Safety Week

For one week each year all of us bloggers take a week out of our regular postings to remind everyone about how important shop safety is. Safety in a shop is a everyday quest that anyone with a interest in woodworking strives for. There are a lot of dangerous tools in a wood shop from our hand tools to the power tools to the wood it self. While most wood workers work safe it never hurts to have a reminder.

No body ever sits out to injury them selfs or someone else while working in their shops, but it happens and it usually when they are in a hurry or just flat out ignore their own common sense and do something that they know is a stupid move. That moment in time when a accident happens can never be undone no matter how much someone wants it to be.

Not only are we responsible for our own safety in the shop, but anyone else that may come into it including our pets. So with that lets all take a little time to have a look around the shop and identify any areas that can be made safer. This is why most of the shops I have worked in have a safety meetings, some only did it once a month while others once a week and it does help with pointing out safety issues. Now I know working in the shops by ourself we can't have a safety meeting, but we can do safety reviews.

• Set a side time to make sure all your machines are working in a safe manner
• Invite your spouse or another woodworker out to the shop and have them point out thing that look like they might be unsafe
• Make sure you are cleaning up and putting wood and tools away 
• Make sure you have a first aid kit and phone where you can reach it in a hurry 
• Take a first aid course at a local red cross if you have never had any first aid training
• Keep a safety check list and go though it once a month
• Don't work when you are tired and don't work beyond what you are comfortable doing
• The best tip is just use common sense

All of these are good idea. It pays being prepared in case things do go wrong so familiarize yourself with the kind of injuries that can happen with your machines and being prepared for them and means having more than just a couple of band aids in your first aid kit. I am always amazed that in most of the shops I worked at all they had in their first aid kits was tweezers, band-aids and Tylenol.

I have also noticed in my many years of working around woodworking machines and in shops the biggest and most easily corrected safety issue is clutter, it is hard to be safe when there is scraps on the floor saw dust and sharp tools laying where they can come in contact with ones flesh. Having two young grandsons who like to help me when I am building things and in the garden has made me very aware of this problem and in turn has made me stop and clean up after my self more often. So be safe and enjoy woodworking for many years.

Joey

Safety First You Never Who's Watching

Lot of you guys have little people that come into your shops with you. They are like little DVRs recording all you do, so always set a good example of how to do things. Safety first all the time and they will work safe as they grow up without even thinking about it.

My Worst Woodworking Accident

When you do woodworking and carpentry for a living you live with the knowledge that you can be seriously hurt at any time if you aren't careful. Sometimes the pressure of getting work out the door or getting the house done on time can sometimes cloud your focus on safety, and when it doe's you could end up paying for that lack of focus. This is the story of my lack of focus and it resulted in the worst injury I got in my woodworking career.

It was about 4 pm and I was trying to finish up the base in the last bedroom of this 5 bedroom house I was doing the trim work on, I had already placed all the long walls with base and was filling the short pieces between the walls and the castings, I just back mitered the last piece and was coping the cut. when I lost my grip on the base and sliced into my thumb with my coping saw. It went through the skin and cut into the knuckle of my thumb very deeply,

I had to go the hospital and I ended up have surgery to repair the damage I did. the injury took a long time to heal and I still have problems with that thumb.

My point to this story is all tools are dangerous and should be used with care. I never in my life would expected getting should a bad injury from something that seems as harmless as a coping saw, but I did.

So keep your tools sharp and your eye on safety even sharper and be safe while working and enjoy the work.

Joey

The Little Things Can Really Hurt

Some times the smallest things can cause us a lot of pain. and as woodworkers one of those things are splinters. On and average day in the shop I know I must get at least three or four, and some time as many as ten, depending on what type of lumber I am working with. The worst one I thing I ever got happen just the other day. I was fixing a piece of treated lattice work by my front porch when I picked up a splinter in my little finger. It managed to go in at old angle right up under my finger nail, now I still haven't been able to extract it with my first aid kit that I keep handy for extracting stray little wood slivers. I am hoping my body will expel this on its own, if not I am afraid I may have to go to the ER, because; my finger is turning red and is stiff and numb. I sure wouldn't want it to get infected and have to be treated in the hospital. Now that may sound extreme, but it wouldn't be the first time for me, and while I was there the ER doctor told me its not as rare as one might expect.

Some wear gloves while handling boards, but I always found that awkward and a little dangerous while running a machine, although a friend of mine told me he use his golf gloves, so I tried mine and found they where comfortable and safe to use, now a just need to get one for my right hand.

I keep a of small bandaid box in my tool box, and in my van, and in them I keep I pair of good tweezers, a magnifying glass, a few large upholstery needles I sharpened, some neosporen, a razor blade, and some bandaids. I found that with these few items I can safely get most splinters out of my hands. For the more stubborn ones I soak them in warm water with baking soda that cause the wood to swell and most time pop them right out. If I get one of them multi splinter kind that we all hate, I use yellow glue rubbing it all over the area and letting it dry then peeling it off and with it the splinters.

Well I sure hope everyone is staying safe so remember to keep the saw dust out of your eyes
Joey

Safety Week

I would like to say, I think when Marc Spagnuolo of the Wood Whisperer declared May 5th through May 9th safety week it was a great idea. I know there will be a lot of people going over use of safety equipment, like respirators, hearing protection, and how important it is the use the guards on your saw and they all are very important. But one of the most important things that I think we overlooked as woodworkers is our backs.

I am saying this from my own experience, because in 1992. I was working for small shop on Saturdays, while I was running my own cabinet and trim business through week. On this particular Saturday my employer asked me to help him move his table saw. Now he had a large cabinet saw with a 7 hp three-phase motor that was capable of cutting 60 inches right of the blade. So this was a big, big saw and to make things worse it was a small shop, with lots of tools. So we had muscle this saw to where it was going. While we were moving it somewhere in the process I felt a little pain in my lower back. Than a little later I was laminating some table tops after I glued down the tops I would stack them about seven high and then place a couple of five gallon buckets of water on top of them as a clamp until the glue dried. After about my third set I reached down to pick up a bucket and about half way up. I felt a snap in my back, and I fell to the ground. That was in 1992, three surgeries, many hours of PT and almost one year are not being able to walk, all because of a few careless moments of not watching how I was picking something up.

So when you're in your shop muscling around them heavy sheets of plywood, you would do well, to be very careful of your back, where a back brace, stretch, and loosing up them muscles a little. If you need to move heavy items go inside get some help, call your neighbor, and use your tables or some other type of holding jigs. I am here to tell you it really isn't worth it to hurt your back over trying to saw a sheet of particle board or man handle that piece of furniture up on your work bench.

I hope some of this is a little bit of a reminder to watch your back. I know I still have to remind myself to watch my body position. Even after all I've been through. Well, that's my little spiel on safety. So keep the saw dust out of your eyes and live long and prosper