[HN Gopher] The ChompSaw: A benchtop power tool that's safe for ...
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The ChompSaw: A benchtop power tool that's safe for kids to use
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 273 points
Date : 2025-07-07 13:43 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.core77.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.core77.com)
| jakedata wrote:
| Looks a lot like my glass grinder. Nice idea but only cuts
| cardboard and $249 is crazy expensive.
| d--b wrote:
| uh? We used to have a jig or scroll saw when we were kids, it
| could cut thin plywood, but you could put your finger on the
| blade when it was working and it wouldn't hurt at all.
| jakedata wrote:
| Unlike the woodburning tool...
| floxy wrote:
| The scroll saw seems like about the safest power saw that a kid
| could use. But every one I've ever owned/used could definitely
| cut human flesh. Maybe someone could come up with one that has
| a very limited range of motion, so that it works like a cast
| saw / oscillatory multi-tool, where the teeth movement is so
| small that it is within the elastic range of your skin.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx1AiQdMQro
| whartung wrote:
| Back in the day, I had a Mattel Power Shop.
| https://corporate.mattel.com/brand-portfolio/power-shop
|
| It had was a combined jig saw, lathe, drill press, and disc
| sander.
|
| Now, I don't know much about modern scroll saws, but the
| "blade" on this thing was more like a thin, round file.
| Perfectly adequate for something like popsicle stick thick
| wood. It more ground it's way through wood than actually
| cutting it.
|
| I think it would take some pressure to really hurt a finger.
| I can say there was no real bloodletting on my projects.
|
| The drill bits were pointed, flat pieces of metal. It was all
| designed for really soft wood.
| floxy wrote:
| https://www.homedepot.com/p/Olson-Saw-5-in-L-Pin-End-
| Scroll-...
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| This includes what you asked for: https://4in1workshop.com
|
| There are 4 tools and one is a finger-safe jigsaw.
| d--b wrote:
| Yes I think it worked like that. I can't find any info on it
| though, this was back in the mid 1980s.
| alwa wrote:
| Yes--startling, but not catastrophic. I first used something
| like that at age 6. It probably COULD cut flesh if you really
| tried, but it would take some determination, and just the
| specter of damage was enough to keep me on good behavior.
|
| I remember it as helping me develop a healthy respect for
| tools, and also to relate to the material world as something I
| can manipulate rather than something to be passively consumed.
| And to manage risks, and confront my fears.
| ethan_smith wrote:
| Scroll saws operate at 400-1800 strokes per minute with metal
| teeth that can absolutely cause serious injury - please don't
| test this safety assumption with children.
| stirfish wrote:
| I think I know what they're talking about; I had a wood lathe
| that ran on D batteries, and I think there was a saw version
| too.
| bradly wrote:
| Scroll saws, unlike more common woodworking power tools
| (table saw, bandsaw, router, joiner, planer), is one of the
| only tools that touching the blade does not typically cause
| an injury.
| giarc wrote:
| That's incorrect. A scroll blade is just like any other saw
| blade, but moves up and down many times a minute. It will
| 100% cut you if you touch the front of the blade.
| bradly wrote:
| > A scroll blade is just like any other saw blade
|
| No, not all saws are the same and treating your tools
| like that will cause injury to yourself. Different tools
| have orders of magnitudes of different consequences when
| a blade is touched.
|
| I've worked in multiple production and educational
| woodshops. I've touched running scrollsaw blades and even
| touched a running table saw blade and seen live a hand
| into a joiner. These things are no where close to being
| the same.
| giarc wrote:
| What are you talking about? Are you referring to touching
| a blade that is not moving? Sure, you can touch any
| object that is sharp if it's not moving. I'm referring to
| an operating scroll saw. You can absolutely not touch the
| blade when it's oscillating at 1200 strokes per minute.
| bradly wrote:
| I'm curious that amount of hours you've spent with a
| scrollsaw, because you absolutely can touch the blade
| running. You can touch the back easily, the sides easily,
| and the front while is may give you a cut, most likely
| would not give you an injury the same as touch any part
| of any other saw's blade.
|
| I understand you if you run your hand into the scrollsaw
| and try and cut off your fingers, you probably could. But
| in practice, that is not what happens if you graze the
| blade. Your hand snaps back, you may get a cut if the
| teeth got you, but you will mostly likely not be on your
| way to the hospital. Again, this is very different that
| other tools in a woodshop. Yes, you can cut yourself.
| Yes, it is much, much harder to have a serious injury.
| bradly wrote:
| My kids (8, 10, 12) have all used my scrollsaw with supervision
| without issue. Jigsaw is a bit more sketchy and reminds me of
| most the injuries I've seen in the shop around handheld router
| after the cut is complete. My lathe is the kids favorite tool
| to be honest.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Yeah, I am trying to re-arrange my house so that I can make
| and store and set up and use a spring pole lathe (bodge for
| the Brits) --- seems a nice fit for kids (and great
| exercise!).
| bradly wrote:
| My dream is a spring pole lathe!, but it seems most people
| make there own, and my skills/confidence are not quite
| there to tackle that project.
| WillAdams wrote:
| As an alternative, the folks at Tools for Working Wood
| have been developing a foot-powered lathe w/ a flywheel:
|
| https://toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/GT-
| LATHE.XX/Intro...
|
| which kind of makes me want to repurpose my wife's
| (unused) stationary bicycle...
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I built one out of home center 4x4 posts with hand
| planes, chisels, and a mallet. I did mortise and tenon
| joinery on mine, but honestly, construction screws and
| plywood gussets would probably get you there too. Go for
| it; you can probably do it!
|
| Learning how to turn on one is a bit of a trick. A lot of
| good turning technique is body motion rather than arm
| motion. Standing on one foot while you treadle makes it
| harder to do the body motion well.
| wmeredith wrote:
| This is very cool. The price point puts it beyond the toy
| category though. Maybe that will come down. Great idea.
| Aachen wrote:
| 250$ for anyone else wondering
| Ariarule wrote:
| This could be "bad, actually" if it gives an incorrect impression
| that power tools are unequivocally safe, rather than somewhat
| risky but usually safe when used correctly.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| You're right, but one presumably would still teach kids to
| treat this tool with respect. And given that, it seems safer to
| me as this won't hurt them when they get careless (as kids are
| wont to do). That way you get a chance to reinforce the safety
| lesson _before_ they graduate to the dangerous stuff.
| stirfish wrote:
| I'm finding that a lot of parenting is teaching my kid that
| safety is something you have to _do_ , and risks are something
| you have to look for and understand. For example, brushing your
| teeth is usually safe, but you shouldn't brush your teeth at a
| dead sprint down the stairs.
| taitems wrote:
| Not sure why you've been downvoted so heavily. That seems like
| a misuse of the downvote purpose.
|
| But yes, I kind of agree with other commenters here in that
| maybe teaching absolute respect of a knife/table saw/power tool
| and its power to maim is a really important lesson that this
| sidesteps?
| sonofhans wrote:
| It's basically a tabletop router for cardboard. That's super
| cool. The free motion in two dimensions is better than what kids
| usually get with toy saws and drills.
|
| Routers are great tools but very powerful and finicky. This turns
| a router into a finger-safe jigsaw, which is a great idea.
| Doxin wrote:
| It's not _quite_ free motion in two dimensions. The mechanism
| is a nibbler, not a router. I.e. you can do 90 degree turns
| just fine, but you can 't go sideways. You need to turn the
| cardboard to make a turn.
| fnordian_slip wrote:
| If anyone in here buys it anyway, they could test if it works
| with leather, too. That would open up a lot of additional
| projects.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I suspect you could probably work with pretty heavy leather,
| since the 3mm cardboard it's designed for is going to be pretty
| comparable to 5-6oz.The bed size might be too small for typical
| panel sizes though.
| Animats wrote:
| That thing would be useful for cutting leather to a pattern.
| Jigsaws just move the leather up and down, leather is too
| flexible for routers, scissors don't work well on thick
| materials, and knife work takes a lot of skill.
| Karliss wrote:
| For similar price you can get a metal nibbler. Which is a
| handheld powertool designed for cutting metal sheets using a
| similar mechanism. They should definitely have more than enough
| power for leather although the cleanness of cuts will depend on
| sharpness and tolerance of blades. You might want to also look
| into electric shears.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Neat!
|
| Would make a nice pairing with:
|
| https://www.make.do/
|
| which is sold by Lee Valley: https://www.leevalley.com/en-
| us/shop/home/toys-and-games/cra... (an excellent company to do
| business with).
|
| A prototype of this was on Reddit/Imgur a while back:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/9en02z/kids_table_saw/
|
| with instructions on making one w/ a parts list at:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/kids-table-saw-2cg0HJB
| tomcam wrote:
| that looks awesome. thanks for the link
| lotophage wrote:
| I have the makedo and the screws are legit amazing. I never
| imagined that they could possibly work so well. It's one of
| those things I always recommend to other parents.
|
| The very real downside is that your kids become attached to
| their creations. So you end up with a house perpetually full of
| cardboard and fighting a constant battle to part with some of
| it.
| itronitron wrote:
| In one of my art history classes we learned of a Bauhaus (or
| Dada?) artist that would stack their old belongings into the
| corners of their apartment and then plaster over it in order
| to reduce the clutter in their home. Might be worth trying
| out.
| yojo wrote:
| FWIW, my kids never took to the screws, but are still
| ridiculously attached to their creations.
|
| I strive to be open and honest in my parenting, but these
| battles just don't seem worth everyone's investment. A box
| spaceship that hasn't been touched in a week is quietly
| "disappeared" to the basement, and if it's not inquired after
| by the end of a month it goes to recycling.
| deadbabe wrote:
| This just creates trauma that leads to more hoarding
| behavior as they try to keep things from disappearing in
| the future.
|
| Instead, you need to complete the lifecycle of a creation.
| They should know things they make won't last forever, and
| you need to encourage the destruction when the time comes,
| and after that, they can create a new thing to fill the
| void, and the cycle continues.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Agreed. I know a hoarder (self-described, accurately) who
| traces it all back to her mom secretly throwing away her
| toys. She became highly defensive of her "things", to a
| ridiculous (three houses filled) extent.
|
| My mother, OTOH, while not the greatest in the world,
| would ask me to choose which toys were being donated to
| "other children who don't have any" (Goodwill, probably).
| I keep things longer than I should, but can throw away
| the unused from time to time, keeping my house sort of
| tidy-esque, kinda.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Yup, too many parents just buy mindlessly for their kids
| without thinking of the exit plan for all this stuff,
| preferring to just throw it away when their kid doesn't
| notice. This gets rid of the garbage but then your kid is
| left with the impression they can just consume endlessly
| and there's always room for something else, they never go
| through the process of getting rid of things.
| smeej wrote:
| If you're going to do it, you really have to pay
| attention to your kid(s).
|
| When I was in my early teens, I walked in on my mom going
| through my brother's toys with a bag in hand to get rid
| of them. Once I figured out what she was doing, I asked
| the obvious question, if she'd ever done it to me, and
| she just nonchalantly asked me if I had ever missed any
| toys.
|
| I never had. She actually knew which ones mattered and
| which ones didn't. These days I miss the magic fairy that
| comes in and gets rid of the things I don't use anymore
| when I'm not looking!
| staplung wrote:
| > is quietly "disappeared" to the basement.
|
| No comrade. Is better if box spaceship falls from balcony
| or attends special tea-party.
| hi_hi wrote:
| Thanks for introducing me to this. I hadn't previously
| considered there was a range of tools for kids to work with
| cardboard. It makes perfect sense.
|
| I'm excited to try some of these with my kid. Paired with the
| Microbit and bag of various motors, LEDs and sensors, she can
| really start expanding her projects and imagination. I love it.
| WillAdams wrote:
| I really wish that Nintendo had teamed w/ these folks for
| Nintendo Labo.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| I like the little tools, and actually the price for them isn't
| so bad (8 pounds, but if on a budget, that kind of saw is on
| AliExpress for 1 euro).
|
| The price for the little plastic screws seems a bit nuts though
| (40p/unit), but I understand it's a razors-and-blades sales
| model. When I was in primary school, we used those brass split
| pin fasteners (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_fastener)
| for the same thing. You can even buy metal two-piece "mother
| and child" rivets 1/4 that price:
| https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/316963279193, but they need a punch
| and driving it with a nice safe plectrum-style tool is maybe a
| little fiddlier. Blunt-ended plastic drywall screw-in fittings
| are also very similar and run about 5-10p each in boxes of 100.
|
| There seems like a limited age range where a "Scru" is OK but a
| split pin is not (I know I used them at school almost
| immediately, and I started at the age of 4). The scrus get
| tighter, I suppose.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >it's a razors-and-blades sales model
|
| Nah bro, its a rich people with too much money to notice cash
| grab all the way down. Those plastic screws are pennies per
| hundred to make. The tools themselves. Well you can get a 35
| piece pumpkin carving set on amazon for what appears to be
| similar or better quality at <$15USD if you go adjacent to
| the source on Aliexpress the same toolset is <$3 USD or even
| <$1
|
| In fact I'm pretty sure you could just use the most of the
| pumpkin tools on cardboard, the blunted kid safe ones. They
| are also meant to be not cut skin.
| danfunk wrote:
| I help run a Makerspace, will definitely be looking into this.
| Great idea. I know many adults that should start out on such a
| tool!
| ghysznje wrote:
| If it's for cutting cardboard, why not just use a pair of
| scissors?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Have you tried using scissors to cut corrugated cardboard?
| Especially trying to cut curves? The difficulty seems self-
| evident.
|
| For straight lines you need something like a box cutter -- with
| scissors it will neither be easy nor particularly straight.
| While for even medium-sized curves or smaller details you
| really do need something like this.
| hinkley wrote:
| It's possible but tricky. For grownups. Kids will bork the
| scissors or get a cramp.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I wanted this but the price seems way high.
|
| By the way, could this concept be scaled up to cut wood?
| marssaxman wrote:
| Indeed it can:
|
| https://www.rockler.com/power-tools/routers/router-tables/ro...
| WillAdams wrote:
| Alternately, have a robot control the motion?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNC_router
| coderjames wrote:
| > the price seems way high.
|
| How much is your child's finger worth?
|
| I'm looking at getting a SawStop table saw so I can teach my
| child woodworking with slightly more peace-of-mind that if
| something goes wrong, they'll be less likely to lose one or
| more fingers. Kids get distracted, they forget what rules
| you've taught them in the past, accidents happen.
|
| This is also a tool I'll consider purchasing to provide my
| child an introduction to the concepts before graduating to the
| bigger, louder, stronger wood saws.
| starwatch wrote:
| There's an interesting planet money podcast[0] about SawStop
| and why it's not a bigger thing in the world. TLDR: the big
| power tool companies didn't want to pay to licence the tech,
| so evidently came to some mutual agreement to ignore it as a
| feature to save customer fingers.
|
| [0]:https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5135668/planet-
| money-wh...
| WillAdams wrote:
| Or skip the power tools to begin?
|
| I use a:
|
| https://bridgecitytools.com/products/jmpv2-jointmaker-pro
|
| and have worked with a number of kids to make small projects
| using it (and hand saws/drills/yankee
| screwdrivers/braces/planes)
|
| Their Chopstick Master is a great introduction.
| hatthew wrote:
| Is anyone else bothered by hyperspecific products like this? 95%
| of what it does can also be done by scissors for 5% of the price
| and 10x the lifespan.
| tptacek wrote:
| Not at all; you've missed the point. Everyone knows you can cut
| a box with scissors. The point is that you can't cut a _board_
| with scissors. This is a basic woodworking skill, and I think
| it 's great if you can come up with a way to safely get kids
| accustomed to what those tools can do.
| michaelt wrote:
| Are there all that many parents who want to teach their kid
| woodworking, but can't use the classic teaching method of
| taking them to the workshop and handing them a coping saw
| under careful supervision?
|
| I mean, I'm sure there's a handful of parents who value
| woodworking skills but do no woodworking themselves - but are
| there enough to support a whole product category of $250
| cardboard tools?
| tptacek wrote:
| I mean, it's a specialized $250 toy, I'm sure it has a very
| narrow audience! I'm just saying: it's not a scissor
| replacement.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| I actually think this isn't really an "at home" toy. A
| couple of these in an elementary classroom or a library or
| even a community maker space, make a lot of sense, since
| the building material is basically free.
| ckozlowski wrote:
| Depends on the age. I've had my 4yo in my garage with me at
| times. And while he's "helped" me with a few things, it
| generally consists of me holding the tool with his hands on
| the handle as well. His strength, dexterity, and simply
| small size prevents him from really getting much out of it
| other than a sense of participation. Valuable, but he's not
| learning anything.
|
| When he's older and bigger, then using real tools will be
| more practical, and we can using the real thing. The risk
| will be more manageable then.
|
| At this stage however, this chompsaw looks appealing.
| Instead of disappointing him when he wants to drive and
| having to diplomatically explain that he lacks the strength
| and coordination to use the actual tool, I can just hand
| him this. Give a bit of instruction, and then let him
| experiment. That feeling of "hey, I'm doing this myself" is
| exciting to him and gives him a sense of accomplishment.
|
| Long story short, I see this as a product aimed at a
| younger audience who aren't old enough to take the lead
| (with guidance) in the workshop yet, but want the feeling
| of doing it themselves in a safe way. I like it.
|
| $250 though. Ooof.
| LargeWu wrote:
| Yeah, the price is certainly a deterrent. My kids are
| tweens/early teens, almost aging out, and while they
| still like making things with cardboard, not sure I can
| justify that kind of investment for what is really a
| relatively simple tool. I mean, my 3D printer barely cost
| more than that, and that's a high-tech precision machine.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Cutting cardboard in straight lines with scissors is easy, but
| cutting convex curves other shapes is really not, especially if
| you want to avoid bending it and collapsing the corrugation.
| Personally I use a knife, but obviously that isn't suitable for
| very young kids (not hugely safe for me either lol, I almost
| cut the end of my thumb off not too long ago...)
| parpfish wrote:
| If convex curves are too hard, just make a concave curve and
| keep the other side.
| xattt wrote:
| I am not sure if this is board stretcher-level pranking or
| actual advice. Bravo!
| WillAdams wrote:
| The problem of course is that often one side of the curve
| is mangled/distorted from fitting the tool into it ---
| guess which one it usually is?
| junga wrote:
| It's always the side you want to keep of course.
| istjohn wrote:
| Convex curves can be approximated by a series of straight
| cuts tangent to the desired arc. It's concave curves that are
| difficult.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Ah yeah, I meant to say concave.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| I like it from the standpoint of kids not being afraid of power
| tools. Plenty of adults would never do woodworking because the
| tools seem too scary. Teaching kids that power tools don't need
| to be scary as long as they're used safely is a worthwhile
| output on its own IMO.
| mathiaspoint wrote:
| You don't need power tools for most of woodworking anyway.
| That's a ridiculous excuse to avoid it. I've built furniture
| and framed buildings almost entirely with hand tools.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Quite right until you discover a router ...
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Router is a very dangerous tool, and it will steal from
| you the joy of creating profiles by hand with moulding
| planes, one of the most rewarding things in woodworking.
| This book is a great guide:
| https://lostartpress.com/products/mouldings-in-
| practice?srsl... You can get by quite well with a rabbit
| plane and 3/8" hollow + round and 5/8" hollow + round
| places. I prefer the HNT Gordon Planes, beautiful hand
| made planes from australia:
| https://www.heartwoodtools.com/hntgordon/hollow-and-
| round-pl...
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Yet you still probably wear clothing made by industrial
| looms, using machine-spun thread, instead of retting your
| own flax in a pond...
|
| A bit half-assed, wouldn't you say?
| ted_dunning wrote:
| Treasuring the sensation of making art by hand does not
| imply somebody is a Luddite in all respects.
|
| I enjoy hand-crafting small circuits but am glad to use
| my cell phone to take a picture of the result. I love
| riding a bicycle but use a car to go 30 miles when
| needed. There is no contradiction to be had here. Just
| different purposes.
|
| Sometimes simple joy is the priority.
| gerdesj wrote:
| I own spoke shaves, multiple jack planes, and the rest.
| My garage is quite literally a torture chamber of devices
| that a medieval sociopath would dribble over.
|
| I'm perhaps not quite so distracted by a well rounded
| fillet in a cast iron or steel body as you appear to be!
|
| I love all materials and the ingenious ways we have found
| to fashion those materials. I only recently bought a
| router because I had to cut a wide and deep rebate in a
| door to fit a finger handle. Doing that with chisels is
| possible but a bloody nightmare. An over enthusiastic
| wack or allowing the grain to take over too much would
| have needed a potentially ugly repair.
|
| I speak en_GB so when I say router (spinning power tool)
| and router (IP packet shuffler) they sound different.
|
| I've just taken a look at that page you linked and may
| have to dump my browser cache and try and forget where I
| saw the link ... 8)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I started with power tools. Moved to hand tools for a year
| or so when I moved houses and still had my table saw, etc.
| in storage.
|
| Now that I my power tools are back in the garage -- I can't
| quit the power tools -- right back relying on them. I just
| couldn't plane quite as nice as my joiner (and certainly
| not in one pass). And sharpening the hand tools...
|
| I earnestly _want_ to do more hand-tool woodworking. I keep
| thinking that, as I get older, I 'll eventually full in on
| hand tools. But at 61 years old ... not yet.
| daedrdev wrote:
| I feel like you want to teach that they are dangerous and can
| be used safely when careful. A woodworker I know almost cut
| their finger clean off despite having years of experience.
| gerdesj wrote:
| A British magician called Paul Daniels managed to slice
| some fingers on a table saw. He had been making his own
| tricks gear for decades.
|
| Safety thinking can slip - you only have to cock up once
| when you are pushing an amorphous mass into a blade
| spinning at say 3000 rpm and lose concentration.
|
| Table saws, band saws etc and the like are dreadful.
|
| My wife manages to make a simple drill/driver somewhat
| dangerous to the point that I have to sometimes fake a
| reason why husband should take over (yes I am very careful
| - she's generally sharper than the tool in question!)
| gerdesj wrote:
| "Teaching kids that power tools don't need to be scary as
| long as they're used safely is a worthwhile output on its own
| IMO."
|
| True but real safety first thinking is not something that a
| purchasing decision will fix.
|
| I have a scar on one of my fingers that was caused by a
| broken broom! How bloody naff is that but it bled like
| buggery and a 1" flap of finger flapped for a while and
| needed stitches at A&E (for Americans - that's where you pop
| in and a few hours later pop out, all patched up without a
| credit card being involved).
|
| I wasn't wearing gloves. I am a first aider, H&S rep for my
| company (my company - I care about my troops) and so on. I
| was sweeping my drive with a broom with a hollow metal tube
| handle and it partially snapped and hinged and caught my
| finger and partially sliced a lump. Oh and I am the fire
| officer and even my house has a multi page fire plan.
|
| I own a plethora of torture devices - a table saw, multiple
| chain saws, chisels and the rest. I have skied for four
| decades and drive a car/van/lorry.
|
| Safety first thinking doesn't mean that you escape all of
| life's efforts to kill you but you do get a better chance of
| avoiding damage.
|
| A power tool that promises safety might be missplaced.
| However, this one does not missrepresent itself. It does what
| it does and it does it well.
|
| For me, I will be digging out the hand cranked jigsaw when I
| show the grand kids how to chop off their fingers: A fret
| saw. However that thing looks like a great introduction to
| dealing with power tools.
| WillAdams wrote:
| The best advice I ever got re: power tools from an old shop
| teacher was that before throwing the switch and powering up a
| machine, to count to 10 on one's fingers under one's breath
| while reviewing every aspect of the planned operation, and
| all the forces involved, reminding oneself that one wants to
| be able to repeat the count in the same way after the switch
| is turned off.
|
| That said, I think it's best to maintain a healthy respect
| for, and even to a reasonable degree to be afraid of the
| machines and the forces which they can exert.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > the tools seem too scary
|
| They are too scary.
|
| Consider table saws. SawStop built its brand on not cutting
| fingers off, which is scary enough. But it turns out that
| kickback causes a lot more injuries and that's not really
| addressed well by any tools.
|
| https://www.sawstop.com
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulvP8Vv9SrE
|
| There ought to be a market for MEs to design power tools that
| are safer for consumers. So where is the obviously-named
| "KickStop" table saw? Maybe the decline in the middle class
| makes that market too small to consider such improvements.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| The saw stop creator patented and tried to license his tech
| (not make a saw,) the major manufacturers didn't want to
| pay the license fees.
|
| I sort of get it, for actual job sites using dimensional
| lumber you're going to have the saw in bypass the entire
| time because the wood is wet, making the safety moot so the
| market is there for hobbyists but not pros.
|
| First thing the "pros" do is remove the guards. I've never
| seen a guard on a jointer or a shaper at a pro shop. The
| products fit the demand in the market.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I'm a pro. I'll agree about guards on a table saw. The
| ones we get in the USA are without exception crap. I
| haven't used a Wadkin or European style saw. I can only
| assume that as much as they must cost to make, there's
| some merit to them. A riving knife is a really nice
| feature and I wholeheartedly recommend leaving it in.
|
| Shapers are a mixed bag. If you're running enough
| straight stock making moldings, you've probably got
| enough featherboards and/or hold downs if not a power
| feeder set up that you'd really have to try to get hurt.
| For smaller jobs or curves work, it's a tossup, but yeah,
| a lot of it gets done without a guard.
|
| Jointers I'm going to disagree with you: I pretty much
| refuse to run without a guard. Except for rabbeting, I
| haven't found a good reason to do so. I _have_ done so in
| other shops, usually on machines so old that the guard
| was lost 50 years ago and is irreplaceable. Generally
| though, if I don 't see a guard on a jointer in a shop,
| I'm pretty wary about what else might be being treated a
| bit too casually. A guard on a jointer is an easy win
| with very little downside.
| bluGill wrote:
| The expensive saws in the US come with good guards.
| However there is no way you can put a $300 guard on a saw
| and sell the whole saw for $100. Thus cheap saws get
| cheap guards that get removed (if they are even
| installed). Stick with hand tools until you can afford
| the expensive saws with good guards is my advice.
|
| The above is about table saws. There are other power saws
| you should consider instead that are cheap and work.
| However there is a reason the table saw is considered the
| king of so many woodshops and until you get a good one
| you will be compromising ability to do some common jobs.
| Just because everything can be done with a rock to high
| doesn't mean most people are willing to do that and I
| don't blame them: a table saw should be in your plans or
| shop if you are a woodworker.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Out of curiosity: who does make a table saw with a decent
| guard in the non-industrial price range? Even Powermatic
| and SawStop ship with guards that suck.
|
| For the record, mine is a Unisaw from the late '70s. I've
| got an original Delta sliding table for it that greatly
| improves dealing with any wide pieces, but it's
| definitely not the equal of a Felder, for example.
|
| I would be hard pressed to justify the space for a euro-
| style slider. I usually have the sliding table off unless
| I am doing a job that requires it because of the floor
| space it takes up.
| bluGill wrote:
| I don't know - I've never had the budget for a nice saw.
| I've come close a few times, but something else comes up.
|
| If you are spending $2000 on a saw spending $300 on a
| third party guard to go with it isn't such big deal. The
| cheap saws often are not even strong enough to attach the
| nice guard if you would spend the money.
| LargeWu wrote:
| The guard on my table saw mostly serves as a reminder to
| keep my fingers away from it. I don't expect it would
| actually prevent any sort of injury.
| bluGill wrote:
| A good guard will prevent kickback and thus save you from
| injury. Fingers are an obvious risk of a say (and such
| accidents happen all the time), but kickback is the
| larger danger and the right guards will prevent that.
| LargeWu wrote:
| On my consumer grade Dewalt, the blade guard, riving
| knife, and kickback guard are all separate components, so
| I guess I was considering them separately. I still don't
| trust the kickback guard fully either, so attempt to
| stand off to the side if possible if I'm worried about
| kickback.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I agree, my jointer has a guard but you need to pull a
| little Allen key out to put the guard on/off. That little
| extra friction is enough I think. Someone needs to rabbet
| and never puts the guard back on.
|
| Personally I like my digits, but I'm not in a production
| shop where every second counts, I just do this for myself
| and I make my living typing. I would tolerate any amount
| of friction to keep my fingers in the same configuration
| they are currently in.
| creato wrote:
| > So where is the obviously-named "KickStop" table saw?
|
| It's called a riving knife?
| WillAdams wrote:
| Safe is a function of training and guards and competence
| when using a tool and above all an awareness of the forces
| involved and how to position oneself so that should
| something go wrong, one will not be in the line of movement
| of potential projectiles. This means that the first thing
| one must ask oneself when walking up to a tool is, "Am I
| well-rested, and sufficiently clear-headed and well-versed
| in this operation that I will be able to focus on using
| this tool safely?"
|
| Sawstop wouldn't have a business model if tablesaw
| accidents were tried by a jury of shop teachers whose
| awareness of this is brought into focus by a career of
| explaining how to safely use power tools (see my post
| elsethread).
| hooverd wrote:
| My recent Dewalt table saw purchase with a blade guard,
| riving knife, and anti-kickback. So they've gotten better
| at least.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| The first step to respecting power tools or firearms is
| fearing what they can do when mishandled.
| ordu wrote:
| _> I like it from the standpoint of kids not being afraid of
| power tools._
|
| I'm personally cultivating my fear for power tools. I
| consciously work on it so I wouldn't get used to them and
| wouldn't stop being afraid. Fear makes me more attentive,
| more careful, it forces me to think first and to do next. To
| stop myself when things go not as planned and think again. It
| is almost impossible to distract me while I'm cutting wood or
| whatever I'm doing with a power tool. I'm afraid of the tool,
| I wouldn't let my attention to switch from it while it is
| powered.
|
| It is funny, that psychologists believe that fears is a bad
| thing that must be eliminated. At least all I've talked about
| fears believed in that. But fears are good, they come with a
| danger detector included, and they are hard to ignore.
|
| _> Teaching kids that power tools don 't need to be scary as
| long as they're used safely is a worthwhile output on its own
| IMO._
|
| I believe, that either "to use safely" or "not scary". There
| is no middle ground. Though it maybe just my own way to the
| safety, maybe others know other ways.
|
| _> Plenty of adults would never do woodworking because the
| tools seem too scary._
|
| The fears that stop you from doing are probably bad, but from
| the other hand, before using power tools you'd better learn
| how to do it safely. I learned all of them from experienced
| people, who demonstrated me how to do it properly, watched me
| and explained me what I'm doing wrong. So, maybe, they are
| right.
| starkparker wrote:
| > I'm personally cultivating my fear for power tools.
|
| I get what you're saying, but to get there you have to
| willfully conflate an irrational fear of unknown
| consequences with a rational fear of known consequences.
| The barrier for many adults to power-tool use is the
| former, which blocks them from acquiring the latter.
| hooverd wrote:
| You should maintain a healthy fear of power tools. They're
| like big cats. You can be familiar, but never get too
| comfortable.
| preinheimer wrote:
| It is not easy for children to cut cardboard with scissors. I'd
| say that remains true at least until age 10. Some younger may
| be able to manage a small amount of cutting but would get tired
| quickly.
|
| I volunteer with scouts, kids aged 5-8. We ran a cardboard
| based activity with the makedo stuff. We tried to supplement
| with scissors, they were not effective.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Also, scissors tend to crush cardboard at the cut. This looks
| like it is not doing that.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Cutting thick cardboard with scissors is a good way to hurt
| yourself.
|
| You need some strength and a sharp blade to cut cardboard with
| scissors, for a child, it can mean going full force. And the
| more strength you use, the less control you have, increasing
| the chance of hurting yourself. That's also the reason why dull
| knives are considered dangerous. Scissors are for paper, not
| cardboard.
|
| This tool looks much more controllable, which means it is
| safer, even before considering the intrinsic safety of the
| mechanism, more precise, and more fun to use.
| mmastrac wrote:
| I remember the feeling of bruising my joints with scissors as
| a kid.
| labster wrote:
| See, it builds character!
|
| Kids get really dull scissors, shared with other kids. Of
| course they're difficult to use.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Doubly so if you're left-handed.
|
| I thought left-handed scissors are some bullshit sales
| tactic to eke out some extra cash out of clueless people,
| until I saw someone on HN explain why "handedness" of
| scissors is a thing - and then I finally connected the
| dots and realized why my (then) 4yo daughter is
| struggling with scissor crafts so much. Got her a pair of
| left-handed scissors and, lo and behold, her cutting
| improved on the spot.
|
| (We then bought some more and gifted them to her
| kindergarten, to make sure she and other left-handed kids
| have a pair when needed, because the idea was new even to
| some of the personnel there.)
| Freak_NL wrote:
| My house has a number of left-hand scissors for me and my
| wife, but only since half a decade or so. For most of our
| lives right-handed scissors dominated, and no one ever
| seemed to care in schools etc., whereas we did get left-
| handed fountain pens at some point.
|
| My son, fortunately for him, is right-handed. I have no
| doubt that this saves him a lot of frustration.
|
| If you are left-handed and reading this, get yourself
| some nice left-handed scissors. Trust me.
| alias_neo wrote:
| > whereas we did get left-handed fountain pens at some
| point
|
| Writing was the bane of my life in high-school, where
| they insisted we use fountain pens; I had no idea left-
| handed fountain pens existed. Even with a more suited
| pen, I imagine it wouldn't resolve the issue of running
| your hand through the wet-ink you've just laid down.
|
| That was some decades ago now, and I intend never to
| write with one again, so there's that.
|
| EDIT: I just realised I still have my the last fountain
| pen I used at school (25+ years ago?) in my pen-holder
| and grabbed it, it's a Parker Frontier, steel with "gold"
| accent/clip. I still have a strange fondness for that pen
| despite not ever wanting to write with it again.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I think it was one of those phases education went
| through. My writing isn't bad even, but that is despite
| some of the pedagogical approaches in vogue at the time.
| I remember getting a left-handed work book for practising
| the loops and waves in the first grade as a step before
| actual writing, and the approach used went so far as to
| demand left-handed children write with a backwards slant!
| Pure lunacy for kids learning to write. I never accepted
| that idea and just went on smudging my paper until
| ballpoints took over.
|
| Now I write using a Japanese Kurutoga mechanical pencil.
| No pens for me if I can help it.
| rapnie wrote:
| > no one ever seemed to care in schools etc., whereas we
| did get left-handed fountain pens at some point.
|
| Older generations were actively trained to 'become'
| right-handed. My father at school used to get slapped on
| the hand with a ruler by the teacher, whenever he took
| his pen in the left hand.
| alias_neo wrote:
| The thing about being left-handed, is that as you get
| older, you generally become reasonably proficient at
| doing things right handed, because the world is built for
| right-handed people, but from my experience, never quite
| get the same level of control.
|
| I do quite a few things right handed, some I only do
| right-handed; and interestingly, I have more
| strength/power in my right arm/hand but have more control
| with my left.
|
| Left-handed scissors are something I've known about ever
| since I can remember, but given how infrequently I use
| them, I've never bothered to buy a left-handed pair, and
| continue to just struggle along the couple of times I do
| need to use them.
|
| My kids seem to switch back and forth between left and
| right, but they're still young, so I'm keeping an eye out
| for either of them being left-handed so I can help make
| things easier for them (an excuse to get some left-handed
| scissors perhaps?) if it does turn out to be the case.
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| I remember cutting chart paper (thin card stock), then
| corrugated cardboard which was easy unless you were cutting
| perpendicular to the grooves and finally heavy card which,
| I agree was finger bruising. There's also some amount of
| fun in improvising tools from what you have around you. I'm
| wandering dangerously close to the "back in my day"
| territory but nevertheless. I think there's a place for
| childrens tools that are close enough to the real deal but
| still safe. However, going too far away from the real deal
| makes it _just_ a toy.
|
| I got my son some balsa, sandpaper and a sharp knife. I
| also got him a pair of gloves which were resistant to the
| blade. Showed him how to use all of those and he's quite
| good with his hands. Carved a few trinkets for his friends.
|
| I remember an article about, I think the Inuit, exposing
| their kids to cutting tools early on in their lives. Can't
| find the link. Perhaps there's some kind of optimal point
| in between that balances between "real" and safe.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| With proper education, children (obviously) are safe
| around tools... Louis Braille notwithstanding. We've had
| sharps for 40,000 years. Use this one. Don't touch that
| one until you're bigger. Same as crossing the road: small
| ones OK; big ones DO NOT GO THERE.
|
| The problem lies in the words "proper education". Dropped
| off at school is not sufficient, so kids get blunt
| scissors that will barely cut.
| strken wrote:
| My woodworking teacher in highschool was missing two
| fingers on his right hand. I don't think anyone is 100%
| safe around tools, child or adult, educated or otherwise.
| Life's about risks and how you manage them.
|
| Which is not to say that kids can't be trusted to use
| tools! It's just that they're probably more vulnerable to
| overconfidence and complacency than adults, who are by no
| means safe from these things themselves, so it's probably
| better to let them cut themselves once or twice on a
| sharp knife before you let them use something with more
| permanent consequences, like a bandsaw.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Your mind will play tricks on you, the last thing you'll
| think before the accident is 'this is safe'. In machining
| a technique to fight that thought is - don't touch
| anything with your finger that you wouldn't touch with
| your 'pecker'. With falling asleep while driving you'll
| often think a little nap wont hurt - an absolutely
| ridiculous thought in hindsight but you're not working
| with 100% of your faculties 100% of the time.
|
| There are many activities where accidents are rare but
| severe resulting in overconfidence. In activities like
| motorbike riding or gliding aircraft people will convince
| themselves that they're skilled enough when all that has
| happened is that they've been lucky, and given enough
| instances their luck will eventually run out. Knowing the
| stats can help avoid confusing luck with skill.
|
| I generally study the stats and even I get caught out,
| usually when working while fatigued so I simply have to
| refuse to work when that happens - the accidents are not
| worth it.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Why knife is good for Balsa?
|
| I was working on wood 3d model and one piece broke, and I
| was trying to cut a replacement out of the extra wood
| available, and couldn't get a cutter to work.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| The problem with this kind of thinking is that it doesn't take
| into account how annoying other methods can be. Or how tools
| open up possibilities.
|
| I can beat 10 egg whites by hand. I've done it several times.
| But it sucks. A handheld electric beater is fairly cheap and
| way better. You know what's even better? A stand mixer that
| cost several hundred dollars.
|
| Is it worth it? If you bake a lot it's worth it.
|
| This biggest problem with this kids toy is that it's for kids
| and cost ~$250. It's really an adult toy or something for the
| classroom.
|
| If it was half the price, I'd pick one up, have bit of fun and
| on sell it or donate to other families.
| xdennis wrote:
| Agreed. It's like that old Russia-America joke. When they go to
| space they find out pens don't work because of gravity.
| Americans spend millions developing a pen which works without
| gravity while the Russians use a pencil.
|
| I don't like Russians, but it's so stereotypically American to
| over-engineer a complicated alternative to scissors.
| Marazan wrote:
| And just like the old joke your are missing important
| practicalities.
|
| Pencils in space were terrible. Small chunks of carbon
| absorber of and getting in electrics was bad. Pens were a
| huge improvement.
|
| Likewise I can't only presume you haven't ever cut large
| quantities of corrugated cardboard with scissors or ever seen
| a child struggle with the task. This device looks to be a
| massive utility increase for cardboard cutting for children.
| bluGill wrote:
| It wasn't the Americans who spent millions. It was a single
| American: Paul C. Fisher who spent it own money because he
| thought Astronauts should have a good pen to use in space.
| His pen was so much better than the pencils used by both the
| Americans and Russians that both immediately switched to
| using his pens.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I'm pretty sure a nibbler will not wear out anywhere as quickly
| as scissors.
|
| It can allow young children to work independently so you'd have
| to factor in cost of supervision with the scissors.
|
| Main problem with it is that it is more expensive than many
| real nibblers designed to cut steel, I guess for now that it is
| niche and designed for classroom use. Mass market it and I
| think it could easily come down to $50.
| conductr wrote:
| Not at all bothered by this, this is very unique. Scissor
| skills are important but more so for paper which has
| limitations versus cardboard. I use a lot of power tools and my
| kid watches me kind of bored, unable to participate. I could
| easily see him feeling like we were 'working together' if I had
| one of these setup in my shop. He also likes to create all
| kinds of stuff and I'd be interested to see what he'd come up
| with.
|
| But, what does bother me is the price, $250 seems steep.
| modeless wrote:
| For the price you could get five of these cardboard cutting tool
| kits. https://www.make.do/products/makedo-discover
| tptacek wrote:
| If the only goal you have is cutting cardboard there are
| obviously more cost-effective ways to do that.
| modeless wrote:
| But these specific tools are similar in that they can't cut
| skin so they are completely safe for kids, and can make
| curved shapes in cardboard relatively easily (more easily
| than scissors at least).
| felixgallo wrote:
| I was a little worried in the video by the kid wearing a sleeve.
| Seems like that could get sucked up into the mechanism pretty
| quick.
| analog31 wrote:
| I'm a pretty OK machinist, but not a professional. My reaction
| is to think about long / loose hair, long sleeves and loose
| clothing, and (unlikely for kids) neckties. Those would be of
| concern for any open blade cutting machine, grinder, etc.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Will an oscillating cutter suck up much of anything?
| felixgallo wrote:
| https://www.osha.gov/ords/imis/accidentsearch.accident_detai.
| ..
| foobarian wrote:
| > Keywords: ROTATING PARTS
|
| There are no rotating parts in the OP tool
| puetzk wrote:
| That's a rotating spindle, which indeed can catch a loose
| thread and reel it in. An oscillating cuter moves back and
| forth, so it unrolls just as much as it rolls, with no net
| pull.
|
| And if the oscillation strokes are short enough it can saw
| rigid material while just vibrating jiggly flesh (this is
| how the saws used for cutting off casts work). Though
| cardboard is also pretty floppy, so the mechanism here is
| probably different (mostly the puck guard keeping fingers
| out)
| petesergeant wrote:
| In the product video they address this concern, and literally
| show kids covering it with their hair while it's on, and say
| it's safe
| solatic wrote:
| Yeah, if they're going to market this as kid-safe, they need to
| have videos of what happens when child-size fingers are
| intentionally fed into the machine, when hair is intentionally
| fed into the machine, etc.
|
| Almost by definition, you cannot presume (as a product
| designer) that children will be capable of thinking of their
| own safety; which is not the same as a parent who knows their
| child, making the decision to expose their child to
| developmentally-appropriate risk
| Karliss wrote:
| > they need to have videos
|
| The video demonstrating exactly that is pretty much the only
| thing on the linked page beside few pictures and less than 1
| paragraph of text.
| SirMaster wrote:
| How? It's oscillating, not spinning.
|
| Like a cast saw or an electric toothbrush.
| wingmanjd wrote:
| My wife bought one of these. First one arrived was dead on
| arrival, but the second works great!
| throwaway889900 wrote:
| Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather teach how to use a knife
| safely? And a cut from a blade is a lesson to be learned,
| hopefully only once.
|
| Edit: Oh and if anyone's looking for the tool name, it's called a
| nibbler. This one is just table-mounted, there are power tool and
| unpowered versions ofc.
| viraptor wrote:
| > And a cut from a blade is a lesson to be learned, hopefully
| only once.
|
| A cut from a simple blade (that can't chop your finger off) can
| be anything from easily healed to going through just the right
| part to limit the dexterity for life if you're unlucky. There's
| lots of time to learn using a sharp knife when they have great
| fine motor skills already.
| rtkwe wrote:
| You can introduce this way before you can trust a kid with a
| knife sharp enough to cut cardboard and they can use it way
| more independently.
| conductr wrote:
| Exactly, you're basically telling them you can't build stuff
| until you're 8+. Which coincidentally is around the age
| they'd lose interest
| rtkwe wrote:
| There are other tools you can safely use as a young kid and
| young kids can use knives etc they just need a lot of
| supervision and instruction. Hand saws are relatively safe
| compared to box cutters for example, they're unlikely to
| cut super deep but working with wood is a lot harder and
| more expensive. The cardboard hand tools mentioned
| elsewhere in the comments here are neat though they look
| like they work pretty well without having any sharp edges.
| conductr wrote:
| I agree, I'd do the Makedo style tools before this thing.
| But, I think the other part is this is an indoor activity
| with these tools. Handsaws would be outside for me (I
| don't want my house/furniture getting nicked during
| play).
|
| The other part is, I simply don't want to heavily
| supervise their creative play. Everything kids do these
| days is planned and supervised, building a fort in your
| house shouldn't be.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Yeah do the hand tools and if they get into it in a big
| way this is a neat improvement, looks super easy to cut
| out complex shapes very quickly compared to the Makedo
| version.
|
| I got some of their connectors in an Adabox I think a few
| years back and they were neat.
| fhub wrote:
| My five year old played with this quite a bit at Maker Faire last
| year. He picked it up quite well. I had it in my mind to get him
| one for his next birthday but forgot until I saw this post. His
| school has Makedo tools and he likes them. So the combination
| might be something that he'd use on a semi-regular basis. We have
| no shortage of "material" being delivered.
| conception wrote:
| Got one of these yesterday that was on sale for prime day. They
| are super fun!
| IAmBroom wrote:
| How much sale?
| dylan604 wrote:
| "The nibblings are collected in a bin below, allowing you to
| recycle the waste."
|
| In my area, this type of waste is not accepted in the recycling.
| Just like you can put paper in recycle, but you can't put
| shredded paper. This would work pretty well in the compost pile
| though.
| Wingman4l7 wrote:
| Yeah, this is 100% wish-cycling -- and honestly, the total
| amount of shavings you'd be throwing away after using this
| device heavily wouldn't even amount to a single small cardboard
| box.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I took out my comment calling it wish-cycling propaganda as a
| selling point, and decided to be less cynical. Anytime I see
| that kind of obvious play on the recycling heart string as a
| selling point just makes me throw up a little and roll my
| eyes all at the same time. The marketing department just goes
| overboard and nobody calls them on it
| Retric wrote:
| Recycle is more than just the municipal recycling stream,
| you can use that kind of shavings for some things. For
| example use glue to add fur to a cardboard creation.
| Jolter wrote:
| That's a good example of reuse, not recycling.
|
| Recycling means making new cardboard or paper out of old
| material.
| bluGill wrote:
| Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. That is an ordered list, you move
| to the next step only after you can done everything you
| can in the previous step.
| Retric wrote:
| The common definition, "Reuse is the action or practice
| of using an item, whether for its original purpose or to
| fulfill a different function."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuse Reusing grocery bags
| as trash bags is the same item in a new context.
|
| "Recycling is the process of converting waste materials
| into new materials _and objects._
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling
|
| Old tires to footwear is recycling even if you can see
| the old tread pattern you don't have a tire at this point
| it's a new item, or as I suggested cardboard crap waste
| to fir on a piece of artwork. The difference is you're
| modifying the underlying item for use as part of
| something new.
|
| It can feel like a grey area. Upcycled is often used when
| much of the original item remains, but shredded cardboard
| isn't really cardboard as it lacks some of its
| fundamental properties arising from the 3D structure.
| asielen wrote:
| If it is clean, can't you also compost it?
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Or, you know, just bin the 1/2-ounce of shavings.
| coldpie wrote:
| > and nobody calls them on it
|
| This is so low on the long list of bad things in the world
| that it isn't worth the calories burned to type up a
| callout.
|
| > I took out my comment calling it wish-cycling propaganda
| as a selling point, and decided to be less cynical.
|
| Good call. I thought the comment as you wrote it was
| perfectly good & useful.
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| I've got one, my 3yr old loves it and uses it with supervision to
| make large pieces of cardboard into smaller pieces...
|
| A warning, it's a bit loud, definitely invest in kid's hearing
| protection to wear when using it.
| sheiyei wrote:
| For $250, it was not worth it even before you told that.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| For 250 dollars I'd expect a motor you can barely hear, not one
| that needs hearing protection! And at least a partly alloy
| case.
|
| Proxxon is a fairly pricy German mini-tool brand, has a far
| smaller addressable market (i.e. serious miniature hobbyists)
| and can still sell you a made-in-Europe MP 400 Micro Shaper, a
| mini router table, with 10 cutters, for about 200. The manual
| says it's 104dBA, but this video indicates it's actually fairly
| quiet in practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpmzqvHqQM0
| WillAdams wrote:
| Even so, hearing loss is irreversible --- best to begin a
| life-long habit of wearing PPE with this tool.
| hinterlands wrote:
| The article starts by dismissing scrollsaws as "pretty darn
| dangerous", but that's a pretty big stretch. They're less
| dangerous than a sharp kitchen knife. You want to talk to your
| kids and watch them closely the first couple of times they use
| it, but you'd be hard-pressed to find any accounts of serious
| injuries caused by scrollsaws.
|
| This toy doesn't seem _bad_ as a crafts tool that buys you
| several quiet weekends, but at $250... that 's actually more than
| a miniature desktop scrollsaw (Proxxon 37088).
| bityard wrote:
| I don't have direct experience with a scroll saw but I own
| (well, made) a bandsaw and it's my favorite power tool. There's
| a lot you can do with it but more importantly, it's incredibly
| safe: The blade stays in one place and will never jump out at
| you or throw your workpiece into your abdomen. If you let your
| mind wander, you might end up with a cut on your finger. But
| that's about it. It's pretty much impossible to lose your
| finger to a bandsaw unless you have permanent nerve damage or
| are doing your woodworking on meth.
| MadnessASAP wrote:
| You've never seen the blade of a bandsaw break? Throwing the
| blade at you is definitely one of the bandsaws failure modes.
| Doxin wrote:
| > If you let your mind wander, you might end up with a cut on
| your finger.
|
| If you let your mind wander you might lob off a finger before
| the pain signal reaches your brain. Band saws are safe in
| that they are largely unlikely to do anything unexpected.
| They are _very_ dangerous in that they seem so safe.
|
| No one is going to messing around with a table saw. The
| danger is obvious. It's very tempting to be unsafe around a
| band saw since it seems so safe.
|
| If you want to see some scary stuff go look up how bandsaws
| are used in slaughterhouses. They'll use them to lob a whole
| cow in half in under a second. Now imagine what it'll do to a
| finger while you're looking the other way.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Usually you aren't feeding wood into a bandsaw at the rate
| they're feeding cows into a bandsaw at a slaughter house
| though.
|
| Apart from being a complete dunce, the usual way to get cut
| with a bandsaw is to be feeding with too much uncontrolled
| force and hitting a soft spot in the wood or running the
| blade out of the wood.
|
| But yeah, when I'm teaching, the safety talk includes the
| line "Every piece of meat you see in a butcher shop was
| from an animal that was cut up with a bandsaw."
|
| If you want to see something truly terrifying, the ones
| they use to cut up foam are big enough to cut a massive
| block of foam, and the blade is just a big, continuous band
| of razor blade.
| Doxin wrote:
| > Apart from being a complete dunce
|
| Or growing complacent.
|
| I think we largely agree on the dangers of a bandsaw to
| be honest. The only disagreement seems to be how likely
| it is for a skilled operator to fuck up. Which is for
| sure debatable unless someone drags in statistics, but
| given the context I still feel like calling a bandsaw
| safe _in the context of a childrens toy_ is reckless at
| best.
|
| > If you want to see something truly terrifying, the ones
| they use to cut up foam are big enough to cut a massive
| block of foam, and the blade is just a big, continuous
| band of razor blade.
|
| Yikes, that does sound like the sort of machine I'd not
| even want to be in the same building with. I sure hope
| they don't ship those blades coiled up like they do with
| regular bandsaw blades. You'd need a bomb difusal robot
| to unpack that safely!
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I think being aware of becoming complacent is a really
| good point. If you're doing a bunch of really repetitive
| work, it's a good idea to take a break and get your head
| back in the job at hand rather than letting it wander.
|
| I'm fortunate in that I'm self-employed and get to
| arrange my work to switch things up as needed. I'm also
| not usually making a million of anything that would
| demand doing the same operation for extended periods. I
| realize that not everyone working in wood has these
| advantages.
| bityard wrote:
| > If you let your mind wander you might lob off a finger
| before the pain signal reaches your brain.
|
| I'm curious if you have ever used a bandsaw? Woodworking
| bandsaws just do not cut that fast. It would take multiple
| seconds of sustained pushing to get through all the meat
| and bone, it would be very painful and messy. You have a
| FAR better chance of cutting off your finger with a sharp
| common kitchen knife than a bandsaw.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > less dangerous than a sharp kitchen knife
|
| Which is less dangerous than a dull kitchen knife.
|
| https://yakushiknives.com/blogs/yakushi-blog-all-thing-knive...
| phyzome wrote:
| I've been cut way more often and more seriously with sharp
| knives than with dull knives.
|
| Everyone says this thing but I suspect it isn't true at all.
| taco_emoji wrote:
| Right, I think this is one of those myths that catches hold
| because it's contrarian and has a _grain_ of truth.
|
| Like I think dull knives are _more dangerous than you 'd
| think_, but saying they're "more dangerous than sharp
| knives" is IMO patently false. I've certainly slipped more
| with dull knives, but... they're dull. They just cannot do
| as much damage. A dull knife will not take the tip of your
| finger off. A sharp one will do it before you even feel the
| pain.
|
| A sharp knife without proper technique is FAR more
| dangerous.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| > watch them closely the first couple of times they use it
|
| How about every time?
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| Depends on the child and the activity right?
|
| Personally I often prefer to introduce new activities just at
| the point where I'd feel comfortable leaving them
| unsupervised (once they've learned it).
|
| A major goal of parenting is to guide your children to
| independence. This is a sort of negotiation between you,
| reality and the child. While it can be heartbreaking when
| they come to you with injuries, you can't watch them all the
| time (and it's not healthy to try).
|
| If you introduce an activity "too early" such that you
| _always_ have to supervise, it has some advantages for child
| but can quickly become a drain on you (they want to do that
| $thing again but you have other stuff to do) and they feel
| less independent because they always need your help to do it.
|
| What our family looks out for a lot is "cliff edges". This is
| where an activity or situation has a high / unreasonable risk
| vs benefit, and the harm happens quickly and is surprising.
| These require special attention. Once kids know where the
| "cliff edges" are they can explore more safely.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That would be overbearing and cost you a lot of time. Kids
| want to do things on their own, they would lose interest if
| there's someone looming over them all the time.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| So much for parental supervision, huh?
|
| You would be amazed how many kids end up in A&E due to this
| mentality.
|
| > cost you a lot of time
|
| Welcome to parenting.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Yeah I thought it was really cool until I saw the price. Its a
| toy and costs more than most real tools. I cant help but think
| everything is a cash grab aimed at the rich nowdays. Maybe it
| really does cost that much but all I see is some plastic and a
| <$5 wholesale motor.
| cap11235 wrote:
| And its cutting cardboard. When I was 12, I used an XActo
| blade for that, and they are definitely under $10. I don't
| know exactly prices now because I buy hundred packs of craft
| blades for like 20. This "product" is silly.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Cutting cardboard in a nice shape is difficult with a knife
| IMHO.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| This thing is so much fun. My friend's children have one. I was
| like, "Get the heck out of the way kid. This thing is mine now!"
| hinkley wrote:
| Everyone has dust collection in their wood shops now because wood
| dust is a Class 1 carcinogen.
| jstanley wrote:
| > The nibblings are collected in a bin below, allowing ...
|
| ...the child to spread them all around the house!
| jeffrallen wrote:
| My kids just take paring knives from the kitchen when they want
| to cut cardboard. More dangerous, but cheaper. Though they've
| probably destroyed $250 of knives... Hmm.
| sebstefan wrote:
| >an oscillating cutter that's safely tucked beneath a puck-like
| protrusion
|
| If it's an oscillation cutter it doesn't need to be that tiny, it
| can protrude just like a real band saw, it won't cut meat
| 0x445442 wrote:
| I want one!
| lupusreal wrote:
| A small oscillating scroll saw is pretty safe for kids, I used
| one a lot when I was a kid. Of course it's not _impossible_ to
| hurt yourself with one, but losing a finger is quite unlikely.
| Very different animal than a handheld jigsaw, those still spook
| me (and aren 't very good anyway, IMHO)
| amelius wrote:
| Can it do more than cardboard? Can it saw through plywood? Then
| it could replace the jigsaw.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Cool!
|
| When I was a tyke I had a powertool set that worked on 1/8-inch
| balsa wood (not easy to find!). It was powered with a 12V radio
| battery, and Could Not cut fingers. There was a drill (spade bit,
| so it sucked), a circular saw, and another tool I have forgotten.
|
| Pulled it out decades later for my niece to play with.
|
| This, however, has more input material than 1/8th inch balsa. And
| thus, more outputs possible.
| WillAdams wrote:
| 1/8" balsa was sold in hobby shops for making airplane wings
| and model rocket fins.
| knowitnone wrote:
| a pair of scissors costs $10
| adolph wrote:
| What is the purpose of a "power tool" that cuts cardboard? Is it
| for kids with dexterity challenges? Ex: blunt safety scissors to
| difficult
| mbonnet wrote:
| Light injuries from misused tool is an important lesson I will
| not deny my children.
| tines wrote:
| Nice, lingerie ads! Just what I want to see on my kids power tool
| website.
| nickpeterson wrote:
| Heads up, I've found the tools don't work well on lingerie.
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