Replies

1. 
   Shep | Oct 19, 2007 05:31am | #1

   you could always use the old standard "stubby" <G>

   although I really hope you're OK

2. 
   john7g | Oct 19, 2007 06:06am | #2

   How bad?  What happened?

1. 
   fingersandtoes | Oct 19, 2007 07:14am | #3

   Not too bad, they will hopefully all grow back together. I was carefully following a pencil line with the saw and forgot the blade was at 45, bringing it too close to my other hand. As the other accident thread says, it's more of a feeling that it was avoidable - this isn't the first time. What has left me shaken, is that it could easily have been much worse. Sometimes building feels like a series of accidents narrowly averted. A slip here, a lack of attention when you are tired, and the consequences are lifelong.

1. 
   john7g | Oct 19, 2007 01:39pm | #4

   Glad to hear it's not worse. 

2. 
   Junkman001 | Oct 19, 2007 02:37pm | #5

   Did you ever think of getting a saw stop table saw?  Glad to hear you'll be ok.

   MikeInsert initially amusing but ultimately annoying catch phrase here.

3. 
   JDRHI | Oct 19, 2007 06:31pm | #7

   Sometimes building feels like a series of accidents narrowly averted.

   In all seriousness...it shouldn't.

   If it does, I think you should start to pay greater attention to your methods and practices.

   I'm not trying to suggest that I am perfect, and that I have never had a close call. If you are in this business long enough, the odds are stacked against you to make it out unscathed.

   That said, on any of those rare occassions when I have averted an accident, it was my lack of attention to the circumstances at hand that placed me in harms way.

   Glad to hear you weren't badly injured. Stay safe!

   J. D. ReynoldsHome Improvements

    

    

4. 
   Hudson Valley Carpenter | Oct 19, 2007 07:37pm | #8

   I was carefully following a pencil line with the saw and forgot the blade was at 45, bringing it too close to my other hand.

   One suggestion, if I may.  Get a saw with a full width base plate and a front slide depth adjustment.  

   The wider base plate will protect your off hand and the front depth adjustment will keep your hand/wrist at the same comfortable angle for all cuts. 

   I'm in the habit of using some kind of straight edge for most of my circular saw cuts, particularly bevel cuts. A speed square or a long aluminum straight edge for rips.  Using them keeps the sawdust out of my eyes and makes the whole operation safer and more accurate.  On bevel cuts, a straight edge allows me to focus on keeping the saw moving through the material accurately and quickly.

   Edited 10/19/2007 12:44 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter

1. 
   ebeveridge | Oct 20, 2007 01:28am | #9

   In my classes I repeat over and over the NRA standard for safety

   safety first, last and alway

   Now I have started thinking that and i hope i keeps me from doing someting stupid some day.

    

1. 
   fingersandtoes | Oct 20, 2007 03:26am | #10

   Any advice you have given me I appreciate, and any reproaches I deserve. Being pretty agile and well coordinated I have gotten away with a lot, but age is catching up with me now and its time to change the way I do things.

   Surprisingly perhaps, this is the first fair-sized injury I've had at work. All the major ones have been when I'm at home relaxing with my guard down.

3. 
   byhammerandhand | Oct 19, 2007 05:18pm | #6

   Like the old joke, what does it mean when a carpenter is waving his left hand in a bar? He's ordered three beers.