Comment by mauvehaus
3 days ago
Usually you aren't feeding wood into a bandsaw at the rate they're feeding cows into a bandsaw at a slaughter house though.
Apart from being a complete dunce, the usual way to get cut with a bandsaw is to be feeding with too much uncontrolled force and hitting a soft spot in the wood or running the blade out of the wood.
But yeah, when I'm teaching, the safety talk includes the line "Every piece of meat you see in a butcher shop was from an animal that was cut up with a bandsaw."
If you want to see something truly terrifying, the ones they use to cut up foam are big enough to cut a massive block of foam, and the blade is just a big, continuous band of razor blade.
> Apart from being a complete dunce
Or growing complacent.
I think we largely agree on the dangers of a bandsaw to be honest. The only disagreement seems to be how likely it is for a skilled operator to fuck up. Which is for sure debatable unless someone drags in statistics, but given the context I still feel like calling a bandsaw safe in the context of a childrens toy is reckless at best.
> If you want to see something truly terrifying, the ones they use to cut up foam are big enough to cut a massive block of foam, and the blade is just a big, continuous band of razor blade.
Yikes, that does sound like the sort of machine I'd not even want to be in the same building with. I sure hope they don't ship those blades coiled up like they do with regular bandsaw blades. You'd need a bomb difusal robot to unpack that safely!
I think being aware of becoming complacent is a really good point. If you're doing a bunch of really repetitive work, it's a good idea to take a break and get your head back in the job at hand rather than letting it wander.
I'm fortunate in that I'm self-employed and get to arrange my work to switch things up as needed. I'm also not usually making a million of anything that would demand doing the same operation for extended periods. I realize that not everyone working in wood has these advantages.