Anybody Else do This?

[bdosborn]

Well I cut a nice groove all the way across my work table yesterday with a circular saw. No wonder that plywood was hard to cut! Norm Abrams I ain't! Luckily my work table is an old hollow core door on a couple of sawhorses. Any other Darwin award winners out there?

Bruce

[Arne]

Done similar things several times... the top of my homemade wood saw horses have af few....grooves.. in them...

I do try to keep them at a minimum.../g/

[DestinDave]

It's really fun when you cut through the power cord...

[TWO-CANS]

Thats what they call an accident-- we all have em'! You would have gotten more of a surprise if you cut through the door/table, I saw a guy do that once a cabinet maker, we all do something dumb! Me ? I nicked my finger once on a table saw. Wrapped in a paper towel shut every thing down and then wife stepped in and off the the hospital. Off with the end of the index finger said the Sawbones! Had a great dado cut a perfect 3/8 of an inch deep in the end of the bone. Story end there? Nope seems the Grandkids saw it asked what happened. Told them the Grandmother did it to me. I was going for a cookie and she slammed down the lid of the cookie jar and lopped it off! They came to visit, had to keep it going so I dried out a section of hot dog and placed in with the cookies. Hehheh---- Yep the wife got P.O'd the kids still think its in there and they stay out of the cookie jar---- then theres the other kid -- caught him pickin' his nose showed him the finger and well you know the rest! Next time Call and engineer --- maybe he could design a few slats under the plywood???

[mikeschn]

I use a cutting table made out of 2x4s and 2x2. It's designed to take cuts from the circular saw. When it gets too nasty and chopped up, I throw it away and build an new table!!!

Mike...

[Arne]

Ouch... power cords are bad.... there can be sparks, then all work stops till it's fixed... not just a comestic thing....

[David Grason]

I learned my circular saw lesson from someone else. We were framing a house and I was the nail man while he was the cut man. The guard on his saw got stuck in the up position after a cut and when he went to set the saw down, the blade was still running. It ran across the floor and right up his leg. It's a wonder he didn't lose the leg and it was a good thing we had a first aid kit with compression bangages on the truck. There was blood everywhere.

I haven't done it yet, but it's on my "to do very soon" list. I'm going to hang all my extension cords from the ceiling on those retractable reels that you see at the mechanic's garage. That way they're always off the floor and out of the way.

[TomS]

Ouch, Those are some painful stories.

I don't cut anything on my"good" workbench unless it's securely clamped in a vice. I'm currently using an old piece of Melimine attached to a 2x4 frame as my cutting table.

If there's a way to screw something up, trust me, I'll find it. It doesn't matter how simple the task. Just this afternoon, I was hanging a curtian rod (another item on the ol' "Honey do" list). I carefully measured the distance between the walls, subtracted the thickness of the rod holders. Then I marked and cut the rod accordingly. And.... WTF???? It's 3" short!!!!! I forgot to add in the length of the tape measure case.

Hi ho, hi ho, it off to Lowe's I go ... for another friggin' curtian rod.

[Guest]

I was one proud peacock when I bought my first circular saw, I was about 16 years old.
I went to show my dad how much nicer my new saw was than the one that he had. He told me to show him by ripping a piece of plywood.
I cut through the cord about 2 seconds after I fired it up, sparks went everywhere. My dad got a good laugh out of that one.
The nice thing about that experience was that it taught me early on to always have the cord behind the saw.

When I'm ripping a piece of plywood, bad habit or not, I usually lay a 2 x 4 on the floor, just inside of where my cut line is going to be and clamp a straight edge at the location of where the shallow side of the saw base is from where the blade is located. You just have to be sure that the depth of the blade isn't too low as to be deeper than the 2 x 4. If needed, I'll ellevate the plywood with multiple 2 x 4's so that the cutoff piece dosen't bind the blade near the end of the cut.
I've got two nice sets of saw horses that I built about 15 years ago and I want to keep them that way.
I saw on them, but I always make sure that the blade isn't going to come anywhere close to them.

[DestinDave]

Somebody remind me at Minden to tell my high-speed buffer accident...
It's not one I'd post here because it's too, uh, well... let's just say I call the buffer my "Black & Decker pecker wrecker"

[Arne]

I'm bulding my battery box out of 3/4" ply left-overs (from the floor). I drew pictures, measured the battery, cut everything fairly neatly (my saws are either cheap and hard to adjust, or old and out of whack).... put it together. Had the right clearance on the length (1/2"), and 1/16" on the width.... Still trying to figure out where that 1/2" went. That will be my job for today. Cutting strips of wood to jack out the side for 1/2" clearance.... just sign me 'still scratching my head'....

Almost had a similar problem on the height till I remembered there would have to be a 3/4" floor, which I had forgotten.

[Chip]

On the power cord cutting stories,,, when I was young, my father had this great idea to buy an electric lawn mower. when ya get to the end of a run you have to flip the elect cord out of the way and start another cut,, Dang I hate yard work and it wasnt long till I figured out a little secret,, If I run over the cord the mower stops,, DAD the mower stopped,, and I dont know whats wrong,, I still had to finish the grass but at least I got to take a break while ole pop spliced the wires back together,,,

chip

[Arne]

Children have to be watched constantly, they can be tretcherous..../g/

[capsu78]

I try to make up for my lack of skills by throwing a lot of safety into my path... eyewear for yardwork etc. The kids call me a dork, but I am a two eyed dork anyway.

I too have bought the retractable extension cords and not only find them safer, but it makes it very convenient to use anything electric. I put one in the center of my garage, hooked up into the same outlet as the garage door opener. It is great when you want to blow out the garage or do any work on the car, including vacuming. I have since put 2 more in down in my basement and have not searched for an extension cord since.

I know they are available from a number of sources, but I got nice ones from WW Grainger.

I have even considered mounting one in a trailer box, to hook up to electric at the campsite, for those of us with less sophisticated wiring options.

[GeorgeT]

Have cut a couple of power cords in my time. But most recently I managed to sand through my yellow coil air line. It was laying across my bench sander when I turn it on. Just took a second. Fixed it with some super glue, small piece of acetate overlay and some tape. Repented for cussin'. Still holdin'.