Carpentry is amongst the most rewarding activities or hobbies, with benefits ranging from personal skill development to a smart saving of money because you don’t need professional help anymore. If you’re the DIYer whose primary (or secondary) interest is working with cool tools and crafting amazing stuff, you can surely relate to the kind of fun carpentry offers.
However, this fun-filled, almost therapeutic activity also has its fair share of hazards and the likelihood of things going wrong, particularly because you’ll be working with lots of dangerous (sharp, heavy, brutal!) tools. And to make sure any misconduct, mishandling, or simply accidental bad thing does not happen to you, there are a few factors that you should take care of.
Keeping Yourself Safe During Carpentry | Tips Everyone Should Know
When starting with carpentry, whether you’re working on home projects or proceeding into Office Carpentry, it’s crucial to prioritize safety and follow these essential tips to ensure a safe and successful experience. If you aren’t very sure where to begin or what to prioritize, Fixit Carpentry is here to describe all major safety measures to take, before you head to fix something in your place or build a new one.
Let’s divide the course of action into a few different aspects:
1- Keeping Yourself Safe & Secure
Of course, welfare during any job starts with ensuring personal safety, irrespective of the complexity or risk level.
Here’s what you need to have in your personal safety arsenal before any sort of carpentry work:
- Safety Glasses: Opt for those with side shields to protect your eyes from debris such as sawdust. Many debris or hazardous materials can be undetectable and unavoidable, so your eyes should be covered properly.
- Hearing Protection: If your work is going to be noisy, such as too much involvement of power tools, invest in high-quality and appropriately-covering hearing protection, ear muffs, or ear plugs, to eliminate the (unfortunate) odds of noise-induced hearing loss.
- Dust/Respirator Mask: This one is especially crucial if you have any allergies or respiratory ailments. Even if you think you’re good to go without a mask, having one will keep you from accidentally inhaling toxins, chemicals, and/or dust particles during work.
- Thick Gloves: You must wear gloves all the time, even during minor carpentry projects. Besides, they are a must-have while dealing with sharp tools, most importantly timber pieces, since quite likely, they’ll have splinters or rough edges that would be menacing.
- Proper Clothing: Your clothing should be close-fitting and should cover every part of your body. As for the footwear, opt for sturdy ones that offer a greater grip so that there is no fear of getting slipped and injured.
2- Managing Tools The Right Way
While it might seem insignificant, safety during carpentry work also involves precise and timely management of all the equipment you work with.
Have a look at these essential considerations:
- Making Regular Inspections: Dull blades can be extremely fatal, therefore it’s important to keep checking and sharpening them or replacing them with new ones as required. Plus you should also check all other equipment for damages and act promptly.
- Using Compatible Equipment: As obvious as it might appear, use the right kind of (dedicated) tool for a job because doing otherwise can cause breakage of stuff and pose safety threats. In other words, don’t force a tool to do something it’s not designed for.
- Discontinuing Power Supply: Make sure to turn off and at best unplug all power tools while you’re changing blades, doing any adjustments, and before leaving the workspace, even for a short time. Being careful will always save you from huge trouble.
3- Maintaining All Workspace Conditions Cautiously
Next up, comes keeping your working site or workspace fine-tuned all the time. This goes in terms of both upkeep and maintaining safety at every step of your work.
While these aspects are practically numerous, we’ve jotted down a few important ones for you:
- Keeping Everything Clean: The most common yet influential factor to take care of, is to ensure keeping your workspace clean and well-organized all the time. This goes true for having the area clear of everything that could be a tripping hazard.
- Dealing With Cords: Be extremely careful while dealing with and putting away all electrical cords. Always have them away from the walking and working areas, and any water sources. Also, make sure they are coiled or wrapped safely and at enough distance.
- Having Tools Contained: Never leave any tools out even if you’re about to use them soon again. For projects or works requiring quick switching of tools, it’s very important to not be tempted to leave tools out, because they can be a major safety hazard.
- Disposing of Everything Properly: This goes for the accurate and timely disposal of all sharp materials or objects such as broken glass, nails, or blades. Make sure you put them away in a separate container or designated area, right away.
- Getting Business Insurance: If you happen to perform carpentry on a professional level, let’s say for customers or some other third parties, it’s more than important to have proper business insurance as well as general liability coverage to protect yourself against property damage or huge and costly injuries.
Don’ts Of Carpentry Work In Terms Of Maintaining Safety
Now that you know what you SHOULD DO, here’s a list of all the DON’TS to educate you about every act and approach to refrain from.
- Never wear loose clothing when you’re about to do carpentry work. Any loose piece of clothing like flowy sleeves, scarves or mufflers can get stuck in the machinery or power tools and lead to dreadful situations.
- Keep your body free of every jewelry, ornaments, piercings or other similar stuff, before you head to your carpentry site. Such objects also have a possibility of getting caught where you wouldn’t want them to.
- Never reach for grabbing or touching a piece of wood that is in a blade and be extremely cautious while feeding wood into the blade. Being patient at this point will go a long way in keeping you safe.
- Avoid indulging in tasks that are beyond your capacity, in terms of skill level as well as physical strength. Do not perform extremely intricate or hazardous tasks if you don’t have enough knowledge, availability of equipment, and/or no assistance at hand.
- Never work constantly even if you don’t feel the need to take breaks. Fatigue can set in more rapidly than you think and it can seriously hinder your judgments and eventually your ability to make the right decisions, leading to an increased chance of accidents.
Summarizing Everything
Carpentry, while being a hugely fruitful activity and skill set, does come with a plausibility of causing mild or at worst serious harm to oneself or their surroundings. That’s when being fully equipped with safety gear will come to your rescue, and will add years to your carpentry journey! We have talked about several personal, equipment-related, and worksite-related safety measures that you must ensure taking, every single time. And, with that said, we wish you the safest and most pleasant, plus favorable carpentry projects ahead.
