Watch out or you may just lose a finger

Today I am gonna talk about carpentry safety.

Well, what brought this up on carpenter safety? I almost injured myself today and it was a completely preventable injury but at that moment, I was in a rush and didn't feel the need to don on safety equipment since it would only take sec to do a crosscut. I walked away uninjured but had a renewed and profound respect for safety. Through hard experience, I have learned that no matter the amount of experience a person may have, people can still get careless and get injured. Things comes at you unexpectedly and with disastrous consequence especially in a construction environment.

One summer when I was only 12, I worked full time my mother's boyfriend whom was a master electrician. I drilled holes and laid several spool worth of wires all over the house. I also hooked various receptacles such as 120 volt, 220 volt and larger with ease. He taught me how to do electrical, plumbing and carpentry. As much as I learned and enjoyed the work, I have made some mistakes that almost killed me due to carelessness, unearned confidence and outright ignorance. One time I was hooking a 120 volt receptacle in the guest bathroom and forgot to verify the power on that line was off and got shocked.  The screwdriver flew across the room and impaled into the unfinished drywall. He came running when he heard me screaming and torn me a new hole for not doing proper safety checklist.

For example, I got shocked standing on a wood ladder! I was stupid enough to have one of my hands on the wall while looking at the old receptacle and accidentally touched the hot wire.

So here we are, I thought, since I almost got a free ride to the hospital that I should review safety tips.

1. Read Operational Manuals especially when you are using that tool for the first time.

2. Watch your surroundings and be aware of all variables such as co-workers, weathers, equipments and especially internal emotions. For example, you don't want to be pissed off while doing a dangerous task because your mind wont be on the task.

3. Make sure to have enough understanding and experience to do a project safely and to the satisfaction of the Code dept. Imagine the loss in labor and money if I had to redo a project because I didn't get the necessary inspections.

4. Always keep the work-site clean and free of cutters especially during a multi-story project. Imagine the damage a small hammer can have on a tender head after being dropped from a 2nd story scaffolding. OUCH

5. Make sure everyone on a work site have appropriate personal safety protections for whatever they need to do. Remember, if you work for a construction company, they are required by OSHA to provide all necessary safety equipments.

6. Always stay in complete control of the tools being used regardless of safe you may feel.

7. Don't take a dump in a Porta-potty that is too close to a work site. You never know ;-) something may tip it over.

8. Keep all equipments sharp and clean.

9. Know the local amendments to the International building codes to prevent any subsequent lawsuits or expensive redo.

10. Avoid putting sharp tools in pockets.

11. Finish tools hurt just as much as framing tools–if not a little more because of the smaller dimensions and closeness of fingers to blades, sandpaper, and nails.