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Safety; A
Long Time Coming...
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
I remember when
I was growing up I had that feeling in being
invincible, almost immortal. Heck, I was in my teens
and nothing could stop me. I was flying around up to
5 or 6 stories of pipe staging, crawling around
roofs and jumping off the last 4 or 5 rungs of the
ladder to save a few seconds. I also remember
thinking that safety equipment, or personal
protective equipment, was for babies. It was
manly NOT to wear PPE.
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I'd use a
circular saw to cut dimensional and sheet goods
or a reciprocating saw (better known as a
Sawzall
®)
for all sorts of piping and never wear any form
of suitable eye protection...
-
Moving
lumber always meant digging out a few splinters
with my utility knife throughout the day because
I never wore any leather gloves. Splinters were
part of the territory of working with wood...
-
And how can I ever forget
the 24 hours it took for my ears to recover
following a day of cutting wood with a chain saw
and no hearing protection...
-
And lastly, constant
sneezing or having blow my nose frequently at
the end of the day because I never wore a mask
or respirator when sanding wood or drywall or
spraying paints without adequate ventilation...
I titled this
entry "Safety; A Long Time Coming..." because it
took a long time for me to not necessarily realize
the importance of wearing PPE but to actually
start using protective apparatus (think paradigm
shift here). Perhaps it was
a function of too many close calls coupled with
hearing and/or reading stories of power-tool
related accidents. Maybe rolling past 40 years of
age was part of the equation and I wanted to
preserve those senses that seem to inevitably fade
with age. Regardless of the reasoning, I wear PPE
whenever working with power tools. My shop is
fully outfitted with OSHA-approved devices to
protect my eyes, ears, nose and limbs from harms
way. Further, I have a variety of push sticks,
clamps and task-specific jigs and fixtures to safely
perform woodworking. Lastly, fire
extinguishers for Type A, B C & D fires are located
around my shop.
Don't fool
yourself into believing the saying that "accidents
don't happen to me .. they happen to other people".
Safety procedures and PPE are paramount when working
with any tools. Use your tools properly and protect
yourself from injury.
If you have any
questions or comments about this blog entry please
do not hesitate to
send me an e-mail. Thanks and be
safe when working with tools!!!
Burgie
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Robert Burgoyne, also known as "Burgie",
has been doing woodworking for nearly 30
years. He started learning at an early
age in his grandfather's garage and
continued while working with his father
in construction. The hobby has now
become a business with Creative
Landscape Accents. Burgie builds
high quality woodworking projects for
the outdoors and also enjoys making
decorative accent pieces for inside the
house. While not working in his shop
doing woodworking Burgie enjoys
computers, restoring his old
1964
Chevy C60 2-ton dump truck and
riding his Harley-Davidson Road King
throughout beautiful Colorado.
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