top 6 inches of the post. When that ram drops down it is actually kind of scary and if it gets your hand there are no second chances. I paid very close attention to those instructions and treated that machine with a LOT of respect. BTW, my first half dozen posts were so crooked they looked like they had been pounded in by a blind and drunk old man with a bad case of palsy (no, I am not referring to Lary).

 

The saw stop does work. The shop at school has one. I witnessed it work once. I have never seen anyone that looked more relieved and angry at the same time than the instructor.

I try to avoid wood. I have seen many more people hurt with saws than a hot knife.

 

Ahh man that really sucks that you ended up loosing the tip of your finger....so sorry to see that.

I have had a few run ins with exacto knives....they have been my nemesis for many years. I've suffered severed tendons, and many deep wounds and stitches.

I'm 40 now and I'm starting to Finally realize the dangers were put ourselves in at home....with very little concern to the potential outfall if things go bad.

 

Table saw rule # 1: Only raise the blade high enough for the teeth to come up through the work. Too high of a blade severely increases the possibility of kickback. The web of the blade is mostly the culprit since it does no cutting and can bind in the work. I have clamped auxiliary fences on my saw at different angles to use for core boxing cuts. As long as I only raise the blade no more than the depth of the kerf, it will cut out the wood without kicking.

 

In tune to the Johny Horton song...

I fought the Saw - and the Saw won!

I'm into the drill bit thingy myself or should I say it was into me (last winters project)



15 stitches & 8 Mo's later it works however I don't need to watch the weather forecast anymore..

 

I had a wise old machine shop teacher in high school who drilled this saying into us and it really stuck with me. He said: "A machine has no conscience. It will kill you in a heartbeat and keep right on going". He told us of a machine shop he worked at once where an engineer in the front office went to the back to check a piece of work he designed. He leaned over a running lathe wearing a neck tie. Well, that was the last thing he ever saw on this Earth. My shop teacher said that after that he always wore the snap on ties whenever he had to wear a one.