"no(SPAM)vasys" wrote in message
...
Owen Lowe wrote:

snipped

It may be quibbling, but every tool in the shop can kill you and many of
those are much more statistically risky, injury-wise, to operate than a
lathe. I would suppose lathe injuries tend to be much less severe and
permanently disfiguring than injuries from table saws, jointers, band
saws, routers or a number of other shop tools. In the four years I've
been turning I've only seen one instance of moderately severe facial
injuries from a flying piece of wood (a few years back in the AAW
Journal). I've seen, read and heard of nicks to the chins, friction burn
injuries to the hands, bruised and blackened fingernails, a bruised
temple (from getting smacked by a tool handle after the operator tried
peering into a hollow form while the lathe was running and tool still
working inside) and plethora of cuts, nicks and scrapes to the fingers.
Every one of these injuries, including the facial bruising in the Journal
picture, would heal within a week or two. Other shop tools remove fingers
permanently. When was the last time the injury with a table saw, jointer
or band saw you were told about resulted in only bruising?

I agree it's rare but many years ago, when I was in grade school a friend
of mine was killed by a bowl blank that broke off its mounting, split in
half and impaled him in the forehead.


I have knowledge of several people getting killed by operating
woodlathes over the years.

Most of them by head injuries from operating homemade lathes
with big blanks and too much speed
getting big catches from bad tools.

I also have the feeling that the modern woodlathe, with exellent
chucks, highspeed steel tools, and far better speedcontrol than
a genration ago, has drastically reduced the dangers.

Bjarte