We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations.
As I mentioned in my entry from yesterday, my first order of business this morning (after stirring in the skin at the top of the glue pot — blech) was to band saw away the waste on the inside of my bricked rim. I wanted to go early and get that out of the way, but at Marc Adams’ school, power machinery can be used only between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Those are the hours when a staff member is on hand to supervise.
Marc has been running his school since 1994, and in that time, there’s been not one major accident on any machinery. That’s because safety is of paramount importance to Marc and his staff. Exposure to blades is limited as much as possible by featherboards, hold-downs, shields, fences, sleds and more. As you can see in the picture at the top, in order to cut our table rim’s tenon cheeks on the table saw, we had to keep our hands well above the blade in order to secure the workpiece against the jig attached to the miter gauge.
If there’s a way to make the operation safe, Marc and his staff have found it, and they’re adamant that while at the school, students and instructors follow their proven safety procedures. And they watch like hawks to ensure that happens. This can be frustrating at times — but it also means that students go home not only with a great woodworking experience, but with all the digits with which they arrived.
On Wednesday, for example, we were crosscutting legs to length at the table saw. Two stops were set up to the left and right of the blade, attached to a sled. Plus a Lexan shield covered the blade. In order to get our leg stock into position, the sled had to be pulled far enough back to allow access to the table under the shield. And though we had a number of small offcuts, the shield prevented anyone from reaching too close (3″ minimum) to the spinning blade. It seemed tedious to maneuver the pieces under the angled shield, but it caused the operation to be performed slowly and meticulously. As one of our class assistants, Doug Dale, said, “Often, the safest way is also the most accurate.”
It’s a great lesson, one I’ll keep in mind when I get back to our shop. Now if only there were a Lexan shield to keep me from cutting into my tenons with a handsaw.
Read Part 1 of this series here. And Part 2 is here.
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
