Official Luthiers Forum!

Given Mr. Fay's recent contretemps re: edge tools, I thought it useful to start a separate thread to address this important shop safety issue for woodworkers as well as to avoid what appears to be multi-day gaps between the appearance of new topics as we ease into summer on the OLF.

While my own chisels currently reside in a roll-around cabinet with rust blocking/preventative blocks (garage shops are the very devil for moisture control), the Germantown shop featured open storage similar to what I imagine Mr. Fay's storage arrangement to be. Two features are visible in the pictured holders: a roughly 10 degree cant to the actual fitted holder, and a beveled kick-plate to protect edges from catching on clothing, skin, or other tools being removed or returned to the racks. Some tools will not need these kick plates due to blade configuration and location relative to other edge tools - an example here are the short cranked neck paring chisels, which have handles which are well clear of any edges, and a well-fitted holder that forces the edges flush. The other purpose for the kick-strip is to ensure the tool handle is forced to the desired angle where the ferrule cannot be relied upon to do the job (i.e., the socket chisels seen in both pictures) or where the tool is carelessly mis-racked.





No approach is idiot-proof in reality - careless, distracted, or simply inexperienced coworkers can return a wider-bladed tool to the holder with edges 90 degrees to the tool board, return the tool to the wrong location, or return a swan neck with edge outward. All defeat careful engineering, and deserve some sharp words of instruction.

Not quite the same as safety of the scalp but any type of tool storage really doesn't want to be above your workbench. Any slight mishandling can drop the tool onto your part finished guitar and that is not good!

I have a big window behind my bench so didn't have to learn this until I was using a side table and had all sorts of things ready to fall on to it.

Cheers Dave

My daily drivers hang perpendicular to the pegboard wall in wire racks made for the pegboard.
I regularly consider the slight risk of jamming my hand into one of them- the cant is an elegant mitigation I will be incorporating!

_________________
Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Agree!

As the boys were fitting the Brazilian rosewood back to rim for Mr. Morelli's D-42 12 fret-to-body clone, a clamp stored over the bench decided to take the final plunge. The damage was significant, knocking a section of the back free. While CA and a decade of practice repairing boneheaded mistakes made the repair both quick and invisible (thank goodness for rosewood's repairability!), the incident resulted in a major shop renovation. Clamp storage was moved away from any bench areas and everything that could be removed from overhead was relocated to safer areas. This event was also the genesis of the slat wall installation and the initial LED lighting upgrades, with the slat wall an attempt to get a lot more on-wall storage of jigs, fixtures, and tools, This in turn created additional space for both the additional overhead lighting circuit wiring and a doubling of T-8 fixture count.

A bonus from those 2017 renovations was the ease with which that shop's recent dust collection automation upgrade was accomplished... without a bunch of clutter overhead, the 60 psi pneumatic lines, 12VDC solenoid valve control wiring, and low voltage current switch signaling wiring were all easily routed to the control hub from the blast gates and dedicated 110V and 220V reserved outlets. So nice to turn a machine on and have the correct blast gates open as the cyclone is spooling up, than reconfigure when switching between machines. No more running around the shop manually reconfiguring the blast gates.

In summary, creating a safer shop is also an opportunity to reorganize, modify, and expand.

I’ve found it best to avoid chisels and other edged weapons in general…

Touche'.