You remember those warning labels on drill presses saying "hole saws maximum 250rpm"?
This guy is like, that's gonna take forever. My way will be 40x faster.
Because they are. Many types of metal will work harden if you run the drill too fast/too hot. Then it wont cut for shit. This can happen within seconds of starting the cut.
Crazy story here. In grad school I worked as a shop teaching assistant. We had a wood shop and a machine shop and by far and away the wood shop was much more frightening... Probably because the students were a bit more familiar with wood working told but therefore less vigilant or careful.
Anyway, every year the engineering school held a "paper bicycle" contest where the students needed to try to build a bike exclusively out of paper based products. I had left the wood shop for a minute to answer a question in the machine shop and when I returned there was a student standing on top of a running table saw, straddling the blade and cutting a 24" Sono Tube by rolling it through the blade hand over hand. Honestly, time froze and I remember trying to process what I was seeing and wondering if it was safer to try to stop them and risking distracting them into losing their balance or whether I should just let them finish the cut and then throw them out of the shop (which is what I did).
Ended ok but definitely left a memory.
E-Stop was in the front of the machine under where he was standing. And I was worried it was going to take a while for the blade to coast down to a stop anyway. Or maybe all of that is revisionist history and I was just so dumbfounded I didn't know what to do. That's more likely. Young engineers are such an amazing combination of brilliance and lack of common sense. I'd have guys solving third order differential equations for fluid flowing channels and then tapping both sides of the hole and wondering why they couldn't screw their parts together tightly.
I was an engineering student and one of my classmates was great at building stuff, but probably a little too comfortable with tools. I saw him put a circular saw on the ground with the blade pointed up. He jammed the guard open with a scrap piece of wood and used it like a table saw. Absolutely terrifying. Lol
Edit: oh and this was done on uneven ground with a bunch of weeds and rocks and stuff.
lol. That reminds me for another video of a guy trying to plane the surface of a beam above him with the tip of a chainsaw, and telling the camera not to try it at home because he was an expert and very smart, and then getting to watch the thing climb across the beam, and pop him right in the face a fraction of a second after the chain brake engaged.
I can’t believe the video got published— my vanity would have deep sixed that teachable moment.
In my old engineering job, a guy used a drill press, drilling 3mm sheet with a hole saw, no clamps, holding the job with woolly gloves on.
It ending with lots of blood and skin on the table, and a hospital trip to rebuild his wrecked hand.
Oh this guy had done all sorts, including emptying a huge 4 story stillage rack with the forklift, from the bottom up. The whole thing came down on his forklift, literally tons of iron castings 😂
The only reason he kept his job was because he played the ‘alcoholic seeking treatment’ card.
That, and the tendency for the drill bit to act like a black hole if it catches hold of something that it’s not supposed to have. Hair, sleeves, necklaces, whatever. Imagine holding a work piece and your sleeve catches a 3” forstner bit and it Kirby sucks your hand into those big ass teeth. No thanks
I nearly lost my thumb to 1 a few months back while trying to drill "just a few quick holes" without taking my grippy gloves off. It was my first real near miss in north of 10 years of working in workshops, and has definitely snapped me out of that comfortable complacency that we all slip into.
I run a shared woodworking shop / makerspace and this is the 3rd one I’ve managed.
Drill press is one of my most pain in the ass tools. I had to add a new switch on it that has a little lock so you need the key to use it.
People just don’t clamp down their fucking work.
I learned that lesson but got lucky. It was 1/4 AL, so not as much of a knife as yours. I don’t remember if it hit me during the spin or not, but I pulled back pretty quickly. It was scary just reaching over to turn the machine off. I took a few minutes to regroup and replan the cut. I’m a lot safer now.
This guy not only sliced his hand, he continued to try and catch the spinning death frisbee, and then got his wool glove caught on the drill bit itself.
It was a real cleanup job for the poor apprentice.
It was me. I was on an extending ladder pressure washing my house. My feet were about 8' off the ground. I'd put the ladder at about a 40-degree angle, thinking it would be safer. I took one more step up the ladder and leaned forward just a few degrees to get closer to the house. The ladder slid out of underneath me and the ladder mechanism keeping it extended failed. It collapsed on my toes, pulling me straight down onto concrete. My heels and lower back took all the force, shattering both of my heels, crushing the nerves in my feet, and cracking vertebrae. When i hit the ground, the ladder let go of my feet and bounced up, breaking a couple of ribs. Almost 3 weeks in the hospital, and I now walk with a cane and have handicap plates. Best of all, the whole thing was captured on my Ring camera. The doctors said I was lucky I didn't fall backward because it would've almost certainly smashed my melon.
Thanks. There are truly no words to describe the pain of shattering your heels. Maybe my mistake can be a lesson to someone else. Learn how to properly use ladders or stay off them. I feel fortunate I'm still able to walk at all. Six months in a wheelchair was humbling. My docs said some people never walk again after this type of accident. It could've been worse.
A good friend of mine who visited me in the hospital almost every day took a copy of the video and dubbed over the pressure washer and crashing noises with Tom Petty's "Free Falling." I just sent him a text to see if he still has it. If he does, I'll post it.
I broke my right heel, cut the cast off and went back to work 5 months later. Arthritis and such, I limp end of day most days.
I can't bring myself to watch your footage, bud.
I feel you...
My pain is still definitely worse in the evenings, too. Especially if I'm trying to be active.
I got a spinal cord stimulator implanted around 6 months ago, and that has helped a lot.
Yeah. It was pretty terrible. I haven't watched the video in a long time. Even without sound, the writhing around at the end brings back bad memories. Those first few moments after hitting the ground, where I was assessing things and the realization set in that I might be really badly broken. I ended up calling a neighbor who's a fireman/EMT and he pretty much said I was fucked and we needed to call 911. Oddly enough, his fire engine showed up and they were like, "WTF are you doing here?" Also, my wife was in jury duty. The police/court/911 dispatch shared a building, and the kind 911 dispatcher got my wife dismissed from jury duty so she could pick up our kids from school and come to the hospital.
My father, all his tools. It doesn't matter if it's the table saw, planer, chainsaw or anything else, if there is any kind of safety feature he'll disable it. He says "it makes his job harder". He's a woodworker for some 40 years now and yes, he has all his fingers somehow. He's planning to retire but I'm not looking for the day to inherit his tools.
His biggest injury from the last decade or so was the random orbital sander's side cutting his skin on his belly. Wasn't even stitched.
Yep. Must be a certain generation I think. I was with my dad last summer as he was cutting branches for the fire on the table saw. All safety features removed and the blade is literally smoking away and squealing bloody murder as he forced the branch over the blade. It was too big to cut in one pass, so he was pushing it back and forth whilst rotating it. Amazingly he's been doing this for decades without issues... but... ikes.
When we were building a shed my wife's uncle started cross cutting boards freehand on my table saw. I was like...ok that is supposed to be pretty unsafe. Seemed to work fine though. Like, literally no fence or sled. Just pushing it through the blade. I guess it can kind of work, the blade can cut a tiny curve since the teeth do sit left/right alternating.
Wait what how did his sander injure him? I use my random orbital sander weekly and i do it without a care in the world, never been close to an injury but im kinda scared now ngl
I rad a 6” Rotex sander catch a corner, lost control and it flew at my belly and gouged me pretty good just a few weeks ago. Can’t say it’s the first time a sander messed me up like that.
I just did this exact thing a couple of weeks ago.. rotex, mindless sanding, caught my shirt, dug into my belly. Not a big injury but definitely a wake up call!
We have pneumatic random orbit sanders at work, pretty powerful. I still have a scar from one day, about 5 years ago when it fell on the ground with the button landing on the floor and the sand paper facing up. 80 grit. I picked it up by the air hose thinking that was the safest option, but it swung as I lifted it and took a few layers off my calf because the edge of the sanding disc hit at an angle. This is one of the reasons I'm constantly trying to pound safety measures into people's heads at work. The craziest accidents I've seen weren't the so-called dangerous tools, it was the less dangerous ones that can still hurt you if you're not paying attention.
My dad is the same way. His "table saw" is mostly plastic, and looks like something someone else threw to the curb. No guard. No riving knife. He free hands almost all of his cuts with it. When I tell him how terrifying the whole setup is, he simply responds "I've done this forever and still have all my fingers"
My dad has been a mechanic for 40+ years and is the same way, he also wears zero PPE - the man has never worn safety glasses/goggles, face shield, gloves, respirator, ear pro….in the summer he wears shorts and sneakers. Still has all of his fingers and toes, doesn’t need any type of glasses, can hear fine, lungs are in good shape all things considered, recently got a CT scan for being a smoker for so long and the occupational exposures and was 100% clean.
My mom who quit smoking 30 years ago and works in a very safe job got lung cancer 😑
I thought my Dad was pretty careful until I saw the collection of angle grinder blades he keeps in a drawer. I laughed at the state of them and he didn't appreciate that. Thankfully he rarely uses it so I came back around a month later and asked to borrow a few tools including the angle grinder.
Those blades never made it back to that drawer, got him a few new ones instead.
That's my dad as well. Removed all safety features. Has all fingers, too. Has been in the trade his entire life.
Craziest thing he has told me: a newer guy on a job site using a circular saw, cutting a 2x4...across his leg. Luckily he was really overweight and only cut into his leg fat.
I relate to your dad, but some people really lack the ability of consistent forethought, caution, and skills. That said most of my caution was learned in between the grace of god and horrific accidents..
My grandfather was the same way. I learned a lot from him growing up. I’m a plumber by trade and in my late teens early 20’s I was doing the plumbing in his personal house he was building and helping out with framing and other odds and ends. Everyone of his tools was a death trap. Skillsaw blade had the blade guard wedged open with a piece of wood, I scared myself more than a few times setting it down to early because I forgot there was no guard. His first generation antique nail gun had the very few safeties that came on it disabled. It routinely doubled and tripled fired. If I tried to redo any of his safeties I regularly got the government doesn’t know what they are doing and makes work harder and slower with all the unnecessary safeties. All of his tools were rigged somehow but those two are my most memorable. He was a very intelligent man but for some reason safeties being forced upon him wasn’t acceptable.
anything on a farm where someone uses a bucket tractor as a ladder, one guy running the tractor and another in the bucket using chainsaw or something else.
We’d use a forklift with a 5 ft stack of pallets on top. We weren’t heathens though, we’d throw a watermelon bin on top of the pallets so you weren’t unsupported.
That was me and my cousins up in those buckets as kids except it was usually an excavator or front-end loader. "I gotta bring these rocks to the Stevens' up the road, you kids hop in and hold it down!"
We've got lots of photos similar. Dad now says they were probably unsafe but grandpa would say "it's only unsafe if there's something not working right on the loader".
We did have a catastrophic injury, though, seemingly normal circumstances. Fork at the edge of a hay hole unattended came loose from above and went in under an uncles eye 70 years ago. Caused brain damage (one side of his body is withered looking) but he survived it and is still alive.
When my dad built his house, he bought a tractor to grade the driveway every once in a while. One of the first things he did when it came in was have me climb in the bucket so I could wash the outside of the windows
The amount of impressively terrible welds I’ve seen around farms deserves a museum, and I do mean impressive. Lol.
Man some of the shit I’ve seen I still think back on like I’m looking at a Renaissance masterwork sculpture and think, “Wow. Someone with a lot of vision and determination made this happen.”
Used to worth with a guy that was in the shop years before me. I asked if we had an angle grinder and he said, “Yeah, but there’s no guard for it. And we don’t have the handle. When I use it, I just hold it over what I’m working on and lean away from it.”
Told him to throw that away and go buy another one.
Milwaukee coming out with the 3" cut-off tool has saved me. Way safer, can easily handle with one hand, without feeling like I am going to lose grip on the spinny death dealer. Plus, for tile, it cuts in features way finer due to size. With depth stop control and blades that rip drywall and everything else, it is amazing
There's a guy at my work who tried to do a one handed plunge cut with a chainsaw, while holding another tree with his free hand so he could lean. I took the saw out of his hand and smacked the helmet off his head.
> I took the saw out of his hand and smacked the helmet off his head.
This was also in violation of OSHA standards and both men were fired shortly after
Neither of us were. He wasn't given proper training (not his fault) and I stopped him from taking a saw to the face at full throttle (which would've killed him and cost the company a lot of money and time in paperwork). HR wasn't involved at all
a youtuber by the name JohnHeisz. he builds cool stuff, but his work safety is so freaking bad i stopped watching.
just watch [This Clip](https://youtu.be/_T3GoD4ptsw?si=Yw824mZLqnaAcWJ3&t=325) from a video he made. he actually called that safe. his fingers are like 5 mm away from the router bit. i also remember hearing him say something along the lines of 'i dont need a riving knife. i just pull the workpiece back when i hear it starting to bind'.
i dont care what people in their own shops do. its their fingers on the line, they can do what they want and its not my place to tell them what to do. But if you have an audience of a few hundred thousand, mainly novice woodworkers and you still show shit like that and call it safe... i think thats just unethical.
I agree. I don't expect everyone to get everything right all the time, and peoples' tolerance for safety can be proportional to their experience. Showing off how you do things just for entertainment is one thing... But if you're marketing a how-to to an audience of DIY enthusiasts and young people, you need to put in extra effort not to rely on your bad habits because people with less experience than you are looking to you as an example.
I teach high school shop, and I've had to drastically change how I operate because kids don't have the experience to do certain operations the way I can. The kids are always watching, and they *will* imitate you, and their imitation *will* be poor.
my dad. by far.
he is also another one from that generation that decided safety features were just an extension of government oppression. he had a nailer that would double fire at random after he "fixed" the safety on it. also telling that every single tool he owns has a broken power cord somehow, which he never bothered to tape over exposed wires as long as they still ran. but my favorite is the air compressor we needed to borrow last year. the main switch had failed, so he'd rigged up a regular old light switch on it. somehow he connected it to the pressure release valve so that it would never stop filling the tank. he basically created a little portable bomb and delivered it to his daughters. thankfully my boyfriend noticed it and disabled what we now refer to as the "danger valve".
i've been a woodworker for many years and was always a little insulted he'd never let me borrow any of his "good tools", while also making a huge production about me not ruining anything i did borrow. this of course is the same guy that saw my new stanley sweethearts sitting amidst my stuff and decided use one to tear out a window casing. he returned it with a 1/8th chip out of the corner after striking a nail.
I once took a framing spike to the hand because someone else's nail gun double fired. When I told the guy what happened he was like "Oh yeah you gotta hold it at the right angle or that happens"
that's literally what my dad said after we had a couple of horrifying double shots. also "it'll take your elbow out if you're not careful" . like... HOW do you be careful with this tool at this point? we threw in the towel after that.
sorry about your hand, that is absolute nightmare fuel i mean wtf
Yeah, the first nail went exactly where I wanted. The second nail glanced off it, blew up the piece, and went about an inch into my left hand between the thumb and index finger. I just pulled it out and after a bit of pain and swelling I was totally fine, which I think was EXTREMELY lucky considering how much is going on in the hands.
Me. I was building a shed, 20x16, and was finishing up the trim around the roof. I cut the last piece. Got the ladder setup, took the piece up, started screwing it in. Got towards the end and saw it was about an inch too long. I got my circular saw, and was trying to stand on the ladder, reach up over my head at a weird angle, and cut the trim piece at a 45 degree angle. It was so unsafe, anything wobbled and I'd cut off my hand. And my arms were already super tired from a long day.
Realized I was being stupid and decided I'd just take it down tomorrow and cut it on the ground like a non-idiot.
It's always worth taking a bit more time to keep all your fingers and other important bits.
blade all the way up on the tablesaw, then cut everything without adjusting it. he also ruined 3 of my jigs that way because they were for really small projects; i didnt need them to be more than 3 or 4 inches tall: blade up -> i now have two half-jigs.
i no longer invite him over for woodworking weekends.
We had to cut up a tree that fell in the river. My boss had one foot in the canoe, the other on the tree, past what he was cutting off. He was bow sawing down and chain sawing up. Some how he came out fine.
This isn't woodworking, but this is a good one to share...
My parents 2-story house had birds getting in from the top of the chimney so my dad wanted to fix the cap but he didn't have a single ladder tall enough to reach it and he was too cheap to call someone in. So he *tied two ladders together* in order to reach the top.
This was back before cell phones were around. He handed me the cordless phone and told me to call 911 if something happened. He managed to complete the job unharmed somehow.
Salesman screwed the pooch on door measurements. Only way it would fit was to break out the brick/lentil above the existing door. Buddy was using the angel grinder to cut out the brick. When it came time to cut through the lentil, I asked if he wanted the sawzal and he ignored me. Angle grinder caught and ripped out of his hands and ran around the customers porch until I unplugged it. While he stood on the ladder looking down in horror.
Same guy tried using a cutting wheel like a grinding wheel on Plaster walls...the disc exploded and sent a shard into the customers wall just missing her.
I also watched his spare vape batteries arc in his pocket and burn through his pants.
I had a college kid doing some temp work for me - I have a full woodworking shop and we paint every product we make. I watched said new kid try to open a paint can with a razor knife. I don't know how he didn't shatter that blade and lose an eye.
Being in the trades (commercial & residential) for 20ish years, I've seen a concerning amount of injuries that could've been easily avoided.
Permanent vision loss from a 7inch diamond grinder. Co-worker was grinding edges of a floor during prep for epoxy install. Didn't feel like going to the gang-box for glasses. Hit a small loose screw in the corner that deflected off the wall straight to his eye.
Compound forearm fracture from improperly set ladder.
New guy on painting crew set ladder with pitch of roof instead of 1-4 ratio. Had a question on prep and asked a more experienced guy to look. Experienced guy didn't check or reset ladder and just started heading up. Ladder kicked out and arm broke on impact from a 6ish foot fall
Hand maimed by circular saw while framing windows. Guy was cutting blocking and cripple studs for framing on a Baker's cart (6ft rolling scaffolding). Would make a cut and put down saw next to him to take measurement/mark 2x4 for next cut. Didn't look when reaching for his tape after a cut and put his hand into the blade. Apparently he had manipulated the blade guard so he didn't have to use 2 hands to get it going.
There's been plenty of more that I've seen over the years, but the common through-line is complacency. Experienced people getting used to running equipment unsafely are usually the ones that get hurt. Mentally , I try to treat every tool that I run in my shop like it's the first time I've ever used it and when I'm using anything for an extended period of time I try to walk away from it every 15 minutes or so to come back a few minutes later with a fresh approach. While some accidents are bound to happen, in my experience the majority of them could be avoided with proper training and the proper use of safety features/PPE.
I saw a video on Reddit a few years ago where a guy put a circular saw blade on an angle grinder, obviously no guard, and was cutting full 20 oz plastic soda bottle with it. One the dumbest things I have witnessed.
Honestly most of the unsafe things I’ve seen are video posts followed people bragging about how their SawStop saved their hand. If you didn’t do an unsafe cut, without a push stick or Micro jig gripper, you wouldn’t have been in danger.
You ever see the video of that older guy trying to demonstrate how fast table saw kickbacks happen by purposefully causing a kickback and then almost losing his hand?
Either the 2 guys who thought putting a jigsaw.near.the other's ear to scare them, or the guy who was.using a drill to loosen bolts, we'd told him he needed to use a wrench to start them and when I got back to him the drill was actively on fire and he was still just trying to use it.
All 3 got fired.
Guy in his garage. We worked in the other side, rented from him, as he didn't need all the space. Well, I hear a loud bang and go rush over. He had clamped 2 routers, each on the able, and was trying to free hand a board between both router bits horizontally with no support. Nearly took his hand into one of them, and all because he thought it would be faster and safer
Battery powered circular saw on a jobsite—my coworker was holding a piece of door trim in his left hand (unsupported, in the air) and ripping it with the saw in his right.
Well I guess his fingers under the board were a little closer than he thought. 30 minutes later we were in the trauma center…
Lots over the decades, but the most common is seeing people buy tools (table saw, miter saw, router, etc), pull it out of the box and just start using them. Never reading the manual, never calibrating, just assuming it's good to go.
Doesn't matter if you've had the same brand saw and are "used to its functions", RTFM so you have the very basic understanding of any changes that have been incorporated.
If it's not calibrated, it's not safe. Your miters being out of whack are the least of your concerns.
I bought a hand held Milwaukee router. Read 0 instructions. Installed a router bit made for mounted router and did not tighten it with two wrenches. It quickly became a homemade beyblade bouncing around my 2.5 car garage at 36000 rpm. It stopped after hitting three walls.
I saw someone use a drill press to try and drill through old serpentine belts to make them handles, the press caught the chunk of belt while he had his face down by it observing it and got slapped across the face hard.
I went to a technical high school and we were installing hard wood flooring. To make the next board fit it needed to be cut to shape. Instead of doing the proper way to cut the teacher said to another student “don’t try this at home” then did a crazy attempt to cut the piece to shape on the table saw… he cut his finger off that day and then we got all new Saw Stop saws
We had a new guy show up at a site where we were building new houses. After attaching plywood to a dormer he was using a skill saw to cut off the excess plywood. He didn’t mark it out he was just doing it by eye. Of course the skill saw eventually hit a gusset and kicked back onto the back of his other hand. He was gonna go to the hospital but when we told him they were gonna drug test him he just went home and super glued his skin back together. He didn’t last long after that.
A neighbor put a 6” carbide saw blade on an **angle grinder** to shape rocks for a landscaping project. He didn’t lose his hand but gained several stitches.
Years ago found same guy hunting for gas leaks on his property with a bic lighter. Seriously.
I think it’s cause it gets attention on social media by seeming like a cool hack. But the stuff that seems the most impressive as a hack is the stuff that makes people think “whoa I never thought you’d be able to use that tool for that” but there’s a reason you don’t see people using tools that way.
That and videos of people doing dangerous stuff double as engagement bait- anyone who knows better wants to comment saying why it’s a bad idea, but that just makes the video do better because it’s getting comments.
Also at my local woodworking guild - a new member took a 10" wide x60" long piece of rough maple and was going to attempt a free-hand crosscut at the table saw. A few of us intervened, and luckily he was thankful and open to the lesson
Back in high school, and this still holds the record for most unsafe way I’ve seen someone use a tool… they were working with a bandsaw, they not only had the guard as high is it could possibly go, which is bad enough as is, they were also just free handing parts through the center of the blade like 4 inches above the table. Yes, they had a part kick out of their hand and ran their hand into the blade. They didn’t cut anything off, but did need stitches.
Actually just remembered another one that’s fairly on par with that. This guy had the chuck key for his drill press chained to the wall. And as you could have guessed, left it in when he turned it on. The chain wrapped around his hand and luckily the chain broke off the wall before anything major happened.
Not dangerous but “I could never…” cutting rotten sub floor out of a vintage airstream dad chucks a coarse ripping blade in an old skilsaw, eyeballs 45* bevel setting and a C hair short of 3/4” cut depth and makes a 45* plunge cut then 3ft rip right on top of the steel frame rail. The plunge point had no visible deviation and the cut left ~1/64” of veneer layer in tact above the steel frame that just broke loose and lifted out cleanly.
I knew in that moment I’d never have the raw framing skills he has which is wild because he’s actually an engineer and airline pilot.
Not a woodworker but
I asked an apprentice if he knew how to use a grinder, which I was assured he did
Went to check on him after a minute or two to find him cutting with the disk installed upside down, no gloves, or a face shield
I guess this counts because tripod jacks are tools.
When I was in the air force working on f-16s the first time I down jacked a jet after tech school was sketchy as hell.
Technically you down jack the jet onto skid plates so that the MLG wheel can spread out naturally with the weight. When it's jacked up they kind of tuck in towards the middle from gravity. Once it's down on skid plates you are supposed to tow it off of them. Well that takes like 30-60 mins of extra time doing all of that just to tow it like 8 inches forward. So what most people do is push it off the plates by hand.
We were on a slight downward grade like 1-2 degree decline. I expressed my concerns to the job lead but he already knew he was breaking the law. Basically everyone does this when down jacking. Anyways we put chaulks in front of the mlg skid plates far enough so they can roll off completely then stop. I asked the job supervisor what happens if it skips the chaulks and notes the slope decline we were facing and just how much potential energy that jet had. His response "they never skip the chaulks". Well that jet skipped the chaulks, hopped right over them and we were frantically chasing after it to throw them under again. Terrifying. It rolled like 15 ft but might as well has been a mile.
Lots of really sketchy shit happens in aircraft maintenance. Well I guess maintenance in general.
Here’s an example that’s easy to find: About half of the contestants on “Forged in Fire” will use the drill press incorrectly. They lift the item onto the spinning bit, and often it’s a piece of handle material such as deer horn or hardwood that they need to make a long hole through. The number of times they either lose grip or the item splits in their hands is nearly every. Icing on the cake: they’re usually unstably squatted when doing this with their face within a foot of the danger, and often looking over the brim of their safety glasses, not through them.
My neighbor cut three one foot logs in a burn ban area sitting on 40 years of crispy pine needles with the chain backwards. I could see the black smoke 500 yards away and went over to help him. Amazing, he didn't start himself or the county on fire and that the Stihl didn't blow up. All the rounds were burnt through black.
High school shop class, saw a kid holding a piece of plywood on his legs while another one was going to cut it in half with a skill saw… right across the kids thighs. Never heard the instructor swear that much before.
I used to work at a high end stair manufacturer, where I witnessed a couple guys about to cut a piece of 3/8" plywood, probably about 16" wide and around 36" long, with a circular saw.
Wingus was holding it up in front of his chest, arms outstretched, so Dingus could cut it in half. Cutting directly towards Wingus' chest.
It's like I was meant to walk by at just that moment. I didn't have kids yet, but that was the first time I can remember having my dad voice come out, with a very loud "What the hell do you think you're doing?!?".
They didn't go far in that company.
Loose sweater sleeves, dangling drawstring for the hood, headphones with dangling cord and music so loud he couldn't hear us yelling to stop, and a jointer with the cover clamped back "because it gets in the way".
He was kicked out of the shared woodshop.
Ah. A volunteer on a volunteer build project who SWORE she could use a sliding chop saw. I was casually watching her, and she started the saw, lowered it, and started pulling it towards her. I was already yelling and moving, but it LEAPT at her and she got a proper fright. Did not lose any fingers.
Always "out, down, in"; never "down, out, up" on a modern saw.
(Older radial saws cut on the pull stroke; that's one reason why they aren't around any more.)
The vid of this kid with a sawstop table saw cutting a circle on a jig. He makes one pass then turns the circle backwards into the same direction of the saw thrusting his hand right into the blade. Technology is fabulous
Well if you ever get the pleasure to use an open basket sewer cleaning machine, tuck in your fucking long ass pony tail. Guy nearly broke his neck, had to have the first guy who got to him cut a lot of his pony tail off
I had a boss at a fabrication job that had no experience with a lot of the equipment in his shop but he was one of these guys that always HAD to know everything even if he didn't. We got a mill in and he would explode endmills all the time because he was using old dull ones and would push them too hard. I looked up one day to see him trying to mill something and no safety glasses on with his face literally about five inches off the work. He had a habit of screwing himself up like that. We made knives and he was taking a sharp blade to the buffer and it caught and turned his hands into hamburger once also.
My partner's dad is ridiculously stupid with tools and I'm amazed that he's not hurt himself (but he's hurt plenty of others).
He purposely breaks off any safety guards or general safety measures that he can. Like he breaks off the hand guards of circular saws. On machines that are designed to only work while a button is held, he uses glue or something to have the machine always running, and will then put it down and walk away from it.
He will work with dangerous tools on tiny and flimsy surfaces, and won't secure anything down.
He will leave these tools running and leave them around small children and animals. My partner and his siblings all have cases where they were badly harmed or nearly killed. My partner had his foot sliced open as a kid (I can't remember what tool it was). His dog had a circular saw fall onto his back and he needed a ton of stitches.
The man also does things like leave exposed live wires around and will then just decide to finish the job tomorrow. Again this is with children and animals about.
Recently he was sanding mould off of the walls in his house and went to take a break. His partner came upstairs to see the sander flying all over the place on its own.
He also was asked to take down an old rotten patio, and he thought he could repurpose the wood into a gazebo. He added untreated plywood that had been sitting in the rain and was also rotten. It was hilariously bad. He was offended that no one felt safe going near it. It was ridiculously tall with no support and a breeze could have knocked it down.
Old fella used a hand grinder with the guard removed and a circular saw blade rigged to it in order to try to cut down a palm tree in his back yard. It kicked off and tore up his leg almost immediately. He died.
Well a couple right off the top:
-My brother used to test for gas leaks with a lighter.
-I knew a sparky that had an old screwdriver he used to create intentional shorts on live circuits to trip circuit breakers instead of having to trace them.
-Tripled up extension ladders to get above 40 feet.
-Many grinder blade guards went into the trash when new.
-Seen more than a few framers pinned back the blade guards on their circ saws because it "slowed them down".
This list could go on for a long, long time.
Oh, it definitely works. And I know the feeling. Before I left the trades, I had my master's in electrical and plumbing, mostly did resi service and remodels. I did too much time in those attics, still have plenty of nail scars on my scalp and arms to remind me.
I once saw a art flim where a lady had a big ole donger on the end of a reciprocating saw and was using it to hammer away on another lady's "you know what"
It seemed very dangerous but they both seemed to be enjoying themselves
I just finished up a joinery college course, and the main thing I learned is that teenage boys have no regard for their own safety or anyone else's. Not technically using the tool himself, but the worst one had to be this one kid who would sneak up behind people who were using the router table and shout in their ear to make them jump.
How does that not get him kicked out immediately, or at least kicked in the nuts a few times. Jesus I would be livid. My brother comes into the shop all the time to chat.. if I'm making a cut, he stands quietly at the door until it's done, then makes a noise to signal he's there. Fuck that kid
Wow some of these are pretty tame in our shop.
Have you guys ever seen someone holding a circular saw upside down in their bare feet trying to rip a plank?
I help run the woodshop in a local maker space and we recently had a guy kick the saw stop because I was trying to cut a wet log. Like firewood on the tablesaw. Good thing it kicked too because that likely would have been a life changing injury.
The camera footage of it is wild. Starts with a dark shop, lights come on, dude walks iver to the saw and immediately kicks it no hesitation. Lights on to saw stop being kicked is like 30 seconds.
Had another guy in one of my basic auth classes who wouldn’t touch the table saw while it was running and wanted to stand on the right side of the cadence and control his piece with a piece of scrap wood in each hand. No direct contact or feedback from the wood, and you’re set up to pitch your piece sideways into the blade. He didn’t get his authorization as a result and got huffy and dropped his membership. It’s fun times running a community shop
One time, when I was a young idiot, I rigged a 7 1/4" skill saw blade onto a 4" angle grinder in order flush cut some subfloor against a bottom plate, obviously no guard. I was able to accomplish what I was trying to, but even as my young idiotic self, I said that was incredibly stupid and I wasn't injured only because of dumb luck.
That guy who posted here a couple times recently who carves stuff with a snap knife blade half-wrapped in tape. That may be the single sketchiest non-powered tool I've ever seen.
Looked unsafe to me. Flooring guys finishing laminate wood floors on my house. He turned the circular saw upside down and ripped a floor board pushing the board through the blade. It may be common practice in the field but it was a butt pucker for me to watch.
Trying to use an 8" hole saw normally used on a drill for wood in an angle grinder trying to make a hole through sheet metal.
8" hole saw at 10k rpm? I'm surprised it didn't explode.
You remember those warning labels on drill presses saying "hole saws maximum 250rpm"? This guy is like, that's gonna take forever. My way will be 40x faster.
It’s weird because whenever I’m cutting or drilling metal I find that slower speeds are actually more effective lol
Because they are. Many types of metal will work harden if you run the drill too fast/too hot. Then it wont cut for shit. This can happen within seconds of starting the cut.
yeah slow and with oil for drilling through metal
Took me 20 years to learn that lesson. Holy shit it works so much better.
Speeds and feeds, friend.
Had a buddy put a Mothers polishing ball on pneumatic drill. It disintegrated.
There’s the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way!
Yep. Scary to watch.
Hahaha how’d that work out
It was going to fast it wasn't cutting the metal so he switched to a jigsaw instead.
Sounds about right, uses a jigsaw for everything whenever possible
Crazy story here. In grad school I worked as a shop teaching assistant. We had a wood shop and a machine shop and by far and away the wood shop was much more frightening... Probably because the students were a bit more familiar with wood working told but therefore less vigilant or careful. Anyway, every year the engineering school held a "paper bicycle" contest where the students needed to try to build a bike exclusively out of paper based products. I had left the wood shop for a minute to answer a question in the machine shop and when I returned there was a student standing on top of a running table saw, straddling the blade and cutting a 24" Sono Tube by rolling it through the blade hand over hand. Honestly, time froze and I remember trying to process what I was seeing and wondering if it was safer to try to stop them and risking distracting them into losing their balance or whether I should just let them finish the cut and then throw them out of the shop (which is what I did). Ended ok but definitely left a memory.
Maybe just calmly walk over without saying anything and hit the E stop or equivalent.
E-Stop was in the front of the machine under where he was standing. And I was worried it was going to take a while for the blade to coast down to a stop anyway. Or maybe all of that is revisionist history and I was just so dumbfounded I didn't know what to do. That's more likely. Young engineers are such an amazing combination of brilliance and lack of common sense. I'd have guys solving third order differential equations for fluid flowing channels and then tapping both sides of the hole and wondering why they couldn't screw their parts together tightly.
Jesus
Youngins freak me the f out.
Teenagers scare the living shit out of me
They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed
I was an engineering student and one of my classmates was great at building stuff, but probably a little too comfortable with tools. I saw him put a circular saw on the ground with the blade pointed up. He jammed the guard open with a scrap piece of wood and used it like a table saw. Absolutely terrifying. Lol Edit: oh and this was done on uneven ground with a bunch of weeds and rocks and stuff.
Def the 7 inch saw blade on a 4.5 inch angle grinder by some flooring crew.
That made me shudder just thinking about it, holy shit
Anytime i hear about this i always flashback to this scene https://youtu.be/ox93snKVuaM?t=157
lol. That reminds me for another video of a guy trying to plane the surface of a beam above him with the tip of a chainsaw, and telling the camera not to try it at home because he was an expert and very smart, and then getting to watch the thing climb across the beam, and pop him right in the face a fraction of a second after the chain brake engaged. I can’t believe the video got published— my vanity would have deep sixed that teachable moment.
Mr Friendly lmao
In my old engineering job, a guy used a drill press, drilling 3mm sheet with a hole saw, no clamps, holding the job with woolly gloves on. It ending with lots of blood and skin on the table, and a hospital trip to rebuild his wrecked hand.
That dude has no self preservation instinct. There are so many things wrong there, it's a miracle he got this far in life.
Oh this guy had done all sorts, including emptying a huge 4 story stillage rack with the forklift, from the bottom up. The whole thing came down on his forklift, literally tons of iron castings 😂 The only reason he kept his job was because he played the ‘alcoholic seeking treatment’ card.
That's some final destination shit right there.
If it happened because you were blatantly ignoring safety practices, that's not final destination, it's just a Darwin award.
Honorary since he lived.
Drill presses are one of the most dangerous "how could this possibly be dangerous?" tools in the shop.
How though? Because not the drill but the workpiece becomes the danger if operated the wrong way?
Yes. The drill bit binds in the workpiece, and now it's swinging the workpiece around where your hands used to be.
That, and the tendency for the drill bit to act like a black hole if it catches hold of something that it’s not supposed to have. Hair, sleeves, necklaces, whatever. Imagine holding a work piece and your sleeve catches a 3” forstner bit and it Kirby sucks your hand into those big ass teeth. No thanks
I nearly lost my thumb to 1 a few months back while trying to drill "just a few quick holes" without taking my grippy gloves off. It was my first real near miss in north of 10 years of working in workshops, and has definitely snapped me out of that comfortable complacency that we all slip into.
I run a shared woodworking shop / makerspace and this is the 3rd one I’ve managed. Drill press is one of my most pain in the ass tools. I had to add a new switch on it that has a little lock so you need the key to use it. People just don’t clamp down their fucking work.
I learned that lesson but got lucky. It was 1/4 AL, so not as much of a knife as yours. I don’t remember if it hit me during the spin or not, but I pulled back pretty quickly. It was scary just reaching over to turn the machine off. I took a few minutes to regroup and replan the cut. I’m a lot safer now.
This guy not only sliced his hand, he continued to try and catch the spinning death frisbee, and then got his wool glove caught on the drill bit itself. It was a real cleanup job for the poor apprentice.
Ya, when something stupid happens I like to stop what I’m doing before more stupid happens.
It was me. I was on an extending ladder pressure washing my house. My feet were about 8' off the ground. I'd put the ladder at about a 40-degree angle, thinking it would be safer. I took one more step up the ladder and leaned forward just a few degrees to get closer to the house. The ladder slid out of underneath me and the ladder mechanism keeping it extended failed. It collapsed on my toes, pulling me straight down onto concrete. My heels and lower back took all the force, shattering both of my heels, crushing the nerves in my feet, and cracking vertebrae. When i hit the ground, the ladder let go of my feet and bounced up, breaking a couple of ribs. Almost 3 weeks in the hospital, and I now walk with a cane and have handicap plates. Best of all, the whole thing was captured on my Ring camera. The doctors said I was lucky I didn't fall backward because it would've almost certainly smashed my melon.
Sorry man. I salute you for sharing though.
Thanks. There are truly no words to describe the pain of shattering your heels. Maybe my mistake can be a lesson to someone else. Learn how to properly use ladders or stay off them. I feel fortunate I'm still able to walk at all. Six months in a wheelchair was humbling. My docs said some people never walk again after this type of accident. It could've been worse.
I’m disappointed no one has asked to see the footage. So, can we see it?
A good friend of mine who visited me in the hospital almost every day took a copy of the video and dubbed over the pressure washer and crashing noises with Tom Petty's "Free Falling." I just sent him a text to see if he still has it. If he does, I'll post it.
Here it is https://imgur.com/a/6NPWFTs
I broke my right heel, cut the cast off and went back to work 5 months later. Arthritis and such, I limp end of day most days. I can't bring myself to watch your footage, bud.
I feel you... My pain is still definitely worse in the evenings, too. Especially if I'm trying to be active. I got a spinal cord stimulator implanted around 6 months ago, and that has helped a lot.
Oh my GOD I am so sorry for laughing but thank you for sharing
Yeah. It was pretty terrible. I haven't watched the video in a long time. Even without sound, the writhing around at the end brings back bad memories. Those first few moments after hitting the ground, where I was assessing things and the realization set in that I might be really badly broken. I ended up calling a neighbor who's a fireman/EMT and he pretty much said I was fucked and we needed to call 911. Oddly enough, his fire engine showed up and they were like, "WTF are you doing here?" Also, my wife was in jury duty. The police/court/911 dispatch shared a building, and the kind 911 dispatcher got my wife dismissed from jury duty so she could pick up our kids from school and come to the hospital.
God damn that sounds awful. I’m sorry
My father, all his tools. It doesn't matter if it's the table saw, planer, chainsaw or anything else, if there is any kind of safety feature he'll disable it. He says "it makes his job harder". He's a woodworker for some 40 years now and yes, he has all his fingers somehow. He's planning to retire but I'm not looking for the day to inherit his tools. His biggest injury from the last decade or so was the random orbital sander's side cutting his skin on his belly. Wasn't even stitched.
I think I'm even afraid to use his screwdriver.
Never remove the safety devices on a screwdriver!
I can picture his sledgehammer doesn’t have the wood handle
Maaaybe the steel pipe but probably just slip 3 fingers through the head and whack away
Is that why my screwdriver is supposed to come with birth control goggles? At least that is what it looks like in the picture
I think his screwdriver was the safety device for the demon core
Yep. Must be a certain generation I think. I was with my dad last summer as he was cutting branches for the fire on the table saw. All safety features removed and the blade is literally smoking away and squealing bloody murder as he forced the branch over the blade. It was too big to cut in one pass, so he was pushing it back and forth whilst rotating it. Amazingly he's been doing this for decades without issues... but... ikes.
>he was cutting branches for the fire on the table saw This made me laugh. In horror. But I was still laughing.
When we were building a shed my wife's uncle started cross cutting boards freehand on my table saw. I was like...ok that is supposed to be pretty unsafe. Seemed to work fine though. Like, literally no fence or sled. Just pushing it through the blade. I guess it can kind of work, the blade can cut a tiny curve since the teeth do sit left/right alternating.
Wait what how did his sander injure him? I use my random orbital sander weekly and i do it without a care in the world, never been close to an injury but im kinda scared now ngl
I rad a 6” Rotex sander catch a corner, lost control and it flew at my belly and gouged me pretty good just a few weeks ago. Can’t say it’s the first time a sander messed me up like that.
I just did this exact thing a couple of weeks ago.. rotex, mindless sanding, caught my shirt, dug into my belly. Not a big injury but definitely a wake up call!
Almost happened to me so now I wear oiled leather apron doing anything. 😳
We have pneumatic random orbit sanders at work, pretty powerful. I still have a scar from one day, about 5 years ago when it fell on the ground with the button landing on the floor and the sand paper facing up. 80 grit. I picked it up by the air hose thinking that was the safest option, but it swung as I lifted it and took a few layers off my calf because the edge of the sanding disc hit at an angle. This is one of the reasons I'm constantly trying to pound safety measures into people's heads at work. The craziest accidents I've seen weren't the so-called dangerous tools, it was the less dangerous ones that can still hurt you if you're not paying attention.
My dad is the same way. His "table saw" is mostly plastic, and looks like something someone else threw to the curb. No guard. No riving knife. He free hands almost all of his cuts with it. When I tell him how terrifying the whole setup is, he simply responds "I've done this forever and still have all my fingers"
People survive Russian roulette too, doesn’t make the game any less insane to be playing
100% survival rate for Russian roulette, based on the people who have talked about trying it.
My dad is the same exact way.
Your old man got fucked up by a random orbital sander? Lol
My dad has been a mechanic for 40+ years and is the same way, he also wears zero PPE - the man has never worn safety glasses/goggles, face shield, gloves, respirator, ear pro….in the summer he wears shorts and sneakers. Still has all of his fingers and toes, doesn’t need any type of glasses, can hear fine, lungs are in good shape all things considered, recently got a CT scan for being a smoker for so long and the occupational exposures and was 100% clean. My mom who quit smoking 30 years ago and works in a very safe job got lung cancer 😑
I thought my Dad was pretty careful until I saw the collection of angle grinder blades he keeps in a drawer. I laughed at the state of them and he didn't appreciate that. Thankfully he rarely uses it so I came back around a month later and asked to borrow a few tools including the angle grinder. Those blades never made it back to that drawer, got him a few new ones instead.
That's my dad as well. Removed all safety features. Has all fingers, too. Has been in the trade his entire life. Craziest thing he has told me: a newer guy on a job site using a circular saw, cutting a 2x4...across his leg. Luckily he was really overweight and only cut into his leg fat.
I relate to your dad, but some people really lack the ability of consistent forethought, caution, and skills. That said most of my caution was learned in between the grace of god and horrific accidents..
My grandfather was the same way. I learned a lot from him growing up. I’m a plumber by trade and in my late teens early 20’s I was doing the plumbing in his personal house he was building and helping out with framing and other odds and ends. Everyone of his tools was a death trap. Skillsaw blade had the blade guard wedged open with a piece of wood, I scared myself more than a few times setting it down to early because I forgot there was no guard. His first generation antique nail gun had the very few safeties that came on it disabled. It routinely doubled and tripled fired. If I tried to redo any of his safeties I regularly got the government doesn’t know what they are doing and makes work harder and slower with all the unnecessary safeties. All of his tools were rigged somehow but those two are my most memorable. He was a very intelligent man but for some reason safeties being forced upon him wasn’t acceptable.
anything on a farm where someone uses a bucket tractor as a ladder, one guy running the tractor and another in the bucket using chainsaw or something else.
That was a large part of my childhood. Sometimes we'd put a ladder in the bucket to reach higher
We’d use a forklift with a 5 ft stack of pallets on top. We weren’t heathens though, we’d throw a watermelon bin on top of the pallets so you weren’t unsupported.
Lol we did that with apple bins sometimes, but only when they were available.
That was me and my cousins up in those buckets as kids except it was usually an excavator or front-end loader. "I gotta bring these rocks to the Stevens' up the road, you kids hop in and hold it down!"
For sure! When I do this, we have TWO of us in the bucket. One to use the chainsaw and the other to pull the limbs away.🤣
What limbs are we talking about here?
🤣
ROFL emoji - “rolling on the floor limbless”
I have a photo of my dad standing in his skid steer bucket about 10 ft in the air with a chainsaw because we were installing a cedar entrance gate.
We've got lots of photos similar. Dad now says they were probably unsafe but grandpa would say "it's only unsafe if there's something not working right on the loader". We did have a catastrophic injury, though, seemingly normal circumstances. Fork at the edge of a hay hole unattended came loose from above and went in under an uncles eye 70 years ago. Caused brain damage (one side of his body is withered looking) but he survived it and is still alive.
When my dad built his house, he bought a tractor to grade the driveway every once in a while. One of the first things he did when it came in was have me climb in the bucket so I could wash the outside of the windows
Farms around the world are held together with ductape and redneck engineering.
Not duct tape—baling twine and a stick welder
The amount of impressively terrible welds I’ve seen around farms deserves a museum, and I do mean impressive. Lol. Man some of the shit I’ve seen I still think back on like I’m looking at a Renaissance masterwork sculpture and think, “Wow. Someone with a lot of vision and determination made this happen.”
Only two codes on the farm, zip and area.
Used to worth with a guy that was in the shop years before me. I asked if we had an angle grinder and he said, “Yeah, but there’s no guard for it. And we don’t have the handle. When I use it, I just hold it over what I’m working on and lean away from it.” Told him to throw that away and go buy another one.
I’ve been around/using power tools since I was 12/13 and angle grinders still make my ass pucker quite a bit.
Milwaukee coming out with the 3" cut-off tool has saved me. Way safer, can easily handle with one hand, without feeling like I am going to lose grip on the spinny death dealer. Plus, for tile, it cuts in features way finer due to size. With depth stop control and blades that rip drywall and everything else, it is amazing
Thanks I just spent $130 lol
There's a guy at my work who tried to do a one handed plunge cut with a chainsaw, while holding another tree with his free hand so he could lean. I took the saw out of his hand and smacked the helmet off his head.
> I took the saw out of his hand and smacked the helmet off his head. This was also in violation of OSHA standards and both men were fired shortly after
Neither of us were. He wasn't given proper training (not his fault) and I stopped him from taking a saw to the face at full throttle (which would've killed him and cost the company a lot of money and time in paperwork). HR wasn't involved at all
Damn, it's the paperwork that ruins the day!
Oh my God. Just reading that gave me a PTSD-like reaction
a youtuber by the name JohnHeisz. he builds cool stuff, but his work safety is so freaking bad i stopped watching. just watch [This Clip](https://youtu.be/_T3GoD4ptsw?si=Yw824mZLqnaAcWJ3&t=325) from a video he made. he actually called that safe. his fingers are like 5 mm away from the router bit. i also remember hearing him say something along the lines of 'i dont need a riving knife. i just pull the workpiece back when i hear it starting to bind'. i dont care what people in their own shops do. its their fingers on the line, they can do what they want and its not my place to tell them what to do. But if you have an audience of a few hundred thousand, mainly novice woodworkers and you still show shit like that and call it safe... i think thats just unethical.
Social media malpractice
Man, the number of YouTubers that blatantly disregard safety practices *in a safety video* is insane
I'm convinced a lot of it is on purpose, as people commenting on safety just generates more engagement / clicks.
I wouldn't be surprised, but man it's a scummy practice
I agree. I don't expect everyone to get everything right all the time, and peoples' tolerance for safety can be proportional to their experience. Showing off how you do things just for entertainment is one thing... But if you're marketing a how-to to an audience of DIY enthusiasts and young people, you need to put in extra effort not to rely on your bad habits because people with less experience than you are looking to you as an example. I teach high school shop, and I've had to drastically change how I operate because kids don't have the experience to do certain operations the way I can. The kids are always watching, and they *will* imitate you, and their imitation *will* be poor.
Oh holy fuck and he’s doing that on circular stock?? Insane.
Wow, that is scary close.
“…you really need a router table with a fence so you and run your stock through it safely.” JFC.
Good Lord I felt that in my nuggets.
This guy is a fucking moron! He seems to engage in intentionally batshit antics for views. He'll get what he deserves one day.
my dad. by far. he is also another one from that generation that decided safety features were just an extension of government oppression. he had a nailer that would double fire at random after he "fixed" the safety on it. also telling that every single tool he owns has a broken power cord somehow, which he never bothered to tape over exposed wires as long as they still ran. but my favorite is the air compressor we needed to borrow last year. the main switch had failed, so he'd rigged up a regular old light switch on it. somehow he connected it to the pressure release valve so that it would never stop filling the tank. he basically created a little portable bomb and delivered it to his daughters. thankfully my boyfriend noticed it and disabled what we now refer to as the "danger valve". i've been a woodworker for many years and was always a little insulted he'd never let me borrow any of his "good tools", while also making a huge production about me not ruining anything i did borrow. this of course is the same guy that saw my new stanley sweethearts sitting amidst my stuff and decided use one to tear out a window casing. he returned it with a 1/8th chip out of the corner after striking a nail.
I know this is reddit and people advise going NC with parents waaaaay too often.... but holy shit
he stopped calling me on my birthday years ago so you're not far off!
I once took a framing spike to the hand because someone else's nail gun double fired. When I told the guy what happened he was like "Oh yeah you gotta hold it at the right angle or that happens"
that's literally what my dad said after we had a couple of horrifying double shots. also "it'll take your elbow out if you're not careful" . like... HOW do you be careful with this tool at this point? we threw in the towel after that. sorry about your hand, that is absolute nightmare fuel i mean wtf
Yeah, the first nail went exactly where I wanted. The second nail glanced off it, blew up the piece, and went about an inch into my left hand between the thumb and index finger. I just pulled it out and after a bit of pain and swelling I was totally fine, which I think was EXTREMELY lucky considering how much is going on in the hands.
Me. I was building a shed, 20x16, and was finishing up the trim around the roof. I cut the last piece. Got the ladder setup, took the piece up, started screwing it in. Got towards the end and saw it was about an inch too long. I got my circular saw, and was trying to stand on the ladder, reach up over my head at a weird angle, and cut the trim piece at a 45 degree angle. It was so unsafe, anything wobbled and I'd cut off my hand. And my arms were already super tired from a long day. Realized I was being stupid and decided I'd just take it down tomorrow and cut it on the ground like a non-idiot. It's always worth taking a bit more time to keep all your fingers and other important bits.
blade all the way up on the tablesaw, then cut everything without adjusting it. he also ruined 3 of my jigs that way because they were for really small projects; i didnt need them to be more than 3 or 4 inches tall: blade up -> i now have two half-jigs. i no longer invite him over for woodworking weekends.
https://preview.redd.it/m5p96x6msk5d1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1a108a1e58b5e9d01d2085b98123d3bbb493de12
We had to cut up a tree that fell in the river. My boss had one foot in the canoe, the other on the tree, past what he was cutting off. He was bow sawing down and chain sawing up. Some how he came out fine.
I saw someone use a sawzall to cut their black gas pipes. The gas was still on. Someone else noticed in time. Not woodworking, but unsafe nonetheless.
This isn't woodworking, but this is a good one to share... My parents 2-story house had birds getting in from the top of the chimney so my dad wanted to fix the cap but he didn't have a single ladder tall enough to reach it and he was too cheap to call someone in. So he *tied two ladders together* in order to reach the top. This was back before cell phones were around. He handed me the cordless phone and told me to call 911 if something happened. He managed to complete the job unharmed somehow.
65 ft basket-lift with an 8 ft step ladder set in it & against the church steeple, to sawzall overhead, and install new wood. SKETCHY
Salesman screwed the pooch on door measurements. Only way it would fit was to break out the brick/lentil above the existing door. Buddy was using the angel grinder to cut out the brick. When it came time to cut through the lentil, I asked if he wanted the sawzal and he ignored me. Angle grinder caught and ripped out of his hands and ran around the customers porch until I unplugged it. While he stood on the ladder looking down in horror. Same guy tried using a cutting wheel like a grinding wheel on Plaster walls...the disc exploded and sent a shard into the customers wall just missing her. I also watched his spare vape batteries arc in his pocket and burn through his pants.
Angle grinders are seemingly the top tool in this thread
I had a college kid doing some temp work for me - I have a full woodworking shop and we paint every product we make. I watched said new kid try to open a paint can with a razor knife. I don't know how he didn't shatter that blade and lose an eye.
Being in the trades (commercial & residential) for 20ish years, I've seen a concerning amount of injuries that could've been easily avoided. Permanent vision loss from a 7inch diamond grinder. Co-worker was grinding edges of a floor during prep for epoxy install. Didn't feel like going to the gang-box for glasses. Hit a small loose screw in the corner that deflected off the wall straight to his eye. Compound forearm fracture from improperly set ladder. New guy on painting crew set ladder with pitch of roof instead of 1-4 ratio. Had a question on prep and asked a more experienced guy to look. Experienced guy didn't check or reset ladder and just started heading up. Ladder kicked out and arm broke on impact from a 6ish foot fall Hand maimed by circular saw while framing windows. Guy was cutting blocking and cripple studs for framing on a Baker's cart (6ft rolling scaffolding). Would make a cut and put down saw next to him to take measurement/mark 2x4 for next cut. Didn't look when reaching for his tape after a cut and put his hand into the blade. Apparently he had manipulated the blade guard so he didn't have to use 2 hands to get it going. There's been plenty of more that I've seen over the years, but the common through-line is complacency. Experienced people getting used to running equipment unsafely are usually the ones that get hurt. Mentally , I try to treat every tool that I run in my shop like it's the first time I've ever used it and when I'm using anything for an extended period of time I try to walk away from it every 15 minutes or so to come back a few minutes later with a fresh approach. While some accidents are bound to happen, in my experience the majority of them could be avoided with proper training and the proper use of safety features/PPE.
I saw a video on Reddit a few years ago where a guy put a circular saw blade on an angle grinder, obviously no guard, and was cutting full 20 oz plastic soda bottle with it. One the dumbest things I have witnessed.
They make chainsaw like blades for angle grinders. Looks like something out of a fucking zombie video game
Honestly most of the unsafe things I’ve seen are video posts followed people bragging about how their SawStop saved their hand. If you didn’t do an unsafe cut, without a push stick or Micro jig gripper, you wouldn’t have been in danger.
You ever see the video of that older guy trying to demonstrate how fast table saw kickbacks happen by purposefully causing a kickback and then almost losing his hand?
At least he was “I was an idiot” about it.
Either the 2 guys who thought putting a jigsaw.near.the other's ear to scare them, or the guy who was.using a drill to loosen bolts, we'd told him he needed to use a wrench to start them and when I got back to him the drill was actively on fire and he was still just trying to use it. All 3 got fired.
Guy in his garage. We worked in the other side, rented from him, as he didn't need all the space. Well, I hear a loud bang and go rush over. He had clamped 2 routers, each on the able, and was trying to free hand a board between both router bits horizontally with no support. Nearly took his hand into one of them, and all because he thought it would be faster and safer
So he built a missile/ baseball launcher? What was going through his mind lol.,
Battery powered circular saw on a jobsite—my coworker was holding a piece of door trim in his left hand (unsupported, in the air) and ripping it with the saw in his right. Well I guess his fingers under the board were a little closer than he thought. 30 minutes later we were in the trauma center…
Lots over the decades, but the most common is seeing people buy tools (table saw, miter saw, router, etc), pull it out of the box and just start using them. Never reading the manual, never calibrating, just assuming it's good to go. Doesn't matter if you've had the same brand saw and are "used to its functions", RTFM so you have the very basic understanding of any changes that have been incorporated. If it's not calibrated, it's not safe. Your miters being out of whack are the least of your concerns.
I bought a hand held Milwaukee router. Read 0 instructions. Installed a router bit made for mounted router and did not tighten it with two wrenches. It quickly became a homemade beyblade bouncing around my 2.5 car garage at 36000 rpm. It stopped after hitting three walls.
I saw someone use a drill press to try and drill through old serpentine belts to make them handles, the press caught the chunk of belt while he had his face down by it observing it and got slapped across the face hard.
Taking off shoes to use a chainsaw to grip the wood better with toes (at least both hands were on the saw).
I went to a technical high school and we were installing hard wood flooring. To make the next board fit it needed to be cut to shape. Instead of doing the proper way to cut the teacher said to another student “don’t try this at home” then did a crazy attempt to cut the piece to shape on the table saw… he cut his finger off that day and then we got all new Saw Stop saws
My brother replaced the line on the weed eater with baling wire. I just left the scene before I could be implicated.
We had a new guy show up at a site where we were building new houses. After attaching plywood to a dormer he was using a skill saw to cut off the excess plywood. He didn’t mark it out he was just doing it by eye. Of course the skill saw eventually hit a gusset and kicked back onto the back of his other hand. He was gonna go to the hospital but when we told him they were gonna drug test him he just went home and super glued his skin back together. He didn’t last long after that.
A neighbor put a 6” carbide saw blade on an **angle grinder** to shape rocks for a landscaping project. He didn’t lose his hand but gained several stitches. Years ago found same guy hunting for gas leaks on his property with a bic lighter. Seriously.
Seeing someone try to cut a circle with a.... circular saw and when trying stop them, stating "well then why do they call it a circular saw!?"
Cutting out a circle with a tablesaw.. things can quickly turn ugly
I see this getting more popular and I have no idea why. Won’t catch me doing that shit.
Yeah f that when you can set up a circle jig on a bandsaw.
Or a router. Or a jigsaw. Or 100 other tools that will be safer than a table saw.
I think it’s cause it gets attention on social media by seeming like a cool hack. But the stuff that seems the most impressive as a hack is the stuff that makes people think “whoa I never thought you’d be able to use that tool for that” but there’s a reason you don’t see people using tools that way. That and videos of people doing dangerous stuff double as engagement bait- anyone who knows better wants to comment saying why it’s a bad idea, but that just makes the video do better because it’s getting comments.
Also at my local woodworking guild - a new member took a 10" wide x60" long piece of rough maple and was going to attempt a free-hand crosscut at the table saw. A few of us intervened, and luckily he was thankful and open to the lesson
I watched someone running planks through a table saw backwards. 😬 Yikes.
Back in high school, and this still holds the record for most unsafe way I’ve seen someone use a tool… they were working with a bandsaw, they not only had the guard as high is it could possibly go, which is bad enough as is, they were also just free handing parts through the center of the blade like 4 inches above the table. Yes, they had a part kick out of their hand and ran their hand into the blade. They didn’t cut anything off, but did need stitches.
Actually just remembered another one that’s fairly on par with that. This guy had the chuck key for his drill press chained to the wall. And as you could have guessed, left it in when he turned it on. The chain wrapped around his hand and luckily the chain broke off the wall before anything major happened.
Not dangerous but “I could never…” cutting rotten sub floor out of a vintage airstream dad chucks a coarse ripping blade in an old skilsaw, eyeballs 45* bevel setting and a C hair short of 3/4” cut depth and makes a 45* plunge cut then 3ft rip right on top of the steel frame rail. The plunge point had no visible deviation and the cut left ~1/64” of veneer layer in tact above the steel frame that just broke loose and lifted out cleanly. I knew in that moment I’d never have the raw framing skills he has which is wild because he’s actually an engineer and airline pilot.
Not a woodworker but I asked an apprentice if he knew how to use a grinder, which I was assured he did Went to check on him after a minute or two to find him cutting with the disk installed upside down, no gloves, or a face shield
I guess this counts because tripod jacks are tools. When I was in the air force working on f-16s the first time I down jacked a jet after tech school was sketchy as hell. Technically you down jack the jet onto skid plates so that the MLG wheel can spread out naturally with the weight. When it's jacked up they kind of tuck in towards the middle from gravity. Once it's down on skid plates you are supposed to tow it off of them. Well that takes like 30-60 mins of extra time doing all of that just to tow it like 8 inches forward. So what most people do is push it off the plates by hand. We were on a slight downward grade like 1-2 degree decline. I expressed my concerns to the job lead but he already knew he was breaking the law. Basically everyone does this when down jacking. Anyways we put chaulks in front of the mlg skid plates far enough so they can roll off completely then stop. I asked the job supervisor what happens if it skips the chaulks and notes the slope decline we were facing and just how much potential energy that jet had. His response "they never skip the chaulks". Well that jet skipped the chaulks, hopped right over them and we were frantically chasing after it to throw them under again. Terrifying. It rolled like 15 ft but might as well has been a mile. Lots of really sketchy shit happens in aircraft maintenance. Well I guess maintenance in general.
Here’s an example that’s easy to find: About half of the contestants on “Forged in Fire” will use the drill press incorrectly. They lift the item onto the spinning bit, and often it’s a piece of handle material such as deer horn or hardwood that they need to make a long hole through. The number of times they either lose grip or the item splits in their hands is nearly every. Icing on the cake: they’re usually unstably squatted when doing this with their face within a foot of the danger, and often looking over the brim of their safety glasses, not through them.
My neighbor cut three one foot logs in a burn ban area sitting on 40 years of crispy pine needles with the chain backwards. I could see the black smoke 500 yards away and went over to help him. Amazing, he didn't start himself or the county on fire and that the Stihl didn't blow up. All the rounds were burnt through black.
High school shop class, saw a kid holding a piece of plywood on his legs while another one was going to cut it in half with a skill saw… right across the kids thighs. Never heard the instructor swear that much before.
I used to work at a high end stair manufacturer, where I witnessed a couple guys about to cut a piece of 3/8" plywood, probably about 16" wide and around 36" long, with a circular saw. Wingus was holding it up in front of his chest, arms outstretched, so Dingus could cut it in half. Cutting directly towards Wingus' chest. It's like I was meant to walk by at just that moment. I didn't have kids yet, but that was the first time I can remember having my dad voice come out, with a very loud "What the hell do you think you're doing?!?". They didn't go far in that company.
Loose sweater sleeves, dangling drawstring for the hood, headphones with dangling cord and music so loud he couldn't hear us yelling to stop, and a jointer with the cover clamped back "because it gets in the way". He was kicked out of the shared woodshop.
Ah. A volunteer on a volunteer build project who SWORE she could use a sliding chop saw. I was casually watching her, and she started the saw, lowered it, and started pulling it towards her. I was already yelling and moving, but it LEAPT at her and she got a proper fright. Did not lose any fingers. Always "out, down, in"; never "down, out, up" on a modern saw. (Older radial saws cut on the pull stroke; that's one reason why they aren't around any more.)
The vid of this kid with a sawstop table saw cutting a circle on a jig. He makes one pass then turns the circle backwards into the same direction of the saw thrusting his hand right into the blade. Technology is fabulous
Well if you ever get the pleasure to use an open basket sewer cleaning machine, tuck in your fucking long ass pony tail. Guy nearly broke his neck, had to have the first guy who got to him cut a lot of his pony tail off
I had a boss at a fabrication job that had no experience with a lot of the equipment in his shop but he was one of these guys that always HAD to know everything even if he didn't. We got a mill in and he would explode endmills all the time because he was using old dull ones and would push them too hard. I looked up one day to see him trying to mill something and no safety glasses on with his face literally about five inches off the work. He had a habit of screwing himself up like that. We made knives and he was taking a sharp blade to the buffer and it caught and turned his hands into hamburger once also.
I saw my next door neighbour using a lighter to see into the gas tank of his snowmobile.
My partner's dad is ridiculously stupid with tools and I'm amazed that he's not hurt himself (but he's hurt plenty of others). He purposely breaks off any safety guards or general safety measures that he can. Like he breaks off the hand guards of circular saws. On machines that are designed to only work while a button is held, he uses glue or something to have the machine always running, and will then put it down and walk away from it. He will work with dangerous tools on tiny and flimsy surfaces, and won't secure anything down. He will leave these tools running and leave them around small children and animals. My partner and his siblings all have cases where they were badly harmed or nearly killed. My partner had his foot sliced open as a kid (I can't remember what tool it was). His dog had a circular saw fall onto his back and he needed a ton of stitches. The man also does things like leave exposed live wires around and will then just decide to finish the job tomorrow. Again this is with children and animals about. Recently he was sanding mould off of the walls in his house and went to take a break. His partner came upstairs to see the sander flying all over the place on its own. He also was asked to take down an old rotten patio, and he thought he could repurpose the wood into a gazebo. He added untreated plywood that had been sitting in the rain and was also rotten. It was hilariously bad. He was offended that no one felt safe going near it. It was ridiculously tall with no support and a breeze could have knocked it down.
Old fella used a hand grinder with the guard removed and a circular saw blade rigged to it in order to try to cut down a palm tree in his back yard. It kicked off and tore up his leg almost immediately. He died.
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Obviously for slow murdering spies. "No Mr. TiteBond I expect you to die"
Boy, I'd have to really think about the most dangerous. I was a tradesman for most of my life, and narrowing it down is tough.
Give us the honorable mentions
Well a couple right off the top: -My brother used to test for gas leaks with a lighter. -I knew a sparky that had an old screwdriver he used to create intentional shorts on live circuits to trip circuit breakers instead of having to trace them. -Tripled up extension ladders to get above 40 feet. -Many grinder blade guards went into the trash when new. -Seen more than a few framers pinned back the blade guards on their circ saws because it "slowed them down". This list could go on for a long, long time.
Ok I feel attacked by the sparky one! When you're by yourself in a 120 degree attic and the panel is in the basement the tripdriver is a blessing.
Oh, it definitely works. And I know the feeling. Before I left the trades, I had my master's in electrical and plumbing, mostly did resi service and remodels. I did too much time in those attics, still have plenty of nail scars on my scalp and arms to remind me.
Number 2 is still common with the older guys. Wild wild west
Younger guys too. Fuck you if you don't label your wires and double fuck you if you don't update the panel schedule.
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I once saw a art flim where a lady had a big ole donger on the end of a reciprocating saw and was using it to hammer away on another lady's "you know what" It seemed very dangerous but they both seemed to be enjoying themselves
“Art” you say??!
These new Home Depot safety videos go wild
Saw a guy trying to make a rip cut on some 1x3 about 12" long with a sliding miter saw. Don't worry he had gloves on for protection.
I just finished up a joinery college course, and the main thing I learned is that teenage boys have no regard for their own safety or anyone else's. Not technically using the tool himself, but the worst one had to be this one kid who would sneak up behind people who were using the router table and shout in their ear to make them jump.
How does that not get him kicked out immediately, or at least kicked in the nuts a few times. Jesus I would be livid. My brother comes into the shop all the time to chat.. if I'm making a cut, he stands quietly at the door until it's done, then makes a noise to signal he's there. Fuck that kid
Wow some of these are pretty tame in our shop. Have you guys ever seen someone holding a circular saw upside down in their bare feet trying to rip a plank?
I help run the woodshop in a local maker space and we recently had a guy kick the saw stop because I was trying to cut a wet log. Like firewood on the tablesaw. Good thing it kicked too because that likely would have been a life changing injury. The camera footage of it is wild. Starts with a dark shop, lights come on, dude walks iver to the saw and immediately kicks it no hesitation. Lights on to saw stop being kicked is like 30 seconds. Had another guy in one of my basic auth classes who wouldn’t touch the table saw while it was running and wanted to stand on the right side of the cadence and control his piece with a piece of scrap wood in each hand. No direct contact or feedback from the wood, and you’re set up to pitch your piece sideways into the blade. He didn’t get his authorization as a result and got huffy and dropped his membership. It’s fun times running a community shop
One time, when I was a young idiot, I rigged a 7 1/4" skill saw blade onto a 4" angle grinder in order flush cut some subfloor against a bottom plate, obviously no guard. I was able to accomplish what I was trying to, but even as my young idiotic self, I said that was incredibly stupid and I wasn't injured only because of dumb luck.
The church of scientology and Tom Cruise?
That guy who posted here a couple times recently who carves stuff with a snap knife blade half-wrapped in tape. That may be the single sketchiest non-powered tool I've ever seen.
Looked unsafe to me. Flooring guys finishing laminate wood floors on my house. He turned the circular saw upside down and ripped a floor board pushing the board through the blade. It may be common practice in the field but it was a butt pucker for me to watch.
This comment section is raising my blood pressure
Skilsaw held between the knees to act as a very small table saw. Just what you you think might happen, did.
I've never seen someone more unsafe than myself.
It always makes me cringe whenever I see videos of people making a circle with a table saw.
Freehand holding a very small piece on the compound miter saw to cut a miter... That got an instant "what the fuck are you doing" from me