I’ve been using all kinds of power tools for over 45 years, electric glassmelting furnaces, high speed polishing equipment, table saws, high temp kilns, you fucking name it, much less a pussy ass circular saw(HTF do you cut your fingers off with one of those??) and still got both eyes, 10 toes, 8 fingers & 2 thumbs(knock on wood).
Lord, just take a breath and THINK about what you’re about to do. And NEVER EVER impair yourself…save that for after.
MM – in one incarnation I ran a biz where there were great numbers of master joiners – I mean the were Michaelangelos of the trade. Many had been doing it for iver 45 years.
One thing they had in common – they were ALL missing fingers. All of them. The shit they work with constantly can and does bite, and often it had zero to do with operator error. The wood would split unexpectedly and kick, or a hidden nail would be hit, etc. If you use that shit long enough, it will get you.
There were a couple of things they had to use that were especially dangerous, the most dangerous being an open spindle shaper. It had hundreds of blades/teeth, was four inches high, was entirely unguarded due to the need to shape complex curves, and spun at 20,000 rpm. It was used by only the most highly skilled, and they were all afraid of it.
The other that caused a lot of fear was the thicknesser. Bad news if you thicknessed a part of you that you might ever want to use again. A couple had fingers that were very flat where they had been thicknessed accidently.
Wood has a mind of its own at times. And it is the cause of many issues, not necessarily the operator having done something wrong.
IluvCO2
January 1, 2019 4:48 pm
Maybe if you wore the pants in the family instead of your wife it would not have happened.
Anonymous
January 1, 2019 6:39 pm
My father did this! You have to really try hard to cut off your fingertips with a circular saw. He was trying to ” bevel cut ” a wedge to fit into the joint of the sundeck top railing that had dried out and spread. Too cheap to buy a new 2×6 and replace it. He reached over the saw with his right hand to hold the tiny piece and I heard the last word you ever want to hear from – 1. a surgeon 2. a dentist 3. Someone using power tools – Oops! Picked up the pieces and packed them with some frozen tater tots and hightailed it to emergency. No luck reattaching them – too mangled. Good thing he wasn’t a piano player because he sure as hell wasn’t a carpenter either.
Old Shoe
January 1, 2019 6:41 pm
Good stuff. Right up there with Christopher Reeve trying to sell his Stairmaster.
Llpoh
January 1, 2019 11:11 pm
I am calling bullshit on this. It would be damn near impossible to cut off the fingers shown on the right hand with that saw. Saw is generally operated right handed, and to do that he would have needed to be cutting left handed pulling the saw backwards toward his hand, or something equally as stupid or unlikely.
I can’t follow your analysis since I’m not a carpenter but that is his left hand and the pointer and middle finger are folded at the joint. Quite convenient that he cut them off unevenly like that. Since the stubs appear to have healed, it is unnecessary to wear those stub sheaths.
My bad! So, easyish to do. It looked like his right to me at a glance.
bob
January 2, 2019 7:39 am
I’m not sure how one cuts off fingers of one’s right hand with a saw that’s set up for righties. And, as the saying goes, the safety is between your ears. Must not help with some folks. 30 years cutting meat, still got all I was born with, thank God.
I’ve been using all kinds of power tools for over 45 years, electric glassmelting furnaces, high speed polishing equipment, table saws, high temp kilns, you fucking name it, much less a pussy ass circular saw(HTF do you cut your fingers off with one of those??) and still got both eyes, 10 toes, 8 fingers & 2 thumbs(knock on wood).
Lord, just take a breath and THINK about what you’re about to do. And NEVER EVER impair yourself…save that for after.
MM – in one incarnation I ran a biz where there were great numbers of master joiners – I mean the were Michaelangelos of the trade. Many had been doing it for iver 45 years.
One thing they had in common – they were ALL missing fingers. All of them. The shit they work with constantly can and does bite, and often it had zero to do with operator error. The wood would split unexpectedly and kick, or a hidden nail would be hit, etc. If you use that shit long enough, it will get you.
There were a couple of things they had to use that were especially dangerous, the most dangerous being an open spindle shaper. It had hundreds of blades/teeth, was four inches high, was entirely unguarded due to the need to shape complex curves, and spun at 20,000 rpm. It was used by only the most highly skilled, and they were all afraid of it.
The other that caused a lot of fear was the thicknesser. Bad news if you thicknessed a part of you that you might ever want to use again. A couple had fingers that were very flat where they had been thicknessed accidently.
Wood has a mind of its own at times. And it is the cause of many issues, not necessarily the operator having done something wrong.
Maybe if you wore the pants in the family instead of your wife it would not have happened.
My father did this! You have to really try hard to cut off your fingertips with a circular saw. He was trying to ” bevel cut ” a wedge to fit into the joint of the sundeck top railing that had dried out and spread. Too cheap to buy a new 2×6 and replace it. He reached over the saw with his right hand to hold the tiny piece and I heard the last word you ever want to hear from – 1. a surgeon 2. a dentist 3. Someone using power tools – Oops! Picked up the pieces and packed them with some frozen tater tots and hightailed it to emergency. No luck reattaching them – too mangled. Good thing he wasn’t a piano player because he sure as hell wasn’t a carpenter either.
Good stuff. Right up there with Christopher Reeve trying to sell his Stairmaster.
I am calling bullshit on this. It would be damn near impossible to cut off the fingers shown on the right hand with that saw. Saw is generally operated right handed, and to do that he would have needed to be cutting left handed pulling the saw backwards toward his hand, or something equally as stupid or unlikely.
I can’t follow your analysis since I’m not a carpenter but that is his left hand and the pointer and middle finger are folded at the joint. Quite convenient that he cut them off unevenly like that. Since the stubs appear to have healed, it is unnecessary to wear those stub sheaths.
My bad! So, easyish to do. It looked like his right to me at a glance.
I’m not sure how one cuts off fingers of one’s right hand with a saw that’s set up for righties. And, as the saying goes, the safety is between your ears. Must not help with some folks. 30 years cutting meat, still got all I was born with, thank God.