Today's Hint - Don't do things like this

Don't use a nail gun to work on a chicken coop without removing the chickes first.

Be glad it went by your head. the little cutoff I didn't move hit my right lens. I'm assuming this as I don't recall the impact but that's the one that was broken. Quick trip to a nearby eye doctor got all but the glass/plastic dust out. Joe romover off all offcuts

Was that the lens of your safety glasses, or the lens of your prescription eyeglasses?

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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Prescription. They were supposed to be safety lenses, according to the optometrist who sold them. I don't go there anymore. Joe

Just thought I'd mention that it is umwise to feed short lengths of wood (prunings from cutting bowl blanks that had a very rough de-horning prior to planing) into the planer if they have a deep dish in the top side. Not even if they have absolutely gorgeous grain that it would be criminal to waste.

They start to feed in, then halt because they are past the first feed roller but not yet to the second.

Then they make a large BANG! sound when you push them into the blades with a push stick. If you keep trying, it is possible for them to get small enough to fly out backwards at speeds approaching the speed of light ... well, I never saw it move, but my knuckle recorded the fact.

DAMHIKT

Bills 5th Law of Woodworking: Wood entering the electric planer must already be flat.

Sounds like you might want to talk to a lawyer. At the minimum, if I were in your shoes, I'd be looking for the optometrist to pay for the medical treatment and a replacement pair of glasses.

Keep in mind, also, that even safety prescription glasses don't afford as much protection as safety goggles do, because the lenses are smaller. Like you, I also wear prescription eyeglasses, and goggles are often a PITA (for those who don't wear eyeglasses, if you do, goggles often make your glasses fog up, and it's easy to knock your eyeglasses askew when taking the goggles on and off).

About five years ago, I switched to using a face shield, and I'll never go back to goggles. The face shield never fogs up, and I've never bumped my eyeglasses with it, even once. It's so easy, and so quick, to put on, that I use it *far* more than I ever used goggles, which increases the safety factor that much more. Another bonus: there are other things on your face, besides your eyes, that deserve protection: how'd you like to have a table saw or a lathe throw a chunk of wood into your teeth?

The only disadvantage I've seen to the face shield so far is that you have to remember to flip it up when you feel a sneeze coming on....

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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I tuned into this thread a bit late, but perhaps I can be of some help. As an optometrist, I can at least shed some light on the problem with the lens--which appears to have broken due to impact, if I'm extrapolating correctly--or at least with why it didn't protect the eye. Please feel free to inquire.

As to seeking legal help, that should be a last resort effort. As soon as you retain an attorney, any cooperation between the doctor and the patient evaporates, by instruction from the doctor's lawyer. Most problems can be worked out without dragging the issue into a legal environment.

Contrary to popular belief, safety glasses really provide very little protection against impacts of significant velocity and/or mass. At best they will keep flying particles and tiny objects out of the wearer's eyes, but are limited in effect with respect to heavy objects flying at significant velocities. Crown glass safety lenses are really no better than CR-39 hard resin (plastic) lenses made for non-safety glasses, and most likely worse. The best lenses are polycarbonate, but their ability to resist significant impact is limited by the ability of the frame to hold the lens in place without releasing the lens or collapsing under the impact. Polycarbonate generally won't break or shatter. And you are correct w/r/t goggles--they offer superior eye protection. So do polycarbonate face shields.

Fine advice.

Max

Last time (and first time) I tried that, it actually came out in pieces. Yup, huge bang, and very very very fast....

PK

That was a good read Maxprop, thanks.

Well, it was a few years ago so the lawyer is out. I had been clearing the chunks at the beginning. I was trimming a bunch of poplar 2x2's and got tired of moving the scraps off the table. After all they were just sitting there. Then one jiggled just far enough for the rear tooth of the blade to toss it at me. I tend to have a little retroactive amnesia whenever something like this happens so the next thing I remember was holding one hand over the damaged eye and looking for the glasses with the other eye. Found the glasses, picked up the lens pieces and went for a ride. Joe

As I read in a library table saw book, use compressed air to blow those babies off the back of the saw. It's fast & easy.

This is the primary reason I find myself looking at the HF compressors each Sunday on my way home after church. ;-)

-- Mark

What material were the lenses, Joe?

As I mentioned earlier, polycarbonate is the only true safety lens. For future reference, insist on polycarb for any pair of glasses you wish to use with activities that have the potential for flying objects. And no rimless or semi-rimless frames, either. A good, solid plastic or metal eyewire surrounding the lens is an absolute necessity for holding the lens in place.

Max

I did that, except for me step 3 was "throw away brand new, now useless, Klein Lineman's pliers". You'd think that a pair of Klein lineman's pliers would handle something like this, but then I guess any lineman would probably wouldn't have been dumb enough to do that...

Sorry to hear that you tossed them. Especially after you went to the trouble of making a custom wire stripper accessory in them.

Dave in Fairfax

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When you think about it, the house AC input line is usually capable of 200 amps or more. When you cut into the conductors, you're putting 24,000 Watts or more into about a 3-5 mm chunk of steel until the 20 Amp fuse, or circuit breaker, for the circuit you're plugged into blows. That's enough to light

Ken Moon Webberville, TX

I have no proof this is a true story, but it was told to me by a choir member at rehearsal Wed. night . . . He says he was @ the Vet's hospital in Pittsburgh earlier in the week, and saw a guy in a neck collar AND a full torso cast. "Were you in an accident?" "No, I have a problem with my neck. Sometimes when I turn my head, something happens and I pass out." "That explains the neck brace, but why the full torso cast?" "I was working in my shop, cutting wood on the table saw, when I turned my head, passed out, and fell ON the saw."

He didn't carry the conversation any further.

No idea. I think I've got the pieces somewhere, anyway to tell by filing scraping or burning? Joe

Believe it or not the way we determine glass vs. plastic is to tap them gently against a tooth. If the resulting sound is a bright "click" they're glass. If the sound is a dull "clack" they're plastic. Obviously if they're in pieces they weren't polycarb. I've seen polycarb lenses that have been placed in a vise and shot with a .22 caliber round at close range. The bullet distorted the lens by about an inch, but failed to penetrate. No breakage either.

Max