Woodshop Safety
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Woodshop safety is not a very popular topic. Most woodworkers want to know the latest tool, free plans, or learn more advanced techniques. All of which are important; however, without paying attention to shop safety, the likelihood of having a major accident increases greatly.
A micro surgeon friend has been seeing woodworking / home improvement injures increase over the past few years. He deals with the serious injuries such as table saw, router, planer accidents where a part of the body came into contact with the cutting tool. He had a stern warning for me to be very careful of the power tools, if I wanted to keep all of my fingers attached to my hand.
Here are some basic tips to help prevent woodshop accidents.
1. Read each power tool’s instruction and safety manual. Yes, this sounds very trite and boring.
2. Eye protection. Buy the best eye protection that you can and use them. This includes not only safety glasses but also a face shield.
3. Hearing protection. Table saws, circular saws, routers emit a lot of noise. Protect your hearing. My father-in-law is from the generation where hearing protection was never even considered. He is now paying the price of having lost of thirty percent of his hearing in both ears. It is easy to think that this power tool is not that loud. Remember hearing damage is cumulative just like sun burns cause cumulative damage to the skin.
I use clam shell hearing protection that is rated to reduce the noise by 30 decibels.
4. A pretty obvious one, keep a clean and uncluttered shop floor and work space. Have a place to store all of your tools so that the shop floor and work bench are clear and open.
5. Before cutting or milling a piece of stock, think through the entire operation. Look for any places where the stock might get caught, hung up or bind on. Make sure that there is enough space on the out feed of the tool to accommodate the stock.
6. Use a respirator when performing dusty work such as sanding. Breathing in wood dust can led to a variety of ailments including sinus infections. Early in Norm Abrams wood working career his workshop was in the basement with poor ventilation and no dust collection. He ended up with several bad sinus infections.
Set up a dust collection system.
7. When you get tired stop working in the woodshop. It isn’t worth completing one more cut or route another board when you are exhausted. The risk of injuring yourself is just too great.
8. If you are taking medication that causes drowsiness, head the label warnings.
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thanks for listing a decibel level for hearing protection, this is the first place I came about the info.