Hi Dan,
People talk a lot of crap about safety!
They preach the "rules" like they personally received them from God.
They ignore the facts!
Safety is complicated, it's not about following some rules, it's about knowledge and experiences and calculations and margins and confidence and focus, it is far more the following some BS.

If you study wood and your understand it you know what you to expect from it.
If you study cutting tools and understand the relationship with the materials,
If you study machinery and understand it, then you know what you are doing and that knowledge gives you the confidence to analyze the variables of a situation and make judgements.

If you don't do those things and just blindly follow rules you will get hurt!

Living is dangerous, we all have to deal with danger, every day in everything, making judgements and having margins is how we survive.
You will never be safe, while you are alive.
So we live with a margin of safety, that is personal! it is personal safety, based on what you know and understand and can deal with.
It is never guarantied 100% never! You cannot predict everything, but the more you know the better decisions you can make for your safety.
Don't ever rely on someone else for your safety, learn enough to make your own choices.

Some Facts;
I have worked over 50 years, dressed tens of thousands of board feet of lumber over 24" jointers, 18" table saw blades' I have never had a guard on my jointer, never had a splitter of guard on the table-saw, I have worked long hours, all through the night, 24 hours round the clock, 44 hours one weekend, because I had to get a job done. The only injury that I have had is when the router speed control failed. I have used dozens or metalwork machines, lathes, bandsaws, tool and cutter grinders, surface grinders.

If you were to remove your preconceived ideas of safety, and faced the reality, I am probably one of the most safety conscious people on the planet. I have studied and understood the tools, materials and process, I have successfully calculated margins and developed procedures and left enough of a margin to keep me safe for 50 + plus years.

Those are Facts!

The problem is nobody cares about the facts!





Quote Originally Posted by Dan Friedrichs View Post
Mark, having seen some of your machinery restoration, I have quite a lot of respect for your work - it's work I know I don't have the skill to do, and I admire it. If you'd be willing to take the time to explain what you're finding disagreeable, I'm sure I'd be far from the only person interested in learning from you. From your replies, I'm not sure what your disagreement is.