Around 30 years ago I was working in a small 2 man sawmill. I was pulling a slab away from the 42" headsaw, and the blade pulled the slab back into the saw. I felt the vibration on the slab, and the sawyer shouted at me. I looked back over my shoulder and the sawyer was pale white, being a deeply summer tanned Native fellow, this concerned me. I thought he hurt himself while I had my back turned. He was holding his hands up in the air, gesturing at me. I glanced down at my hands and my gloves looked perfectly fine. He yelled something again and rolled his hands over and gestured at me. I rolled my hands over, and looked once again. The index fingertip of my left glove was gone, and the other 3 fingertips were full of holes. I can sit here and hear the slowing whine of the headsaw and the sound of the engine shutting off as I pulled off my glove. I can smell the pine pitch in the air. I will never forget the sight of my fingernail missing, yet the 2 flaps of skin on either side of where it was flapping in the air. There was no pain until that moment and it was from my ring finger that was starting to really bleed. Just a wee little cut less than 1/4 long and less than 1/8 deep. The impact, fractured off a silver of the end fingertip bone and fractured the nailbed in a cross shape. Most of the nerve endings were removed from the index fingertip, but all were intact in the ring finger and howling. I had 13 separate holes in my left hand glove fingertips, what saved me from further harm was the fact they were all full of sawdust and wood chips. 20 miles to the closest town and hospital, no phone, but we had a full trauma First Aide kit, triaged, and wrapped both fingers in bandages, and I had to drive to the hospital. I had the only running vehicle and the Sawyer was such a reprobate he would have been arrested for driving even in that situation, lol. At the time, small town Hospitals didn't have a Doctor on site, they worked the medical clinics during the day, and shared Hospital duties on call. The nurse tried to convince me to drive back uptown to the clinic, until I unwrapped my one finger, lowered my hand below heart level and pumped blood all over her desk, and floor. She had a Doctor there in 5 minutes. The first 6 weeks my ring finger ached. They had to remove the fingernail, stitch the nail bed back together, and tuck the bone splinter back into place. The next 6 weeks the index finger ached as it healed. and 1 week after that the Doctor finally let me go back to work. 2 weeks later I received my first paycheque in 15 weeks, and the first cheque from Workers Compensation Board. It was a very lean 15 weeks with zero pay. I will never be able to count to 10 on my fingers, only to 9-3/4. Having 13 weeks on my hands, so to speak, I calculated if it takes 1 minute to clean under my nail, and to cut that single missing fingernail, and to file it smooth, at least once I week, and I only live to 72, I will have saved 26 hours of my lifetime. Steve, I hope you take away only one lesson from my long story. Never, Ever stick your fingers where you wouldn't stick your pecker! Watching you touch that moving saw blade, on both sides! made my stomach lurch and my sphincter pucker. If you would like I can dig the x-rays out of storage and show you what a short hand looks like. I had photos and the original glove, but my ex-wife threw them out during one of our moves. Even right now, I can still smell the pine pitch, the copper scent of my blood, and the hear the whine of the headsaw slowing down.
Sir you quoted my favorite safety briefing almost verbatim. I've worked around enough equipment that would happily remove anything you stuck near it, and the whole video my gut was clenched and the voice in the back of my head was screaming NO like a camp counselor in a horror movie. Fortunately I can still count to 10, but I've worked with people that need to use toes to reach 4.
My shop teacher from eons ago, when dinosaurs ruled, told us how he chopped two fingers off his hand with the table saw and became Mr. Zowie. Best lesson I ever learned. RIP Mr. Zowie. Still thinking of you.
I have an old Coots handset mill up here in Northern BC that has a 52 inch headsaw and a 42 inch top saw and can see your entire story unfold. I no longer saw as I have lost a R leg from an incident in the bush but defiantly know what these saws are capable of. I once saw a sawyer get careless and lose his left arm close to his elbow. He still saws to this day.
Yea, a lot of them now a days have the strings sewn in at the peak of the hood so they won’t fall out in the wash. Makes them much less safe than they used to be
I am chief of safety compromisers, but I am equally concerned about the large towel hanging over his shoulder and leaving the vise handle in place while machining.
Since Jr high the first thing I do when I get a new hoodie, remove the garrote string and with my pocket knife cut a slit about two inches down the V at the center of the throat. All the cool kids did that lol.
Sunday Grits too! Bonus. Always glad to see a Steve video. You tried, risky, and it worked! Motto of the British SAS, "He who dares wins" Thanks for sharing, God Bless!
Seems like motivation to get that large DoAll horizontal bandsaw finished... but excellent way to get the job finished, and it worked better than I expected too.
I sure wouldn't do this any differently. So often a hand feed can benefit a job like this. these composite materials are often not as a consistently hardness as a similar pc of say, 4140. With hand feeding we can feel our way through it. Sure is nice to see you mid week my friend. You kind of brightened up a kind of dull afternoon bud. Thanks ! By trying to do this on a bandsaw would have been a disaster eh.
Congratulations! You used one of the cutters you got in that big lot of tooling that I never would have bet money ever got used. I was tightening up on the second side but it went well. Great job! All the best, Tom
If it wasn't how interesting your videos were, I'd fall asleep to your soothing voice every night. You should be narrating new age music sleep recordings. The calmest voice on TH-cam.
Only having access to a wood cutting band saw, I think I'd try making a sled jig type thing. It would capture the puck and be square and flat on the bottom. You push the whole thing through cutting the sled and the piece in half. Running that big cutter looks awesome! haha.
That was a ride - Phew! I might have considered using a rotary table to hold and rotate the piece, and then used the saw blade as a live parting blade. That's if you could mount a large enough chuck on the rotary table of course.
I have said before, in a shop we try to make parts using the machines and materials we have available. That is what you did! quickly and efficiently, no less.
Hi Steve, very impressive job, but can i suggest in the future, use the table feed. Hand feeding gets you right in the line of fire if the blade grabs and shatters ( I've seen it happen) not pretty. Stay safe buddy, Mal.
I've heard of the finger-remover 5000 but this is on a whole new level. I've done pretty much exactly this task in the past by rigging up a large hot knife, though I did have to cut a lot more pieces than you did so it made sense to go through the effort. Glad that thing didn't reach out and touch you, never do that again!
I like that method. If I had thought of that a while ago when I needed to cut a large piece of aluminum I could have saved myself a lot of time and trouble.
It’s a two for two video weekend…….stop spoiling us…….I got excited to see another video today from yesterdays! Love your content, great quality made videos!
Hi Steve, if and when you need to drill holes in that PVC, make sure all your tools have Negative rake on the cutting edges. Won't pull out of the vise and climb up the tool.
It looked a little risky when you started but it all turned out super. A trick I was given was when a issue of the part moving when clamping in a vice or on a table was to put paper between the jaws or table and the work. This will brake the oil film and make for more holding friction. Anyway it was a interesting fix. Keep up with videos. Thanks
Great channel. A new future project is tall aluminum serated, or smooth soft jaws for the vice for items just like this. Being serated, you wouldnt even have to clamp it as tight.
Brilliant Steve! That worked really well mate. Especially using the cutting oil. I don't think it would have done it without it, the PVC would have welded itself to the blade within the first 20 seconds and ripped it right out of the chuck. Are we going to find out about this project at some time?
That was a tricky cut! You pulled it off in probably the safest and most accurate way I wouldn't have thought of. Then again, I don't have a horizontal mill. The speeds and feeds you used were safe enough that if it did go sideways, it wouldn't have been catastrophic. I probably would have made a 4 sided saddle out of wood for it and hot glued the part to the saddle then attempt to run it thru the vertical band saw with a tall fence in my shop. Work holding is the tricky part with a round part like that. You didn't say if that was a mill specific saw blade. But, I think that any 10 or 12" table saw blade would have worked fine in the mill to make that cut. I've cut plenty of aluminum sheet on my table saw with wd40 as lubricant, cuts like butter.
I like your humility, it seems like dorky bosses just think machines can do way more than whey can, (without time to manufacture special workholding), or when someone is honest they deem them a negtive looser or whatever.
Very interesting to see You cut into plastic. My fear was if the material got loose from the wise. Largest saw blade possible is larger than You think. Put it outside the overhead support an You can go very large… Always interesting projects with Your machines. I have learned a ton from You about the metal shaper so I got my own now and run it frequently!
Yes thinking the same, just the blade would not be as rigid in cutting, as it would only be supported on one side, but slow feed yes it certainly will work.
I want to install strain gauges all over that setup to see what kind of forces we are working with. I bet that saw blade introduces a lot of torque. My gut tells me it's just fine but my gut is tuned for resawing timber which is a whole 'nother kind of material. But dead-tree enthusiasts do crazy things like this all the time.
Hey Steve. Question is about the length of the blue lines on the K&T cutting machine. Are there any specific reasons why so long. They look like they would get in the way of a project. I am to understand that they are for lubrication during a project but do they need to have that much drop slack?
Steve, if you need any machinable plastics, and if I have them, I can ship them on your dime. I'm 2 blocks from the post office, so I won't charge for my time. I will invoice you before shipping, and I take PayPal. I get delran and several other types from a local supplier on occasions, and most of it is donated to a local trade school. I don't charge for the plastics.
You must have heard me on your last video even though I didn't post it you were using the do all Mill and I thought to myself whatever happened to his k&t Mill well now I know
Around 30 years ago I was working in a small 2 man sawmill. I was pulling a slab away from the 42" headsaw, and the blade pulled the slab back into the saw. I felt the vibration on the slab, and the sawyer shouted at me. I looked back over my shoulder and the sawyer was pale white, being a deeply summer tanned Native fellow, this concerned me. I thought he hurt himself while I had my back turned. He was holding his hands up in the air, gesturing at me. I glanced down at my hands and my gloves looked perfectly fine. He yelled something again and rolled his hands over and gestured at me. I rolled my hands over, and looked once again.
The index fingertip of my left glove was gone, and the other 3 fingertips were full of holes. I can sit here and hear the slowing whine of the headsaw and the sound of the engine shutting off as I pulled off my glove. I can smell the pine pitch in the air. I will never forget the sight of my fingernail missing, yet the 2 flaps of skin on either side of where it was flapping in the air. There was no pain until that moment and it was from my ring finger that was starting to really bleed. Just a wee little cut less than 1/4 long and less than 1/8 deep. The impact, fractured off a silver of the end fingertip bone and fractured the nailbed in a cross shape.
Most of the nerve endings were removed from the index fingertip, but all were intact in the ring finger and howling. I had 13 separate holes in my left hand glove fingertips, what saved me from further harm was the fact they were all full of sawdust and wood chips.
20 miles to the closest town and hospital, no phone, but we had a full trauma First Aide kit, triaged, and wrapped both fingers in bandages, and I had to drive to the hospital. I had the only running vehicle and the Sawyer was such a reprobate he would have been arrested for driving even in that situation, lol.
At the time, small town Hospitals didn't have a Doctor on site, they worked the medical clinics during the day, and shared Hospital duties on call.
The nurse tried to convince me to drive back uptown to the clinic, until I unwrapped my one finger, lowered my hand below heart level and pumped blood all over her desk, and floor. She had a Doctor there in 5 minutes.
The first 6 weeks my ring finger ached. They had to remove the fingernail, stitch the nail bed back together, and tuck the bone splinter back into place. The next 6 weeks the index finger ached as it healed. and 1 week after that the Doctor finally let me go back to work. 2 weeks later I received my first paycheque in 15 weeks, and the first cheque from Workers Compensation Board. It was a very lean 15 weeks with zero pay.
I will never be able to count to 10 on my fingers, only to 9-3/4. Having 13 weeks on my hands, so to speak, I calculated if it takes 1 minute to clean under my nail, and to cut that single missing fingernail, and to file it smooth, at least once I week, and I only live to 72, I will have saved 26 hours of my lifetime.
Steve, I hope you take away only one lesson from my long story. Never, Ever stick your fingers where you wouldn't stick your pecker! Watching you touch that moving saw blade, on both sides! made my stomach lurch and my sphincter pucker. If you would like I can dig the x-rays out of storage and show you what a short hand looks like. I had photos and the original glove, but my ex-wife threw them out during one of our moves.
Even right now, I can still smell the pine pitch, the copper scent of my blood, and the hear the whine of the headsaw slowing down.
I crinched when i saw him touch that blade with his fingers,I'm no machinist but i work with very sharp knives every day,keep clear of the sharp end!!
Sir you quoted my favorite safety briefing almost verbatim. I've worked around enough equipment that would happily remove anything you stuck near it, and the whole video my gut was clenched and the voice in the back of my head was screaming NO like a camp counselor in a horror movie. Fortunately I can still count to 10, but I've worked with people that need to use toes to reach 4.
My shop teacher from eons ago, when dinosaurs ruled, told us how he chopped two fingers off his hand with the table saw and became Mr. Zowie. Best lesson I ever learned. RIP Mr. Zowie. Still thinking of you.
I have an old Coots handset mill up here in Northern BC that has a 52 inch headsaw and a 42 inch top saw and can see your entire story unfold. I no longer saw as I have lost a R leg from an incident in the bush but defiantly know what these saws are capable of. I once saw a sawyer get careless and lose his left arm close to his elbow. He still saws to this day.
Get rid of those draw strings on your sweater, please. Danger Will Robinson!!!
Yea, a lot of them now a days have the strings sewn in at the peak of the hood so they won’t fall out in the wash. Makes them much less safe than they used to be
I am chief of safety compromisers, but I am equally concerned about the large towel hanging over his shoulder and leaving the vise handle in place while machining.
While we are on the safety thing…. How about a shout out to the “Sharp Spinny Thingy Touchy Bit “
Since Jr high the first thing I do when I get a new hoodie, remove the garrote string and with my pocket knife cut a slit about two inches down the V at the center of the throat. All the cool kids did that lol.
When a person gets a idea, they will never know for sure until they try it out. Much better to try than wonder if it would meet you needs
Sunday Grits too! Bonus. Always glad to see a Steve video. You tried, risky, and it worked! Motto of the British SAS, "He who dares wins" Thanks for sharing, God Bless!
A rare Sunday morning treat!
A intelligent man who considers all the options.
Seems like motivation to get that large DoAll horizontal bandsaw finished... but excellent way to get the job finished, and it worked better than I expected too.
I sure wouldn't do this any differently. So often a hand feed can benefit a job like this. these composite materials are often not as a consistently hardness as a similar pc of say, 4140. With hand feeding we can feel our way through it. Sure is nice to see you mid week my friend. You kind of brightened up a kind of dull afternoon bud. Thanks ! By trying to do this on a bandsaw would have been a disaster eh.
I would rather have the oily mess than the static electricity mess. Good job. Thanks
Congratulations! You used one of the cutters you got in that big lot of tooling that I never would have bet money ever got used. I was tightening up on the second side but it went well. Great job!
All the best,
Tom
I'm up to number 6 so far thank you very much 😄.
Nice work Steve.
Thanks for sharing the process.
Take care, Ed.
If it wasn't how interesting your videos were, I'd fall asleep to your soothing voice every night. You should be narrating new age music sleep recordings. The calmest voice on TH-cam.
Never seen a slitting saw that large. Finish is crazy goodS
Necessity is the mother of invention. Love the creative approaches that you're will to try.
So true Mr.Schauer.👍
Only having access to a wood cutting band saw, I think I'd try making a sled jig type thing. It would capture the puck and be square and flat on the bottom. You push the whole thing through cutting the sled and the piece in half. Running that big cutter looks awesome! haha.
Steve, thanks for giving us a Sunday bonus video.
Awesome that was a gorgeous Cut Thanks for the video Steve
You are a far, far braver man than me Mr. Summers. But what a brilliant result.
This Old Tony would just karate chop it.
Yea, he needs to share how he does that, he shows off and then he doesn’t even explain how it works! Sheesh. Lol
Awesome that it worked out well!
That was a ride - Phew!
I might have considered using a rotary table to hold and rotate the piece, and then used the saw blade as a live parting blade. That's if you could mount a large enough chuck on the rotary table of course.
I have said before, in a shop we try to make parts using the machines and materials we have available. That is what you did! quickly and efficiently, no less.
Hi Steve, very impressive job, but can i suggest in the future, use the table feed. Hand feeding gets you right in the line of fire if the blade grabs and shatters ( I've seen it happen) not pretty. Stay safe buddy, Mal.
I've heard of the finger-remover 5000 but this is on a whole new level. I've done pretty much exactly this task in the past by rigging up a large hot knife, though I did have to cut a lot more pieces than you did so it made sense to go through the effort. Glad that thing didn't reach out and touch you, never do that again!
Thanks for taking us along for this experimental cutting setup!
Now I really want to know what the material is for!
Now that's a saw .... good one Steve
Great example of lateral thinking, with excellent results.
Nice job. Came out very nice.
WOO HOO, THAT'S ONE BAD ASS SLITTING SAW STEVE :)
I like that method. If I had thought of that a while ago when I needed to cut a large piece of aluminum I could have saved myself a lot of time and trouble.
scariest home made table saw in the world, I like it!. Remember, it's only a stupid idea if it doesn't work!
Hey Steve. An inspired piece of work! Worked out just fine bud. 👏
Thanks 👍
Wow Steve. Thinking outside the box; good job.
Thank you for sharing. Great job. I like what Robert Schauer said in the comments, he is so right.👍
Excellent!
It’s a two for two video weekend…….stop spoiling us…….I got excited to see another video today from yesterdays! Love your content, great quality made videos!
Thank you.
Machinist equilivent of "Hey, watch this." 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hi Steve, if and when you need to drill holes in that PVC, make sure all your tools have Negative rake on the cutting edges. Won't pull out of the vise and climb up the tool.
Also true for brasses and bronzes.
Muito bom trabalho amigo Steve!!!
Saúde a todos aí!!!
It looked a little risky when you started but it all turned out super. A trick I was given was when a issue of the part moving when clamping in a vice or on a table was to put paper between the jaws or table and the work. This will brake the oil film and make for more holding friction. Anyway it was a interesting fix. Keep up with videos. Thanks
I thought it might turn...good strong vise.
Mount the saw on the lathe tool post and use it as a parting tool
Great channel. A new future project is tall aluminum serated, or smooth soft jaws for the vice for items just like this. Being serated, you wouldnt even have to clamp it as tight.
First impression …….. bloody hell, that’s brave! 😮
Good job
where there is a will, there is a way. Interesting job.
Great please result Steve.
Very Nice
Plastics are always tricky! I've had delrin tubing come flying out of a lathe and nearly brain me. Slippery stuff!
Wow, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the extra video
Thanks for the Sunday morning bonus video, interesting content as always
Hell yeah, this is how you roll, excellent!
That was crazy looking. Boy it sure worked great!
Yep I was waiting for it to get eat. Awesome, fantastic!
Brilliant Steve! That worked really well mate. Especially using the cutting oil. I don't think it would have done it without it, the PVC would have welded itself to the blade within the first 20 seconds and ripped it right out of the chuck. Are we going to find out about this project at some time?
Good video
A horizontal mill that converts to a straight line rip saw. Very handy.
Joe
That was a tricky cut! You pulled it off in probably the safest and most accurate way I wouldn't have thought of. Then again, I don't have a horizontal mill. The speeds and feeds you used were safe enough that if it did go sideways, it wouldn't have been catastrophic. I probably would have made a 4 sided saddle out of wood for it and hot glued the part to the saddle then attempt to run it thru the vertical band saw with a tall fence in my shop. Work holding is the tricky part with a round part like that.
You didn't say if that was a mill specific saw blade. But, I think that any 10 or 12" table saw blade would have worked fine in the mill to make that cut. I've cut plenty of aluminum sheet on my table saw with wd40 as lubricant, cuts like butter.
Good thing you used cutting oil because plastic when it heats up will melt and then gum up the saw blade.
Great Job! Also noticed that attachment that holds the shaft bearing needs a little Oil. (below Low)
cool good work
Nothing ventured nothing gained!! And a 2 fer makes a good weekend
Translation of the first minute of this video, "Am I Terribly clever, or Is this a hold my beer moment? Well Done.
Most excellent!
That worked really good. Personally I would have put it in the lathe and just turned it all to chips and wasted it.
Never saw using a mill that way. Great job.
Hi. What a scary looking setup! Greetings from Finland.
I would use the power feed.
I like your humility, it seems like dorky bosses just think machines can do way more than whey can, (without time to manufacture special workholding), or when someone is honest they deem them a negtive looser or whatever.
Nice clean cut Steve 👌
Very interesting to see You cut into plastic. My fear was if the material got loose from the wise.
Largest saw blade possible is larger than You think. Put it outside the overhead support an You can go very large…
Always interesting projects with Your machines.
I have learned a ton from You about the metal shaper so I got my own now and run it frequently!
Yes thinking the same, just the blade would not be as rigid in cutting, as it would only be supported on one side, but slow feed yes it certainly will work.
I'd be curious to know what you are using as cutting oil.
I love your channel content! I wish you would raise the volume.
As a machinist this terrified me
Giant air hockey table pucks? Cess tank cover?
I might have gone as far as I could on the lathe with a parting blade, then finished it off with a cable saw.
good video steve
I want to install strain gauges all over that setup to see what kind of forces we are working with. I bet that saw blade introduces a lot of torque. My gut tells me it's just fine but my gut is tuned for resawing timber which is a whole 'nother kind of material. But dead-tree enthusiasts do crazy things like this all the time.
Definitely would be interesting data! Do you feature such things on your channel?
@@dans_Learning_Curve Alas, I am neither talented nor driven enough to make interesting content.
nice
Second impression ………. Good job 👍
Give that mans table saw blade back.
Good Vlogs, why did you not use your band saw make a jig to stand it upright and cut, less wastage in material
Where did the blank come from, that is a cool peice of pvc.
F-in sweet!
Was the material PVC or UHMW with carbon added for static.
Hiya Steve
Hey Steve. Question is about the length of the blue lines on the K&T cutting machine. Are there any specific reasons why so long. They look like they would get in the way of a project. I am to understand that they are for lubrication during a project but do they need to have that much drop slack?
You really gonna leave us hanging on that tease?
👏
haha! Super Duper!
" Excellent" Steven "Burns" Summers...
Steve, if you need any machinable plastics, and if I have them, I can ship them on your dime. I'm 2 blocks from the post office, so I won't charge for my time. I will invoice you before shipping, and I take PayPal. I get delran and several other types from a local supplier on occasions, and most of it is donated to a local trade school. I don't charge for the plastics.
That was sweet.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
Kimber
zero side clearance lot of heat ! @1:29
Cutting a short piece is tricky.
If it were under 8" I would do it on the power hacksaw, but 10" wouldn't fit. Clamping would be difficult.
weve all done questionable set ups ... its always a win when they work! we never talk about the fails!
Wow thats a big blade 🤔
Is it possible to use a carbide tip circular saw blade?
I'm sure one would work if run slow and kept cool.👍
You must have heard me on your last video even though I didn't post it you were using the do all Mill and I thought to myself whatever happened to his k&t Mill well now I know