Dumbest use of a woodworking tool.

Lets see if this can get some action...

What's the dumbest thing you ever saw anyone do with a woodworking tool?

I'll start.

My brother in law asked to borrow a drill and a bit so he could drill some holes in his basement wall (drywall) for anchors to hang some pictures with.

No problem, I gave him my cordless drill, fully charged, and a few bits that should have worked for most anchors.

He called back a week later asking to borrow the charger as the battery was dead, and by the way, he wore out all those bits. I asked how many holes he was drilling, and he answered six, but he was already half way done.

Well, you probably guessed it, when I went over there, I discovered he had been running the drill in reverse.:doh: :doh:
 
dado blade setup

i saw a feller put on his stacked dado for the first time to cut out the zero clearnce insert when he turned it on and started cumn up threw, the smoke start to roll alittle but it settled down and he got the slot cut. he then went to cut a dado in the wood and it smoked worse than my old boss.. he asked me to look at it and when i opened it up the chippers were in backwards the cutters were on right but they have definate curvature any body could make that mistake right!!
 
i saw a feller put on his stacked dado for the first time to cut out the zero clearnce insert when he turned it on and started cumn up threw, the smoke start to roll alittle but it settled down and he got the slot cut. he then went to cut a dado in the wood and it smoked worse than my old boss.. he asked me to look at it and when i opened it up the chippers were in backwards the cutters were on right but they have definate curvature any body could make that mistake right!!

Well.... not to long ago I changed blades, took out the ripping blade and put in my crrosscut blade. I put some white oak in my sled and proceeded to cut, I couldn't figgure how the cc blade had gotten to dull, the smoke was terrible. After I finished the cut :eek: I discovered I had the blade in backwards. Fortunatly the the carbide was ok and I was able to clean up the blade.

I had some older stanly chizels and I took one out to set some hindges onm a door jamp, lookered at the tip and it was all full of chips. Turns out my youngest sooon dad been using it to open paint cans..:eek: :mad: Needless to say he wasn't allowed in my shop for a long time.
 
There was this moron that was cutting a ~ 5” X 5” block of 8/4 red oak on an antique unisaw. Half way through the cut he realizes that the arm of the shop made blade guard was set too low and the piece of oak wouldn’t pass through. Rather than shut the power off and wait for the blade to stop, this moron tries to back out the oak – did I mention that this moron was cutting it freehand? Anyway, the chunk of oak catches on the blade and comes flying back at warp speed hitting him square in the right shoulder and knocking him on his butt. My shoulder was sore for a month. This happened about 35 years ago when I didn’t know my butt from a hole in the ground. That was probably the stupidest thing that I have ever done in a shop…
 
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Mine is short and simple, but not really shop related, but close. I put a chain on a chainsaw backwards, then asked the guys at the saw shop why the darn thing would not cut?

Yep, I was laughed at.
 
I've done the backwards blade on both the tablesaw and bandsaw, but probably the most stupid thing I've done is trying to cut 1/8" thick strips of 3/4" hardwood on a cheap benchtop TS with no ZCI, using only pushsticks.
After the second one in a row shot past at the speed of pain into the garage behind me somewhere, I stopped trying to do the cut. I think I must have been related to the moron in Bruce's story. ;) :p

Now that I have the proper tools, I cut those kinds of strips all the time, but I do it safely now. ;)
 
Ok I'm not proud. I'll tell you one of the stupidest things I've ever done. Quite a few years ago my brother, father, and I were installing an ice maker in his fridge. Not a difficult job and shouldn't take long. Well we got the unit installed and just needed to pop a hole in the floor behind the fridge for the supply line. Ok, go get a 1/4" drill bit and the drill. Oh shucks, there's something wrong with the drill because it just won't work. This was a while before cordless were widely available. What the heck are we going to do? We're just about done and only need a lousy 1/4" hole drilled through the floor. Hey, I've got an idea. I'll be right back. So out the the garage I head leaving my brother and father still trying to figure out what to do. A few minutes later in I walk with a Craftsman 2hp router in my hands. "Watch this" I say. Loosen the clamp and off slides the base. Voila, one slightly unorthodox drill motor. So I proceed to "chuck up" that 1/4" inch bit and tighten it down. Ok, stand back guys. We'll be in business in just a minute. Plug the sucker in and flip the switch......

She screams to life and within about 1.8 seconds.
ZZZZZZZZZZIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG, CLUNCK, BANG!:eek: :eek:

You want to talk about a cold sweat?!

What the heck just happened? I'd completely forgotten that a drill runs at several HUNDRED rpms and a router at THOUSANDS of rpms!!
After a couple of minutes when we quit shaking and decided we really didn't need to go in the other room and find some new undergarments we investigated. In the family room wall there was a 2" gash about 18" from the ceiling and a fairly small hole in the ceiling about a foot out from the wall with something protruding a little bit. You guessed it. It was the drill bit! After extracting the bit from the hole I inspected it and found that it had a pretty good bend in it. But it was bent only about 3/8" from the end where it was inserted into the chuck.

All I'll say is that I got a pretty good physics lesson that day! It's something I'll NEVER forget.

Top that. ;)

John
 
I was hooking up my 3ph mortising machine and had a brand new set of chisels an dbit in it. Now I had not run this thing since I wired it and set it in the shop I got a 3/4" piece of oak and clamped it in and steped on the peddle.
Nothing. wouldn't move. so I turned if off ans checked. The ways were tightened so it wouldn't bounce in shippine. S I did the ajusting and oiling to get them free ans slideing without play. Fired it back up. Stepped on the peddle the head lowered to the wood and "thump". It just stopped. I though there was a stop set. I looke dand looked. No stop I could find.
Well it ended up 3 ph will run in fwd or revurse just by cahngeing two wires .....and yes it was running backwards
Reg :eek:
 
a guy who worked at a cabinet shop i used to work at was ripping wood for face frames. he was in the "old" shop all by himself. that is where the rip saw was. when his board got close to the end it stopped, he couldn't figure out why until he looked up and saw a huge chunk of 8/4 maple about 8' long laying across the table saw outfeed table. he decided instead of stopping the saw and removing the board so that he could walk over and move the mammoth board off the table, he'd just push it out of the way with his board. well, that was a huge mistake, the board caught the blade wrong and kicked back and he lost a finger. all he had to do was take 1 min to stop the saw and move the board. i'm sure he regrets it now.


i know i've done something dumb....well probably many things, but i can't remember them right now.....also thinking :huh:

chris
 
RAS

When I first got my Radial Arm Saw...very dangerous...I was setting up to rip a board for the first time in my life. I set up the head of the saw in the wrong direction and started to attempt to rip a board...:eek: The board shot across the room like a bullet. After looking around and saw nobody was there to share this shocker... I :rofl: Leason learned.:laugh2:
 
Not exactly on topic but, Here's one (of the many) that keeps me humble:

Former bosses have paid dearly for me to obtain different forklift, and other construction machinery, certificates. I studied and learned dutifully and, as is my nature, became a very careful and conscientious equipment operator. I was very proud of my forklift cert's and abilities.

Fast forward to the mid-nineties a few years before my father was to retire. He was getting to where he needed help running his body shop and, since it's my other trade and he IS my dad, I went back to that profession for a while. He had an old forklift for moving around large car parts, frames, motors, etc. I needed to move a truck frame to my stall to swap it out and another bodyman helped me rig it up and spot me as I drove the lift around the shop. Halfway 'round we ran out of gas. No problem, we got five gallons in a can and started to put it in. After a few seconds, the gas started to over flow. What the HECK!?! We couldn't figure it out but, after 20 minutes or so, we were able go FINALLY get all five gallons in. Crank the motor.....and no start. After discussing it and scratching our heads for 25 minutes or so I noticed that the fuel cap looked freakishly similar to the hydraulic fluid cap.:eek: .......................

I had just spent the better part of an hour mixing five gallons of gas with 25 gallons of hydraulic fluid. I spent the next four hours draining and flushing the hydraulic system and continued with my frame swap the next day. I had a little trouble concentrating on the frame job as the WHOLE shop was compelled to ask me to help them get gas for their cars for the next week or so.:eek: :eek: :eek:

This was one of the incidents that earned me my sig line status. :doh: :doh: :doh:
 
Oh I have more than my share of these stories and thus I remembered another one last night. The sad thing is, this just happened the other day.

I had just replaced the plywood table on my Radial Arm Saw and had a dial indicator mounted to the saw carriage and was making sure the table was parallel with the arm. I was getting some sporatic readings so I decided to use a piece of wood. I would cut the piece of wood not quite all the way through, then use my dial calipers to check the depth of the cut.

I did not have any problems next to the fence, but rather than bother with a clamp and all that on this rather narrow piece of scrap, I just held the board with my hand and made the cut at the furthest end of the arms reach. I mean after all it was just a quick cut....

Well the saw grabbed the piece of wood and threw it into the wall with a sickening thud. After making sure I still had all 10 fingers I realized just how stupid I really was...and how easily I could have lost a finger or two.

Believe me guys, I know better!
 
Mine was a number of years ago. Where I use to work we had a large automatic cut off saw that used 24 or 26 inch metal cutting blades to chop up jet engine parts for remanufacture. Being the frugal (read cheap) person that I am, I collected a bunch of the use blades as they would get changed out when they go down to 8 to 10 inches. I had a small bench top type table saw at the time. You can probably guess where this is going. Yep, used the cut off blades on that small saw. The real bonehead move was that the saw arbor was 5/8 and the cut off blade had a 1 inch metal reinforced hole. I would use a big washer on each side of the blade and center by eye:doh: . It worked good…. for a while. I was cutting and saw the blade start to wobble. Faster than I could reach the shut off the blade blew apart:eek: . The one good thing was I was wearing a full face shield and a heavy long sleeve shirt. It knocked the face shield off and I felt like I was shot in the arm. Upon checking to see the damage, I was lucky, no injuries to the face, but my upper arm had a 2 inch long mark and small puncture at the top of the bicep and the whole bicep area was bruised. I was doing the cutting in the driveway and while looking for pieces of the blade, I found one 30 feet behind where I was cutting, imbedded in the back wall of the garage, not just into the sheetrock but stuck into a stud. That was the only laps of judgment I have had as I, thankfully, learn form other people’s mistakes and am very cautious when using any kind of equipment. I have a 2 inch scar, and a coulpe of pictures to remind me of the laps of judgment as the 2 inch mark that I first saw was a crush wound.
 
Well, this has been fun reading, (scary too, you guys be SAFE please!!) but I have to say, I have nothing to top you guys, man, I must be boring :rolleyes:

Dumbest thing I ever saw, was recently, a couple of guys trimming trees, the old feller up in the tree, not on a ladder, but in the tree, he could only use one hand to start his chainsaw, as he was hanging on to the tree with the other hand.

He would grab the saw by the pull cord, and drop the saw, still hanging on to the pull cord, the saw would spring to life (you know, the fast idle engaged) and he would jerk it back up, let go of the pull cord and "Catch" the saw handle...........:eek:

But worse than that, the "young" feller down on the ground was standing below the old feller in the tree..........:dunno: What was he going to do, catch the saw if the old guy dropped it............?

They say chainsaws are dangerous.......... :rolleyes: :rofl:

Cheers!
 
Oh, I can top that. But not on my own... of course, it's all relative: just last week I loaded the dado blade onto the SCMS... backwards. Caught it right away.

But the worst: my father in law was a Quaker in central virginia. He had a little bit of land. One day, a nice tall oak fell across a culvert, and across his access road. Tall, straight trunk, about 14". So he gets me to help him clear it, and gets a couple other people as well, one of whom was a local Mennonite. I started chainsawing the big limbs from the crown. After about an hour, I'd made some good progress, while the others hauled the cutoffs. So I sat down to rest. The mennonite's been watching all this, and I guess he decided he wanted some action. So he picks up the chainsaw. Walks down into the culvert. Gets *under* the trunk. Fires up the chainsaw, lifts it above his head, and starts going at the underside of the suspended trunk!

Most people say I have a big mouth, but even *I* didn't know I could scream that loud... loud enough for him to hear me over the noise. He put down the saw. I got him to back slowly away, and I went over and turned off the saw.

I strongly believe that every human situation is different, so I'm not sure we can ever make any hard and fast rules of existence. But that day, I learned that there is at least *one* unbendable moral law in the universe:

"Never hand a chainsaw to a mennonite!"

Thanks,

Bill
 
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