What power tool are you most cautious with?

[JGrout]

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.     

Winston S. Churchill

Just not this time

[Handplanesandmore]

Greatest find in the 21st century so far...

This forum has someone who is smarter and greater than Churchill!

[iclark]

do you own a router table?  If you do you own a cheap and far less accurate shaper  you have limited yourself out of an entire facet of woodworking 

This right here is the PERFECT example of why one should not fear tools and learn and experience the joys of operating a machine that actually can do things you never dreamed about while doing them efficiently 

<snip>

Having these discussions on open forums are just killjoys for those who have not had even a rudimentary education in the safe practices of tool usage

Years ago, I bought a cheap router table at Costco to do a job. When I started to do the job, it was immediately obvious that it was an unsafe setup. I stopped and changed the setup so that I could do the work with a handheld router safely.

I have everything that I need to build a good router table. One is on my todo list, but the projects that would use it are pretty far down on my todo list as well.

Yes, I recognize that a shaper is a scaled up router. I very much respect and am careful with routers. In the same way, the car that I drive is a scaled down version of a nitro race car. I have no desire to drive a nitro race car.

There are many more facets to woodworking than I will ever have time to explore. Time and life expectancy already tells me that there are facets of woodworking that I will not get to.

That being the case, I am perfectly happy for others to make a living using tools that I have no good path to learning how to use safely.

As for open fora being "killjoys for those who have not had even a rudimentary education in the safe practices of tool usage," why would you think that that is a bad things?

Open fora can serve to educate people new to woodworking and DIY that there are safety hazards involved in the use of tools. That can prompt the newcomer to find a mentor or to take classes rather than just buy tools and hurt themselves. Sometimes they even find a mentor through the fora.

[BrokenOlMarine]

I have a router table and a dedicated router mounted in it. It hasn't been used in three years. I have done those functions with forming/shaping planes or used card scrapers or sandpaper.
I have a LOT of respect for the damage a router can do. I have four, and if I need to cut a guided dado, i'll set one if the hand held routers up ...

Router...
Tablesaw
Jointer

[JGrout]

Oddly enough I agree, especially considering the quote includes the word Sometimes  

little hint and your reading lesson for Monday

[Dave Diaman]

Personally I don't like to use the word fear. Once again this is my philosophy and if someone else wants to use a different word that is their choice. If I feared a machine it wouldn't be in my shop. I am completely comfortable using every machine in my shop. When I am using a machine I am thinking about what I need to do to get the desired outcome. I always keep safety in mind and in general I have enough experience that if something is dangerous the little safety officer in the back of my head jumps up and starts screaming and I find a different way. If I have any fear of doing an operation on a machine one way it is wrong reguardless of how safe someone else my feel it is and I find a different way.

I will extend the offer to anyone on the forum. If you find you have honest fear of any machine in your shop you are welcome to come to my shop for a class. I honestly feel if you are taught how to safely use a machine you will no longer have the fear.

For the original poster the bandsaw is not a tool to be feared. Just observe a 3" rule and you will be fine. Always keep your fingers at least 3" away from the blade. As long as you are not in a race to try to cut something this will be more than enough. As you use the machine and gain more confidence the 3" rule will just be programmed in and you will not even think about it any longer. The bandsaw is a fantastic machine and one of the few machines in my shop I let my kids use under supervision. Granted the 3" rule is more like an 8" rule with them and I watch them like a hawk over their shoulder. They are very safe and understand what the consequences are if they break the safety rules so they don't.

[Handplanesandmore]

"Personally I don't like to use the word fear. Once again this is my philosophy and if someone else wants to use a different word that is their choice."

Exactly! That choice is available to each woodworker and must not be taken away, just because someone who thinks he is the loudest with mean or disrespectful words says otherwise.

Oh. The empty vessel makes the loudest sound, according to William Shakespeare. Yeah, someone is going to say (or hint?) that he is smarter and greater than Shakespeare, too. (And that someone also thinks "sometimes" is the same as "never.")

Simon

[EricU]

you can be afraid of something and still use it in a safe, relaxed, confident manner.  I don't know that I approach any of my tools with fear, but anything that can cut me or hurt me badly is approached after at least a few seconds of contemplation about what I'm about to do.  If I'm doing something repetitive on the tablesaw, that worries me a little and sometimes I stop and start over.  

My sister cut off the tip of her thumb with her bandsaw.  I try to remain conscious that can happen.  I probably should worry more about my jointer, but it doesn't scare me much.  Shapers are really scary to me, especially with huge cutters.  I know someone that cut themselves badly with one, and one time I was in a shop where the workpiece flew across the room.  That could have been doubly dangerous, I'm pretty sure that's how you feed your hand into the shaper blade. And the part was moving fast when it hit the wall, it could have done real damage had it hit someone.  

I think the closest I ever got to a serious injury was when I was leveling my bench top on a big sander.  Hand got stuck under the bench top, and I couldn't reach the off button.  Adrenaline finally got high enough that I pulled my hand out, but I'm the one that they put those stickers on the sander for.

I have seen some really nasty chisel injuries, that's something to be aware of as well. 

I have two safety rules that I can think of off-hand.  One is no work after I'm tired.  The other is that no adjustments when the spinny thing is spinning.

[Handplanesandmore]

you can be afraid of something and still use it in a safe, relaxed, confident manner. 

Agreed! Have been doing just like that for almost 40 years in my shop. But I don't claim to be greater than Winston Churchill for the record.

fear
ˈfir/

verb
verb: fear; 3rd person present: fears; past tense: feared; past participle: feared; gerund or present participle: fearing
1.
be afraid of (...)

Simon

[JGrout]

So some question 

do you operate automobiles in  fear? 

do you cross the street in fear? 

do you play contact sports in fear? 

When you first got a bike did you fear it ?  do you still? 

You need to get past the word dude you really are beginning to truly scare ME 

Life is about learning and understanding; if you are incapable of either or both you really do need to crawl under a rock and hope for the best. 

Fear is irrational and one should be able through learning and experience be able to discern the difference between fear and respect 

it is just that simple