Is a table saw powerful enough to cut a finger (or even cut it off)? Or does the blade spin too slow?

My advice to you is stay away from power tools. You can't post on LR without limbs.

My 401k voted for trump wrote:

Is wood/metal shop still offered nowadays? Or have the schools completely given up on training students to be useful adults?

It's offered as an elective a my school rather than a requirement, and the program is really designed more as a career track thing than a home ec type class.

Not sure why dropping shop would count as giving up on training students to be useful adults. I use the communication and math skills I gained in school every single day. I can't say I've ever really relied upon my knowledge from shop class.

And I'm not some guy who has never worked with his hands. I spent a year between college and grad school rehabbing and flipping houses with some friends. I just can't think of a task I completed that would not have been possible without my middle school shop class. The idea that I wouldn't be able to figure out how to replace bathroom fixtures or put up drywall if I hadn't made that bird feeder when I was 13 is just asinine.

It's not that I don't think it's good to be able to work with your hands. I just think the stuff you learn in shop is so simple that it doesn't really require an academic course. Anything I learned in shop class, my kid could learn from a Youtube video in about 5 minutes if the need arose.

I guess with that logic we should eliminate 7th grade altogether. I can't think of anything I do as a sw engineer that I couldn't do without what was learned in 7th grade. Imagine that would be the case for most adults.

But exposure to math, science, English, gym and shop all provided opportunities for problem solving that helped to make me a more rounded adult who can function on the keyboard as well as in the workshop. It all starts with exposure to the basics at an early age.

A table saw once threw a block of wood I stopped pushing back at me. The block caught me in the hip like a someone hit me with a sledge hammer. Keep constant pressure on the material and us a push block or push stick to keep hands and fingers away from the blade.

You're contradicting yourself. You are the one who implied that elimination of shop class was tantamount to giving up on training students to be useful adults, now you are saying that your exposure to other subjects has been instrumental in your growth. Which is it?

The difference between shop and the other subjects you mention is that communication and math require development of skills that build hierarchically over many years. While you might not directly use your 7th grade math, you wouldn't have been able to learn higher level math if you'd never learned that 7th grade math. The same isn't true regarding shop.

If you had never taken a math course before you decided you wanted to be a software engineer, you would have had years of learning to make up. If you'd never taken a shop class and you decided that you wanted to retile your bathroom, you could learn how to do it online and be done with the job in a day.

Seriously? A table saw with mess your life up if you do not respect it. Ask my 9.75 fingers.

Yes, it will cut anything off your body you want.

Only One wrote:

Seriously? A table saw with mess your life up if you do not respect it. Ask my 9.75 fingers.

Yes, it will cut anything off your body you want.

The silver lining of cutting off your fingers is that it will increase your VO2max because you'll be lighter.

On a serious note: Always use a push stick and always wear eye protection. Also set the blade as low as possible for the desired cut as this will minimize kickback. Table saws aren't particularly dangerous when used correctly.

Back in the UK in the mid '90s I was working with a circular saw. I was standing on a chair while doing so (yes, effing stupid, I know)

I lost my balance and fell off the chair. As I fell backwards, I brought the circular saw over my forehead where it jammed into the floor about 2 inches from my skull. The cable got snarled in the blade and the saw tripped the house electrics, but not before it had made a massive cut into the solid oak floorboards.

2 inches lower and it would have cut into the center of my skull. Pretty sure it would have killed me.

Needless to say, my wife had a few choice words for me.

And could you go to the hardware store and get me a pound of toenails.

Is a table saw powerful enough to cut a finger?

If you are seriously asking this question, please, PLEASE! stay away from tools with power. I have been around tools alot in my life, and they are dangerous. A table saw goes thru hardwood very easily. It will cut off fingers like going thru soft butter. You can lose fingers so fast you would not even know what happened.

but this one is actually true wrote:

Back in the UK in the mid '90s I was working with a circular saw. I was standing on a chair while doing so (yes, effing stupid, I know)

I lost my balance and fell off the chair. As I fell backwards, I brought the circular saw over my forehead where it jammed into the floor about 2 inches from my skull. The cable got snarled in the blade and the saw tripped the house electrics, but not before it had made a massive cut into the solid oak floorboards.

2 inches lower and it would have cut into the center of my skull. Pretty sure it would have killed me.

Needless to say, my wife had a few choice words for me.

Holy crap. What a story!! Glad you're okay.

Dern Kids wrote:

[quote]Lac wrote:

Had you taken shop class in high school you would have known this by looking at your instructor.

Freaking hilarious! The truth!

Years ago, I worked as a carpenter's assistant aka "flunky". Any time that the carpenter told me a particular way to do something, he would always drive home the point by holding up his hands to show me that after 30 years of working as a carpenter, he still had all 10 fingers.

I work with a guy who just lost a quarter of a finger just last month. =0

People lose their digits every day on those

YES. Just happened to my brother. Took a 1/4" of his index finger and about 1/2" off his middle finger.

This almost has to be a troll job but I'll answer anyway.

I work in a hospital as a RN. Minimum one person a week comes in having cut their thumb off with a skill saw. This is a generalization, but table saws are more powerful. I have had patients that have cut multiple fingers off on a table saw. I have personally seen a piece of wood sent flying off a table saw hard enough to take the guy pushing it to the ground in considerable pain.

If this is a serious post, please do not set up a hobby shop until you understand the tools you will be working with.

If your pushing a piece of wood through the blade properly, and it's a fairly new blade, it'll typically take your pinky off just around the base, your ring finger off just a bit higher up, and then cut deeply enough to into your middle finger just below the middle knuckle that it'll be difficult to save, all before you even know what happened.

Hope that was helpful.

Lac wrote:

Thinking of setting up a hobby shop, but I have no experience. Any guidance is appreciated.

8/10.

This is way better than "Could Bolt run a 5min mile?"