Dadgum gov’mint
If you want to learn more about safety, there’s lots of excellent books and courses you can pay for. But why spend your own hard-earned dollars twice… your friendly federal government has spent the money already!
That’s right, I’m talking about OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Association. These are the guys whose job it is to monitor real, prodction woodworkers, figure out what’s chopping off their fingers, and determine what to do with it.
They’ve prepared all sorts of information on safety, most of which is deadly boring and hard to understand. However, I heartily recommend a jaunt through their woodworking etool at http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/woodworking/. It’s an easy read, and it will tell you on a machine-by-machine basis what’s likely to chop your arm off (and what to do about it). After all, you paid for it, you might as well use it.
Note that the etool is “OSHA for dummies”, where “dummies” is defined as “people who speak english instead of beauracro-speak”. The full codes are there too, if you’re having trouble falling asleep.
Give it a look. You’ll thank me for it.
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