Bench plane safety – kick back
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I have a 13″ Ridgid bench plane. I fed a 3″ x 36″ board into the planer. When it was about two thirds of the way through I started to feed a second 3″ x 36″ board parallel to the first. This board was slightly thinner than the first. The rollers did not engage the board but the knives did. It threw the board back out of the planner with significant force.
I have used this planer for three years now and this is the first time I experienced kick back.28 September 2016 at 2:41 am #140926One great reason to go with hand tools. You’ll never have the safety issues as you do with power tools. Horrible things can happen with such speed and force.
I remember when I bought a planer…I spent a few hundred bucks on the Porter Cable benchtop planer. I frankly can’t say a single positive thing about it other than it was a catalyst for me to further explore handtools and led to my purchase of my first Stanley/Bailey #4…from which I have never looked back.
Fwiw, the planer was 1) noisy as hell, 2) messy as hell, 3) did not effectivley flatten my boards which made me think I needed to invest even more money in to a jointer and other tools, 4) Pretty sure I came close to losing some fingers.
As @mattmcgrane said–one great reason to go with hand tools. So much more control, precision and accuracy.
24 November 2016 at 12:56 pm #142664I never had my planer kick back but my table saw sure has!
I’m not being condescending here when I say read the safety instruction!
This is from a guy who ran his hand into a table saw blade.
Each tool has its inherent dangers, even your hand tools can be dangerous (see post about slicing a finger tip off with the striking knife)
You can buy books about how to use each power tool, how to set them up and use them safely, I have or more book for each tool.
I’m not trying to get into a power tool hand tool argument here, I use both. I’m not going to plane 300 board feet of oak by hand, it’s going through my planer! But I’m also not going to run a short piece of specialty or small project length of wood through my planer, for that I use hand tools.
Ever had one of those days when you were trying to plane something square and it kept getting worse? I have saved many a pice of wood from the scrap bin by using a power tool to get it right. Cheating? Maybe so but I hope to develop my skills to a point where this won’t happen much anymore.The bench planer is the best power tool I have bought. If I was only allow to buy one power tool it would be a bench plane. I find I can flatten a board quickly with my scrub plane so I don’t miss not having a jointer. And boards that are badly warped I don’t use
There are many irrational fears out there. Some people have a fear of heights other of clowns. I have an irrational fear of sharp objects spinning at high speeds. Which is why I started using hand tools. I love doing wood working but I haven’t touch my router in three years.
10 December 2016 at 7:41 pm #143212In my view, your fear of sharp edges spinning at high speed is not irrational. Not being afraid would be irrational.
I also have that fear, which leads me to treating the a fore mentioned blades with great caution, which is a good thing. 🙂
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