Dovetails on a table saw!

:flushed:

This shows some typical use of a table saw which is prevalent in the US and unfortunately in the UK as well. The saw blade is unguarded, there is no riving knife and the operator’s hands come within 400mm (I seem to recollect that it is now 450 rather than 400mm) of the saw blade; in fact at the beginning of the sequence they’re within 100mm! The operator is also standing directly behind the blade; best practice is to stand to one side in case kick back occurs.
It should be noted that this sort of machine shop practice has been illegal in professional workshops in the UK for decades. Go to any professional machine 'shop in the UK and you will see that guards are ALWAYS used and NEVER removed for any operation. Incidentally, this type of practice in also never shown in Furniture & Cabinetmaking, probably the best furniture making magazine in the UK.
A swift Google search came up with this snippet from FWW but there are plenty of others:

Loads like this on utube…no guards…all that I hate. It is just not the way to go. Get into dovetails on handraulic and it’s easy.

They should be band…always seem to be USA and they put a man on the moon…or did they?

It’s the same old story…in a Professional Workshop…blah…blah… Ok, that’s fine, if you work as a Professional Woodworker and it’s your employment you will need to ensure legal compliance with relevant Regulations and observe relevant Codes of Practice/best Practice, risk assess (and provide them in writing if more than 5 employees)…BUT, a lot of people are not Professional Woodworkers, and do not do it as employment, but because we can and want to, as a hobby etc…

I expect the vast majority of such ‘hobbyists’ are well aware of what is regarded as ‘safe’ and what is not regarded as ‘safe’…but the fact is (as I think we have discussed elsewhere in these blogs), what you have to do as a Professional Woodworker in your employment does not apply to those who are not doing woodworking as employment, but at home as a hobby…

One part of this intriguing problem is that I think that a lot of the time, amateurs or hobbyists don’t really know what’s safe and what isn’t. This is a bit of a hobbyhorse for me 'cos as an ex D&T/woodwork teacher (a 20 year sentence at the chalk face) 'shop safety was ingrained into me from day 1, so I’m acutely aware of what to do and what never to do, especially where tablesaurs are concerned. It’s not rocket science (keep out of the ‘line of fire’, push sticks etc etc) but more the application of (for want of a better word) old fashioned ‘common sense’. Unfortunately, the acquisition of ‘common sense’ is often preceded by untimely machining experiences, which may result in a ‘close call’ or worse…

I completely agree that pro’s are bound by a workshop code which hobbyists don’t have to adhere to, but a clearer idea of basic elf n’safety, particularly with regard to the tablesaur might keep a lot of weekend warriors out of our vastly overstretched A&E departments.

Ah,ha…lol…so you’re an ex Design and Technology Teacher…(that explains it)…which College?

As you have been so bold as to mention your past life, I’ll tell you mine too…Civil Engineer, and also a Health and Safety Advisor in Construction, but also as a Consultant…and recall well the relevant British Standard relating to D&T workshop design, layout and of course ‘safety’…having been involved in the design and also inspection of several College D&T wood shops over the years… So yes, I can understand how ‘safety’ might have become ingrained in your train of thought.

From experience thought I can say thinking safe and being safe are two different things, but I am relating to ‘those who walk amongst us’…who whilst having good intentions, do not seem capable of having more than one little gray cell fire-off at any one one particular time…:flushed::face_with_raised_eyebrow::roll_eyes:…

Some fine ways of reflecting on this maybe:

  • ‘there is (or was) a guard fitted…
    …negated by…the fact it was not the correct guard …or…was fitted incorrectly…or…was not used…are of course subjective…

  • the idiot factor’…
    …’He was using a guard’…(standing next to the large blood stain on the floor)…’but he tried to adjust it without turning the machine off’…

‘No one told me kick-back caused wood to fly out of the machine towards me at 120mph’…

‘I thought my modifications (from his hospital bed) would make using the machine more efficient’…as in removing the fixed guard on a portable cut-off saw)…because he could ‘see to cut better’…

Or, lastly…on a machine with no fixed guard as such…(on returning to work after A+E and a couple of days off)…John said ‘go on try it’, and that they don’t work on body parts, only wood’…reflections of an apprentice roofer let loose with a Paslode Nailing Gun…and his first contact with ‘those who walk amongst us’…

So, yes, I know the safety requirements, but I choose sometimes not to implement all of them, as just occasionally I remind myself that things can be done safely without restricting my use of a machine and having perhaps to adjust/readjust guards constantly… or for example realise that using a stacked head dado cutter is not a through cut, and there is a risk of kick-back if I don’t adjust the fence correctly so the work closes on the back of the blade… So ensuring the blade and fence are correctly aligned etc is important…as is making sure I am not in the line of fire should kick-back occur…

However…of course, outside of employment the choice is mine to make…which I am thankful for…and at least, so far, no near misses and have not ended up in A+E…which cannot be said for the time I spent working on the Tools years ago…when I walked amongst them…

One last retort…risk is calculated…so I calculate the risks I take…in the knowledge that if the risk is too high, I don’t do it…I too have an affection for my digits…lol…

Good stuff! Shoreditch College at Englefield Green, Surrey, just down the road from Royal Holloway. My old college is now in the process of redevelopment for flats etc that are going to set the prospective purchaser back both arms and both legs! Sadly, all the buildings apart from the original Victorian block have been demolished, including the workshop block.

The last place I worked on D&T woodshop and metal shop, as well as the new build, was at South Thames College, at their Merton campus… I also ran some IOSH H&S training courses for their Lecturers, which they all found very tedious and boring as I recall, of course, they knew it all…lol…which is why 25% of them ended up having to re-sit the examination… A nice new main building which was completed before I got involved, until I started reviewing their fire risk assessment…which opened a few eyes…from fire door sets made to fit the openings instead of the openings being adjusted to fit the fire door sets, tonnes of paper in Lecturers offices (paper stacked feet deep everywhere and under desks feet deep), lack of fire extinguishers, escape routes improperly marked, gas and electricity services surface mounted and unprotected, alarms in fire zones not functioning, no strobe alarm lighting in noisy workshops, large quantities of oil and soiled rags near welding tables in metal shops…the list went on and on…needless to say, knowing it all, the lecturers did not have a great deal to say, and it took several months to get things sorted out… Just one example of how standards can slip even in an almost new building…I think it was only 18 months since they moved in I went there…!! I wonder what state it is in now, as in the most part the hierarchy seemed reluctant to actually do anything unless shoved…