Table Saw Trauma!

[Mrs. Warrior]

My husband was building a reloading bench this afternoon. When it came time to use the table saw. I felt a little queasy. I left, and had to be still for awhile.

I remembered something that happened in middle school. I went to Home Economics class and the teacher said we were going to do something different today. She said “you girls are going to shop class to learn to make wooden things to sell. The boys will come here and learn to cook scrambled eggs”.

When we girls went into the shop there was a square table in the center of the room, which we gather around. “First we have to learn about measuring” the shop teacher named Mister Mark told us. Then he gave us all a piece of wood and a tape measure. He told us to measure the wood and draw a pencil line across it. I pulled out the measuring part and was trying to measure but all the little lines on the tape were hard to figure out. When I tried to hold the tape and draw the line, I had to use both hands and every time the tape disappeared right back into the silver container! I went to the teacher and exclaimed “My measuring tape is broken”. All the other girls told him theirs was broken too. He gave us an odd look and then sighed in exasperation.

He got up from his chair, and walked over to a machine along the wall. He told us to gather near, but not to close to the table. He turned it on and it made a loud high pitched whine and we all jumped back in surprise.

“Is it a monster?” We asked?. “Yes it is” he replied. It is a table saw and if you put your hands near the blade it will cut your hand right off and blood will squirt all over my saw!

Some one began to scream hysterically; (that was me). I had been traumatized from abuse in my family. All the other girls began to scream too. You know how girls and screaming is a contagion.

The Home EC teacher came running in. “What is going on here Mark?” she demanded to know. She told us to go back to the Home EC room.

We went back and the room smelled awful! “Oh no, the boys burned the eggs”! I sat down and started to cry. “What's wrong?” the teacher asked. “My hands hurt, I think they are going to fall off” I explained, thinking about the awful table saw and how it cuts off hands. “ I think I need to go to the nurse and get a band aide to make them feel better”. The other girls started crying too, “we want our Mommies”.

Mr. Mark came into the room, “You are going to have parents calling you about this” the teacher said. He looked at the crying faces of the girls. “I'm sorry girls, I just wanted to keep you from getting hurt, I got carried away. I will probably loose my job”, he said.

I started to feel sorry for him. “Don't worry. Mr. Mark, my momma won't call you”. I told the girls, we can tell our parents that there was a girl who was causing trouble in class. Just tell them that she made you upset. Mr. Mark looked at me, “Kid”, he told me, “I think you are very special”.

I never knew why I was always afraid of table saws and now I know!

[rockinqsranch]

I’m fortunate I guess. Never had an accident of any kind with my equipment. I have three various powered table saws, radial saw, and two different sizes of power miter saws I use to build all kinds of things over many, many years.

I notice several mention how to do it right in the previous postings, and that’s always use a stick when working near the blade. Let the stick take the damage, not your hand, or fingers, and always stand to the side when using the machines so they don’t spear you with your work.

[Honest Nigerian]

AndyJackson
More fearsome than the table saw is the radial arm saw...
/-/-/-/-/-:-/-/
Totally agree with that. But some old timers like the RAS.
Truth is you can get hurt lots of ways. Ever use a really sharp chisel the wrong way?

[Romulus]

In college, I had a work/study job in the drama department. It was my introduction to power tools, and the table saw was frequently involved. Looking back now, I am amazed that we were allowed to use it at all. There was never an accident in my time, but I’m sure access to the power tools is far more restricted now.

[W.]

Not to mention old-school butchers...I’ve known many who are missing fingers, even now.

[bert]

Of course!

It is just fundamental

One recent thanksgiving, I was able to purchase a Ryobi chop saw at Home Depot Black Friday price........ really cheap. I don’t know why I waited so long.

[MikelTackNailer]

My high school woodwork class had some industrial-size tools on the floor, specifically the planer and table saw. The teacher was a careful man constantly preaching and practicing safety over twenty years by the time I got there. There were three formaldehyde-filled jars containing student fingers on his shelf to reinforce the lesson.

One day he was showing us how to cut multiple pieces at one time, with the guards on and a push stick when POW! Something went flying over my head and landed in the sawdust. "Well that's never happened before" he said, staring at the gush of blood where his thumb used to be.

While the students who weren't puking bound him up I rinsed the thumb off and got ice out of the teacher's lounge. Microsurgery wasn't all that great back in 1978 but he regained most of it's prior mobility.

So yes - assume high-power tools are out to maim and kill you so stay on highest alert when using them.

[Responsibility2nd]

Right. Usually the Mrs. tells good stories. This one sucked.

To illustrate girls scream in terror at the sight of a table saw, and that boys can’t cook eggs is not just sexist; it’s downright stupid

[Lovely-Day-For-A-Guinness]

Nothing wrong with old fashioned hand saws. When sharpened properly, they cut like a hot knife through butter. And, it's next to impossible to cut off a finger, hand, or take your teeth out from kickback.

I do a lot of woodworking, and if it's lumber I'm cutting, it's almost always with a handsaw.

I use a circular saw on sheet goods.

[IndispensableDestiny]

Table saws are like corrupt congressmen.

Kickbacks can be a problem.

That's funny. I normally leave the blade guard in place when cutting. It has two spring loaded toothed grabbers that are to prevent kickbacks. Sometimes they interfere, like when you need to rip a narrow piece. The blade guard itself can be a nuisance if it grabs the kerf. Then you have to stop the saw, back up the wood, and line up the guard with the kerf.

Anyway, I was recently ripping and bevel cutting lots of 3/4 inch PVC appearance board. I had the guard off and using feather boards to prevent kick backs. Each board had to be cut to a different width.

The one time I forgot to adjust the feather board the PVC kicked back! The hole in my belly, three inches above my navel has pretty much healed.

My late FIL gave me an old Craftsman radial arm saw. I never used it. If you have a table saw and a mitre saw, the RAS is superfluous. Plus it ranks among the most dangerous shop tools.

[Old Student]

...So yes - assume high-power tools are out to maim and kill you so stay on highest alert when using them.

Your statement is absolutely true, but the picture of the saw blade & fingers is not. It should be red all the way around. I have what started out as an eigth-inch notch in the tip of my left middle finger. These days you can barely see a slight depression in the end of the finger. I calculated the approximate number of hits on my finger based on the 80-tooth blade and the rpm of the saw. I figure I got hit at least 4000 times in the maybe a tenth of a second it took to cut that notch.

[ken in texas]

I notched the tip of my thumb about the same way. Was about to install the last piece of laminate flooring and had to trim the edge a bit. Made the cut and in my haste to grab the remnant I forgot the blade was still turning and it sliced into my thumb a quarter inch. All healed up now one side of the thumb tip is still numb after all these years.

[aspasia]

Associating table saws with family traumas doesn’t take much effort. Just absorb the “logic” of any mainstream news anchor.

[Mrs. Warrior]

This was a grade school experience from the late 1960s. But thanks for your observation.

[drjimmy]

Back in junior high, it was a shop class band saw that took off about half of the two middle fingers from one of my classmate’s hands. He still ended up being a pretty good high school wrestler.

[MikelTackNailer]

I was trying to use an illustration less upsetting than actual photos of the subject. Just think of that red all around the blade like the curing of a cast iron skillet...and proof you put a little bit of yourself into your work.

[Old Student]

I was trying to use an illustration less upsetting than actual photos of the subject. Just think of that red all around the blade like the curing of a cast iron skillet...and proof you put a little bit of yourself into your work.

In one way and another through out most of my life I've been concerned with the safety of others. And I've found that most folks aren't impressed by anything but terribly graphic imagery. Apparently not even myself.

I removed the guard from my saw, set the saw blade just barely above the top of the material I was cutting, made the cut. Then I tried to bump the piece of off-cut trapped between the still spinning blade and the fence so it wouldn't get caught and kicked back. Not my finest moment.

These days I do not remove the guard at all, and I have several sorts of push handles. I try very hard not to leave material trapped between the blade and fence. I also bought a different, more expensive saw to make such things less likely. Though I didn't buy the the one that stops itself. That one also destroys the saw (not just the blade, the saw!) stopping it, and was about five times as expensive as the contractor saw I bought.That was a couple of decades ago, I think, and I don't want to know what they cost now.

Do very much like the T-shirt you posted the photo of. That might well get through better than the graphic image I was considering! ;)

[MikelTackNailer]

Great respect to you going forward when wisdom told you otherwise. Sometimes real art demands sacrifice and a being nicknamed Nub isn't too high a price for you to achieve your vision.

Seriously though and really, we need people like you with courage over safety and goals over passivity. Without that we have no future at all. All the best!

[MikelTackNailer]

Trapped material actually destroyed your saw? Without metal in there? I curse China for many things but American greed actually deserves the brunt of it. I can’t find anything durable anymore now that everything has been outsourced and made of inferior quality. God bless our President fighting the swamp, trying to re-establish America’s former position of quality.

[Clay Moore]

Kid in my shop class kicked back a chunk of hard wood and it punched into the cavity of the concrete block wall about 15’ behind the saw.

The teacher showed us a router that some genius managed to get a brace bit chucked in. When he turned it on, the bit bent 90* and destroyed the base but never broke off and ejected.

Then I got a bloody nose when another genius put about 36” of boards in glue clamps (only on 1 side) and cranked them down until it bowed up enough to explode just as I walked by.

Probably some of the reasons industrial arts has all but vanished from school.

[PlateOfShrimp]

If it saves one life.....
/s