Safety Test

[Dan Stuewe]

I've been contacted by a neighbor to do and teach a little woodworking with her son. He's being home schooled and has an interest in doing something with his hands. I'm going to spend the next few weeks thinking up two or three projects for us/him to make, but before anything gets turned on I would like to put together a list a safety rules and then a quiz on them. I recall this was a requirement when I took shop in High School as well as when I wanted to use the wood shop in the student union in college. Anyway, to avoid re-inventing the wheel, has anyone seen a source on-line for this type of info?

BTW, any advice on projects or anything else will also be gladly accepted.

Thanks,

[Dino Makropoulos]

Dan.
Step one.
Take the kid to a machine shop first.
Introduce the Dead Wood Concept and ways to apply the concept
to all the woodworking machines.

[Joe Mioux]

Are you insured for a potential mishap?

And what school did you attend that actually had a woodshop in the Student Union.

All, Illinois' had was a bowling alley, cafeteria and some hotel rooms.

joe

[Al Navas]

... BTW, any advice on projects or anything else will also be gladly accepted...

Dan,

Recently a young (14-year-old) home schooler and his Mom joined our Guild to focus on a 4-H woodworking project. One of our members, a retired special ed teacher, offered to tutor him in her shop and come up with some projects. Guild members were pretty excited about this young man being so interested, and donated a few tools; we had an old Dremel scroll saw that we no longer used, and donated to him.

To make a long story short, he and his tutor decided that the first project would be a table clock. The short of it: He took first prize in the local 4-H competition, and went to the State, representing our area (NW Missouri). The clock he made is beautiful - some thought that the tutor put in a lot of time making it, but many of us know better. This home schooler did it ALL!

BTW, you may want to contact one of the Moderators (I think) here, to get a copy of a sample waiver of responsibility in case of injury - it will come in handy in case anything unpleasant happens, as others have suggested.

Good luck!


Al

[David Rose]

Dan, I'm sorry that I can't help you with a list. But I can say that most home schooled kids are VERY attentive. I'm not sure why, even though we home schooled for a few years. But they normally are. They will often follow instructions so well that you better have the "right" instructions! I think you will enjoy the experience. Though it is probably "prudent" to have a disclaimer statement, most home schooler's parents would not hold you liable.

David

I've been contacted by a neighbor to do and teach a little woodworking with her son. He's being home schooled and has an interest in doing something with his hands. I'm going to spend the next few weeks thinking up two or three projects for us/him to make, but before anything gets turned on I would like to put together a list a safety rules and then a quiz on them. I recall this was a requirement when I took shop in High School as well as when I wanted to use the wood shop in the student union in college. Anyway, to avoid re-inventing the wheel, has anyone seen a source on-line for this type of info?

BTW, any advice on projects or anything else will also be gladly accepted.

Thanks,

[Bruce Volden]

Dan


I just googled "woodworking saftey tips" and there are pages of 'em!


Bruce

[Russ Filtz]

Dan.
Step one.
Take the kid to a machine shop first.
Introduce the Dead Wood Concept and ways to apply the concept
to all the woodworking machines.

Dino, never took woodshop, what's the "Dead Wood Concept"?

[Tom Jones III]

I've had quite a few neighborhood kids in my shop and it has been a great thing for them. I don't let them use power tools at all because they are mostly younger kids so I don't have a lot of safety rules.

First rule, there are no warnings and no second chances with safety rules. If you violate a safety rule you have to leave immediately and cannot come back until tomorrow. I've never had to implement this rule, I think just telling them this rule lets them know that you are serious.

All kids must put on safety glasses as soon as they walk in the door and cannot take them off until they leave. This applies even if they are not using any tools but they are just visiting with me. At first I did not realize how important this was but being their height, their eyes are right at work and debris level for many things we take for granted.

Do not turn on a power tool without permission. This applies every time you turn on the tool, there is no permission that allows a kid to go and use a tool without asking before turning it on every single time. Keep in mind I've usually got younger kids in the shop and in general power tools are completely off limits.

You only speak nicely in the shop and you always look to see if you can help others before working for yourself. This has made huge differences in the kids. You would think that they've never heard of this before.

Finally, we do not talk about our panties in the shop.

[Dan Stuewe]

Thanks for all the great ideas so far.

As for some of the questions/comments...

I went to college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. A very good school who's motto is "Learn by doing". (WARNING shameless name dropping....Mark Singer's son can attest to the quality of a Cal Poly education too.)

I really like the idea of a table/mantle clock - not to big, but a lot of technique and can incorporate hand tools for joinery.

I was thinking about using Google, but thought it would be more fun to start out talking about this with friends .

The liability thing is something I've thought about, I'll look into finding an example which I'm sure will be fine with his folks. When I told them the first thing we would do is go over saftey, I could hear the appreciation in his mother's voice over the phone.

Thanks again,

[Dino Makropoulos]

Dino, never took woodshop, what's the "Dead Wood Concept"?

Russ.
http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.p...651#post409651
I post few examples at the ez forum.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

A bit about "waivers" as applied to children:
They are never really very useful unless the harm that occurs happens in a way that the person responsible could not have done anything that would have influenced the outcome.

The standard of care (or duty of care) imposed on child care situations where inherrently dangerous circumstances inhere is very very high and waivers tend to get painfully short shrift from the courts.

In fact a waiver may work against you. If prosecuting a tort case where a child got hurt on a piece of machinery the lawyer would (I think) be guilty of malpractice per se if that lawyer failed to use the fact of a waiver as a form of knowledge of dangerousness and make the argument that since this persn insisted on a waiver he most surely knew that the potential for harm was unacceptable even before the putative education program began.

It's is a dammed if you do and dammed if you don't kind of thing. Ya just gotta pay yer money and take yer chances.

Like the guy with the sign that reads

"Beware of Dog"

One can almost hear the question now:
"So Mr. Dog-Owner how long have you known you had a dangerous animal?"