As a construction worker this is mortifying. I've seen too many people who lost fingers, toes, or even hands and feet, while ******* around with power tools trying to show off.
One of the woodshop guys at my college lost an eye from a shop accident, and he even has a slight scar too. I believe he also has like a tip gone from one or two of his fingers.
He's one of those really cool handy guys. Helps people who've never really used hardcore shop tools and saws with whatever we need, although most of us just make frames.
I feel your paranoia. Until i started working with power tools, i was extremely afraid of them all. Ironically, that automatically makes you suck so much harder at them.
Though im still pretty paranoid whenever i have to clean the machines with the automatic saws...
yeah... my old firm wasn't too much into those safety procedures. They just wanted it to go fast and back then i was terribly afraid of getting yelled at again
You'd figure they'd not want to get massive fines from OSHA. Everywhere I've worked would have a duck if I did something that OSHA would flip about. Hell, Walmart management wouldn't let me solo pallets even though I could one hand most of them over my head and hold em there without any trouble.
I like fire. With fire, strangely enough, you often have more control, more precise movement, and less force that pushes against you. You wield it, control it better. With a power tool it can push back and slip out of your hands, like how a saw can get stuck in the material and snatch itself away from you (power saws at least).
Then again, I've witnessed a colleague burn another colleague's ass hairs off with a large burner that we use for the asphalt. A short blast, for sure, but **** was insane still. He got fired for it.
Only thing I don't like about it is not trusting other people who use the gas ones, cause we have some stupid ***** in our college. I just don't wanna be the guy that ignited a room cause some jackass didn't turn off the gas properly.
Welding is really fun if you ask me, I want to learn a lot more but it doesn't quite fit with my major. Also I always loved the helmets, though the older versions are hard as **** to see what you're working on.
It's a good backup career path though, and hell it's a good life skill.
Yeah, all welding i did was in school some very basic **** .
But i sucked hard, i just couldn't see anything it was like doing it blind.
I should improve that skill
When it comes to skills like that I learn on a do it once basis, so kinetic learning.
Sucked my first few go arounds, old dude with a beard gave me an incredibly useful piece of advice as I did it and I got really good. Had some of the nicest welding for beginners. Shame all of my classmates were chicks, some didn't even do it.
Chainmail-like gloves are pretty standard issue in raw food production like this. I can say from experience they work pretty well. Usually, the gloves you wear on top get cut, the metal-on-metal makes a loud noise, and you pull your perfectly intact hand away.
I wouldn't dare use a chainmail glove on our band saw. More so because we use a bone-in blade so it's serrated, that WILL catch your glove and you will get pulled into the machine before you can get your hand away. I'd rather go gloveless around a serrated saw.
And end up like my old manager, missing his pinky finger.
If you're using reciprocating saws chainmail gloves are perfectly safe but bandsaws are a different story. Bandsaws will eat your hand if they catch on anything. And if you do somehow cut off a finger on the bandsaw, they can generally re attach it fairly easily because of how cleanly bandsaws cut. This is also why it is so easy to pass a few fingers through the blade without realizing it so it's not all good. Basically, respect the bandsaw or it will make you it's bitch.
We use metal chainmail gloves when skinning the meat or cutting it with a knife but we never used them when working the saw mostly because like heartlessrobot said instead getting nicked or losing a finger you lose a good chunk or your whole hand. Though i work at a family owned rural butchery so it's not all high tech and fancy nor do we need to crank out a **** ton of meat constantly. until it's deer season or the end of the rodeo than there will be a endless supply of meat
in my experience, among the more specific tools, band saws are one of the least likely to **** your **** up, because the threat is very obvious.
lathes on the other hand...
You become familiar with the saw, no longer afraid of it. You start making faster and faster movements with less and less control, and then one day it happens, you lose that something.
You should never hope to become familiar with deadly tools in such a way.
Anon's pretty spot on.
Get used to them, get careless, you'll **** up.
Always aim the saw away from you, or between your feet (one of those handheld power saws used to cut through stone or concrete, depending on the type of sawblade). Check the headguard. When changing the blade, make sure it's unplugged first. AND DON'T ******* USE IT ON AN UNSTABLE SURFACE
There's a guy in my company who has a massive scar on his face. Fell on the side of his head when he used the thing on a ladder. Luckily enough it fell sideways and slid off him before it did worse damage, and it was a blade for steel rather than stone (or it would've sliced him apart), but it did leave him with a very nasty burn-scar that goes from his cheek through his ear.