Lots of good points but I'll play a little devil's advocate here and agree with Shipwright. There is no better safety equipment than experience and respect for the tool.
The magazine isn't the reader's shop nanny, either. I laugh at all the disclaimers that are present on every consumer product these days. They are so much a fixture in our lives that no one bothers to read them. That seems counter productive to me.
How often do you guys really read that long safety sheet on the headstock of your newer Shopsmiths? (It's so tacky
)
What I'm really hearing from you gentlemen is that YOU DO pay attention to what you are doing (otherwise you wouldn't think twice about this photo) and I commend you for that. That's what everyone
should do. I've never lost a finger, none of my family members have lost a finger (although I had an uncle that lost his hand in a thresher), and none of my family's table saws have upper guards on them.
Opinions are always shaped by our experiences so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'M NOT SAYING YOU SHOULDN'T USE A GUARD so I don't want to hear about it. I am saying I think some might be a bit critical of the magazine photo. I was in the Navy Seabees and I've seen plenty of training programs that show missing digits, flesh striped off fingers from rings being caught, loose clothes in spinning shafts, etc. Plus, some of you have shown me your scrapes.
-Respect for the power of the tool
-Situational awareness
-Attentiveness
You can't sell those in a kit and you can't print them on every Shopnotes photo. My dad constantly preached, "Pay attention to what you are doing and what you're about to do!" I feel like you can shove a thumb under a plastic guard just as easily as a 1 x 4. Plus, in my
very humble opinion, if you can't see the cut you really don't know if you're putting the piece in a bind and you can't always feel it with a good, sharp blade.
I also agree with tdubnick: take the time to
set up your cut. I also agree with Farmer that that's what fences, feather boards and push sticks are for. Personally,
I'm not comfortable resting my hand on the fence in front of the blade. I'm concerned with the geometry and trajectory of my digits in relation to the spinning wheel of death, but if the gentleman in the photo has the expertise and knows his equipment, that's his decision. It's the reader's decision too.
Occasionally, I wonder about my yuppie friend who grew up in Austin and didn't know the difference between a jig saw and a circular saw until I taught him. He's the kind of guy I'm worried about. Does a photo like that set a bad example for him or is it still his responsibility to become educated? That's a rhetorical question. I feel good about him in particular because he has educated himself. JPG pointed out the paradoxical result of the attempt to save us from ourselves. It has the unintended consequences of laziness and hiding in plain sight. Maybe I'm being cold, but a certain number of unfortunate accidents are just unpreventable, especially when the user is not going to take the time to be informed (that's a necessary life lesson no matter what you're doing). Let's be cautious and aware of what's going on, but we can't keep every idiot out there from losing a few digits, and we certainly shouldn't lay the blame on a magazine for a single shot. How many other pictures and articles in that same magazine not only show proper safety equipment but STRESS it too? Dasgud, your point about showing safety equipment is well taken and I agree to a large extent, but EVERY shot? Perhaps we jumped on the criticism bandwagon here?
OK, I'll take my tongue-lashing now.
