The most important safety rule...

[Jim Becker]

I would hate to have to choose but if I did eye protection would win hands down for me.

Ditto. No question about that in my mind.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I almost never wear safety glasses. They annoy the crap out of me. Hearing protection is worn quite often. In fact I think it is funny how they always put on safety glasses on tv when they do anything and in the real world most people never use them.

I live in the real world and like I said, I almost always use them. Maybe not for a chisel. But almost always.
You remind of this guy in the emergency room, getting metal dust out of his eyes. "This is the second time this exact thing happened to me!" ummm.... No comment.

[Cody Colston]

I almost never wear safety glasses. They annoy the crap out of me. Hearing protection is worn quite often. In fact I think it is funny how they always put on safety glasses on tv when they do anything and in the real world most people never use them.

I can't bring myself to turn on a power tool without having my safety glasses on. Not only that, but I also make anyone who is in the shop with me when I'm working wear them, along with ear protection...my shop, my rules.

I'm not a nut about safety, either. I also see people on tv and even at work dressed up in so much safety garb that they can't perform their jobs effectively and it becomes a hazard in itself. Sometimes, I wonder why some people even bother with woodworking because they are so concerned about getting hurt that they want to wear every piece of PPE ever invented and buy every gadget on the market to obstensibly protect themselves.

The fact is that a few items of PPE (eye protection, ear protection, breathing protection) along with common sense and forethought will let you avoid serious accidents.

[Paul Ryan]

Could you guys please type LARGER. I'm an old woodworker and I can barely hear what your posting.

That funny,................funny, funny. I needed a good laugh. Hearing loss definatly runs in my family and I have started to lose my hearing already. When my wife is speaking to me it is better known as selective hearing, but either way I don't hear what I used to.

Now after wooking in other industries for 20 years, wood working is really fairly quite to me. Up until this point I never thought about wearing ear protection, even when my shop vac used to be my dust collector. And I have to admite I rarely use eye protection. Accidents can happen all of the time and I really think I should wear eye protection I just don't thing about it. But ear protection if you wear it great. You are a better man than I am. But I am not about to start, I don't like wearing it, I like to have the radio on when I am working, hear my wife hollar at me, or my phone ring. Personally I just dont think any of my machines are that loud that my hearing is being damaged. I have worn ear protection in the past, because while in many shops there were times when the noises were obvisly harmful. To me eye protection in a wood shop is 10X more important.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

My employer requires and provides prescription safety glasses. I wear them all the time.

[William Nimmo]

I wear glasses when using a worm drive that shoots back at me, the lathe, or one of my non festool routers without dust control, but otherwise almost never. 25 years and no eye issues. I instinctually take glasses off. Even sunglasses when I am out on the boat in bright sun I take off without realizing it.
There is no way I am putting glasses on every time I use a drill, or the domino, or a sander, or the band saw, or the thickness planer with almost complete dust collection, or make a cut on the mitre box, and so on and so on.
no way no how.
I hired a mason contractor once who cut through my 6 inch thick concrete basement wall to put an outside entrance in. He used a hand held concrete saw and cut for about an hour with concrete and dust flying everywhere. No mask, no glasses, no hearing protection. I would have worn all three. Come to think of it no I wouldn't. I would hire someone to do that.

[Chris Friesen]

1. Eye protection or not, your face should never be in the path of flying anything.

Hard to avoid that with a lathe. When turning I use eye protection and a face shield.

[Chris Friesen]

Personally I just dont think any of my machines are that loud that my hearing is being damaged.

You may want to reconsider that. Some figures from someone on this forum:
porter cable framing nailer: 125dB
craftsman shop vac: 123dB
craftsman circular saw: 118dB
porter cable router: 110-113 dB
hitachi router: 105dB
dewalt biscuit jointer: 105dB

[Bob Genovesi]

I would hate to have to choose but if I did eye protection would win hands down for me.

I'm with you here!

If your eyesight was damaged you couldn't find your ear ptotection or that spinning blade..... OUCH!!

[Greg Hines, MD]

I almost never wear safety glasses. They annoy the crap out of me. Hearing protection is worn quite often. In fact I think it is funny how they always put on safety glasses on tv when they do anything and in the real world most people never use them.

Good luck with that. If your glasses don't suit you, get different glasses. Or a patch. Whatever.

Doc

[Carlos Alden]

Check out this video to see why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQFD3JatwiI

Just think how much stronger America's industrial base could be if we didn't have to cope with all those restrictive OSHA and Union regulations!

Carlos

[William Nimmo]

Cmon, you mean to tell me every time you make a cut on the mitre saw you put on glasses. You have got to be kidding

[Bill Wyko]

Let a staple or a piece of carbide whack you in the eyeball while you're cutting something small on the table saw and let me know how things work out for ya when ya flinch.

Again, it goes back to common sense. HMMMM should I put on my safety glasses or just make this quick cut? Now look at the scenarios that could happen if you didn't put on your safety glasses. The staple hits you in the eye. You jump to grab your eye. In the process your fingers go across the blade. You now are 2 fingers short of pulling out the staple. OR!!!! you took the time to put your safety glasses on. The staple hits your glasses. You flinch. BUT because you had the "common sense" to use a push block, you barely even give it a thought, finish your cut and go about your day. It all comes back to using common sense and implementing it.
Common sense encompasses everything you do with every tool you have. Weather it be what could happen to you, someone else in your shop or what could happen to your project. Not just one aspect of what you are doing in your shop. I think most of us know that there are too many variables that just can't be predicted so we must be defensive in our practices. All goes back to common sense.

[Bill Wyko]

FYI!!! There's a table saw injury on average, every 9 minutes. Any questions?
http://www.tablesawattorney.com/

[Greg Hines, MD]

Cmon, you mean to tell me every time you make a cut on the mitre saw you put on glasses. You have got to be kidding

I didn't used to. Then my brother caught an offcut off a miter saw about a half inch from his eye, and it made a believer out of me.

Doc