Bod1 wrote:This topic, explains the attitude the Wood shop Foreman, back in the late 80's when I was lorry body building.
In past years the factory had been building ash framed lorry bodies, and as such had a full wood machining section.
Mostly Wadkins, of every description, rip saws with caterpillar tracks, chain mortisers, radial arm saws, that looked very much like Dalaks from Dr Who!
Amongst these were several spindle molders, NOBODY but nobody apart from him was allowed to touch them, if another machine could be used, then it was.
He would only use one himself, when the danger zone around the machine was clear, and that was big!
When he retired after 50 years, the wood shop was closed.
Very interesting comment Bod!
One thing about the spindle moulder that I would imagine made it that much more dangerous than other machines in the workshop in times gone by is that the spindle is vertically mounted, so there was quite a wide cone of "danger zone", as you say, from the cutter aperture outwards at about gut height so everyone standing within that large cone was in immediate danger. Whereas, with something like a table saw for example you're only in immediate danger if you're standing directly in front the blade and a piece is shot back like an arrow, with a large bandsaw you're only in immediate danger if you're standing side-on to the blade and the blade snaps...
I can't recall which book but it's one of the older ones in my collection that talks about the "death rattle" of square cutters just before they're about to eject from the block, which everyone in the workshop would hit the floor upon hearing the sound. I would guess the sound was a change in pitch as the cutter block is spinning, perhaps your foreman had a firsthand experience of a similar situation and as a result, became very jittery about them.
Of course, as I've written in my post, with new modern cutter blocks there is very little risk of any flying cutters as they are well secured in their blocks.
As an aside, the "rip saws with caterpillar tracks" were straight-line edgers, I've never used one myself but I remember reading a HSE case study where a boy fresh out of school was made to run one with very little to no training and he stuck his hand underneath the feeder to clear a jammed offcut and the feeder track running at a fast speed pulled his hand through the blade in less than a second and lopped all four fingers off just above the knuckles.