Hammer out ways to make your woodshop safe

Experienced home woodworkers will tell you that few pleasures equal using your own tools and your own hands to make necessary home repairs, or to create an heirloom gift or piece of furniture. To get from point A to point Z in executing a successful project, a safe, well-equipped shop is vital.

Pick your space

Start by laying out the area in which you’ll be working. Coming up with an effective and efficient arrangement that minimizes chokepoints is a matter of safety. Large and powerful machines like table saws and jointers whirl their cutting blades and shaping bits at thousands of RPMs, making it vital that you have room to feed stock into these machines properly, both to avoid spoiling your work and to avoid injury.

A space of approximately 110 square feet provides a lower limit for a functional workshop in which you can tackle even large-scale projects. Also, if you anticipate using full-sized woodworking machines, make sure there are enough outlets for your needs and that the circuits are rated to handle the demand. You don’t want blackouts or fire risks.

Pick your tools

Most woodworking tools have sharp edges, and woodworking machines can deal crippling injuries in a heartbeat, so before you invest a lot of money stocking your workbench, you should spend some quality time learning the whys and hows of tool use.

For instance, though it might sound counterintuitive, the sharper your tools’ edges are, the safer it will be to use them. Conversely, trying to use a tool that has a dull or nicked blade is not only harder, it’s also more likely to end in ruined work and easily avoidable injury.

With power tools, it’s even more important that you know what you’re doing. A tool capable of carving through a hardwood board like a hot knife through butter can also severely injure a hand that’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. Conscientious manufacturers make their equipment safer with features such as splitting knives, anti-kickback jigs, and saw-stopping technology (which shuts down the spinning blade when it detects a finger getting too close). These features can add to a machine’s expense, but it’s worth the outlay if it means avoiding a trip to the ER.

You should keep in mind, too, that different phases of a woodworking project can have different hazards associated with them. That comfortable baggy shirt or chunky sweater can get caught in a machine, causing injury. And refinishing and painting often create toxic and potentially combustible fumes, so you need to ventilate your space properly.

Read the owner’s manual that comes with each of your power tools carefully and if that has gone missing, an online search will turn up lots of resources.

Let there be light

Once you’ve got all the right tools, make sure you can see them – and more importantly, that you can see what you’re doing. Grabbing a tool by the wrong end or hitting the wrong button on a power tool could mean severe injury. It’s neither hard nor expensive to set up a suite of task lights and overhead fixtures that will banish gloom from your projects.

Keep things organized

Once you’ve got the tools, set things up!

Staying organized can help you finish more projects, more quickly and safely. If you’re putting finish nails into a floor repair, for instance, you don’t want to be doing it with a heavy framing hammer because you couldn’t find your 10-ouncer meant for use installing trim. It’s likely the result would be a bent nail at best, or at worst a crushed finger.

Keep things clean

Keeping the workshop clean is important for safety, as well as aesthetics. Sawdust is corrosive to lung tissues and irritating to eyes, so invest in a good set of dust and vapor masks. Sawdust is also a slipping hazard when spread on a concrete floor, and static electricity can actually make it explosive. There are dust collection systems that can mitigate this risk, and you can also make your shop safer by having an electrician inspect the wiring and lights to ensure that your equipment is grounded so random sparks don’t lead to fires.

Sources: finewoodworking.com; christofix.com; rockler.com

The information included here was obtained from sources believed to be reliable, however Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company and its employees make no guarantee of results and assume no liability in connection with any training, materials, suggestions, or information provided. It is the user’s responsibility to confirm compliance with any applicable local, state, or federal regulations. Information obtained from or via Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company should not be used as the basis for legal advice and should be confirmed with alternative sources.

10/2024