Submitted by: dunno source via Submit a Kludge!
Favorite Comment: Fixer Evan says, “Even Santa’s workshop suffers during recessions.”
-
-
Copy & paste this:
« Previous LOLMart Shirt of the Day: Black Hole Divided by Zero | Wise Men Tell Us Never To Look Back… Next »
Well, Wood Shop Isn’t Complete Until Someone Loses A Finger
» 65 Kludgers Kludging
Leave a Reply
-
Jury Riggers Unite!
Zelphior on Mad Science Monday: The Opposi… John on Nothing Beats Paper, Good Ol… Dave on Objects on Highway Are Stupide… Duke on Mad Science Monday: The Opposi… eurocrap on Nothing Beats Paper, Good Ol… eurocrap on A Metaphor for our Television… 4d3fect on A Metaphor for our Television… ManBroDude on They’re Big and Clunky… Outback Jon on This Helps With Forever N… A Random Pooka on Running Out of Sand Bags
Nice hack! Too bad it is NOT a table saw for real!
I was wondering if that was supposed to be a homemade table saw.
Safety mechanisms just get in the way anyway… I don’t know much about tools but that’s just a little scary looking.
It wanted to say Peek-A-Boo!
(btw. I’m back~)
From the ER, I presume.
Kinda. Been sick a lot while going interstate.
Psshh… how “advanced” can his woodshop skillz be, if he hasn’t even rigged up a drill press for his Dremel?
A finger here,a finger there. Who’s counting as long as the job gets done.
Well, they were counting at first, but then they ran out of fingers.
There’s an awesome product called Saw Stop that prevents this kind of thing.
After the first use, you are out a saw and a brake assembly. Then even worse kludges follow to replace those.
Yeah, much better to lose a finger than a blade.
On the other hand, think of how many hotdogs those SawStop demos have wasted (they do in-store ones)
And it’s not something you can retrofit on any circular saw; it’s a safety feature on that specific manufacturer’s products.
The blade will probably run about 100 dollars to replace, and the fuse module is only 60 dollars. The saw is 3 grand. To me, if I did that much woodwork on a consistent basis, $3000 dollars of insurance against a severed limb is well worth it to me, but keep griping.
That being said, this has been done for years. It’s an old trick to mount a zero clearance base to a saw to reduce (drastically) tearout. My only gripe with the setup is that there are screw threads in the base of that saw that can be utilized to anchor the base. I imagine that the C Clamps are used as a crude fence, but the space in between is a kickback episode waiting to happen.
ever hear “ya’ can’t fix stupid !”?
Is it scary that I’ve considered doing this with my circular saw?
Screw the kludged digit removal device; I wanna play with the R/C boat on the shelf… besides, it’s in a corner, so how big a piece of wood can you rip?
oooh, but the smaller the piece of popsicle stick, the more fun it is to guide it into the whirling blade with soft, juicy, unprotected fingers. No push stick here. Remember the little steel “circular saw” dremel blades? Great for delicate work until the teeth caught and then they would take off… and I still have a scar on my arm from that
scars are just tattoos with a story… i’ve got plenty.
Even Santa’s workshop suffers during recessions.
Is that an actual table saw sitting on the floor in corner under the RC car?
Could be, but it looks more like it might be a router table to me.
I have a small WorkMate[tm] that basically sits atop the hinged lid of a plastic crate (not kludged, sold like that by Black&Decker); pretty useful for small jobs as you can store a couple of hand tools and an electric jigsaw inside. The thing in the picture looks to be something similar.
If they had suspended it from a table top, then they could use a straight-board and C clamp to serve as a fence, and a sick for a pusher. Much safer
That roll of tape is for securing the trigger switch in the ON position, thus guaranteeing continuous danger and mayhem.
Isn’t that what kludges are good for?
How much damage can it do…It’s battery powered after all.
Really, 30-60 minutes of mayhem every 6-8 hours is not that bad.
It’s like some Rube Goldberg-ish super deathtrap. It all starts with a drunk dude on a Friday night and ends with a bloody runaway circle saw blade.
I notice the obligatory roll of duct tape. You know. Just in case.
In case you have to reattach your hand?
He’s just sharpening the saw teeth with the dremel. The wood plank is just a backing for his hand.
that would account for all the sawdust on the bench
Sadly I don’t know enough about tools to spot what is so freaky about this. Besides any kind of rapidly whirling saw without a safety?
Uh well the saw is a skill saw clamped in a vice with a board clamped to the saw and it does look so much like it is intended to be used as a table saw, hence all the yoking about a daaangerous operation and why I mention the duct tape for reattaching uh fingers and stuff. You know one kludge deserves another.
This is just the “before” picture of the workshop. The “after” pic includes the wall mounted beer cooler right above that saw. So you can keep one hand working while the other gets a cold one.
Um, I expect the “after” pic to have a definite redshift, although not quite in the astronomical sense.
This seems a lot like the drill press that’s commercially available for the Dremel, which I wish I had.
How is this any more of a safety hazard than a table saw??
Most table saws aren’t just clamped in a vice grip. Usually they have some safety features too, not just a naked blade.
Let’s count the ways:
1. Blade guard
2. Stable base (not a clamp)
3. Someplace for sawdust to go.
4. Large work surface to hold work.
5. Professionally engineered for the purpose.
Luckily, I think he uses it for cutting small pieces of wood for his Radio Control hobby. But the thing is, his hobby requires fingers to control the RC vehicles. One slip and his hobby days are over.
I have a friend who cut his hand nearly completely in half using a circular saw like this.
That’s not worthy of mention here unless he fixed it himself, using gaffer tape, zipties, staples and/or superglue.
I once cut my thumb with a fresh-from-the-factory Stanley knife. After looking at the inside of my thumb for a moment (it hardly bled, even though the cut was quite deep) I squeezed the cut shut, applied a drop of superglue (hey, if it’s really good at attaching your fingers to whatever it is you’re trying to superglue back together, then surely it must excel in glueing one half of a finger to the other half), put a band-aid over it and went on.
I once got my knee sliced open on a job site. I had a flap of skin hanging there. We had many roles of duct tape so I wrapped it around and around the cut and went back to work.
step 1: cut out table for table saw using circular saw
step 2: place circular saw in vice upside down
step 3: clamp table to the top of circular saw
step 4: try it out
step 5: determine which fingers on the floor are yours and which ones are fakes left over from halloween and pray this is covered by medicare
does anyone actually noticed that the black stand is on the saw wheel??
it seems like this gonna fly as soon as u turn it on, cutting everyone in the room!
That’s the blade cover which would normally cover the part of the blade sticking through the base plate, rotating backwards once it hits whatever it is you’re cutting and forwards again once the saw is free of the object. It’s designed to sit where it sits now, and it’s not going to fly off because you think it’s something else in contact with the saw blade.
Let me tell you the story about how I got the nickname Stubby.
Because you’re an Aussie who loves beer?
sheesh – certainly looks bad. I don’t buy the “he’s sharpening the blade” – but I guess it’s possible. The amount of sawdust on the table is quite a lot – although a saw that size seems WAY oversize for R/C models.
Great idea.
I’d give it 2 thumbs up, but unfortunately I lost them in a freak accident involving a kludge…
it is actually quite common to use a circ saw as a table saw, but maost people clamp them under an existing workbench
It’s a table saw for elves!
You want to saw an elf? You sick person…
Cheap-O Tools: Taking the table out of table saws since 1987.
I love it. I am going to build one of these this weekend.
Where is badgirl when you need her?
Scary! I told my husband that didn’t look safe, and he *assured* me that was how table saws looked. “Why is the guard underneath?” Hmmm. I only let him use my scroll saw, but I try not to look!
What we have here is the rare “Alabama finger trap…”
Today on the Wood Wrong workshop
I worked an industrial table saw for many years, 10 or more hrs a day, and believe me the huge metal guards are not just for looks. I cant really conceive of anyone using something like this as an actual table saw EVER: this is a SERIOUS safety issue.
Clamp failure while operating a unit like this would be more serious than even a three inch chunk of flying splinter aimed for your face without guards to deflect it. Which is what happens when the wood splinters unexpectedly and spins out on the blade, as can and does happen fairly often.
If the clamps go, the operator will be missing more than a few fingers: THAT contraption is truly a gut ripper. ABSOLUTELY NO humor intended.
Never been in a shop where the safety guard was not removed immediately from the table saw. Too many cutting operations can’t be done with most guards in place, like dado grooving or partial cuts. And I have never seen anyone cut themselves on a table saw blade that was qualified to use one. Now kickbacks, on the other hand, are dangerous. I saw a commercial table saw launch half a 2×4 across the room, bounce off the workbench, and go through the drywall into the hall next door.
HA! My Dad did that…. wired the trigger on and the guard back, clamped the thing upside-down in a workmate, and had at it, it being whatever it was that he was doing. Worked great. Then, about a month later, he went to use the saw again… put it on the ground, plugged it in… now… what do you suppose a circular saw will do when it’s plugged in, and the trigger is still wired on, and the guard is still wired back… Well, it went in a circle actually, really-really fast, right over my father’s foot… cut right down to the sole. Didn’t cut his toes off though, we still can’t figure out why. He must have curled them up real tight as they survived without a scratch. Me… I bought a bench-saw… and steel-toed boots. Man, this place reminds me of my Dad… so many things here just seem, well, normal.
I used to do that with a belt sander all the time! It had a lock on the trigger to keep it “on”, too. I made about a dozen really nice custom knives that way, and still have all my fingers.
I did almost exactly the same thing!
I eventually replaced it with a ‘real’ table saw, but it worked great for many projects over a couple years. No accidents.
Seems a lot of commenters don’t realize: Safe shop practices don’t rely on blade guards so much as keeping hair, hands, and loose clothing well away from the blade. Push sticks are your friend and save far more fingers than blade guards which are more for reducing sawdust and flying splinters (since the guards have to move out of the way for incoming wood, they’re usually out of the way of incoming fingers as well).