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Mom was right to worry about your eyes – and you should too, especially as a woodworker.
By David Thiel
Pages: 60-65
From the April 2006 issue #154
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Every day there are an estimated 1,000 eye injuries reported in the American workplace. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also reports that three out of every five workers injured were not wearing eye protection at the time of the accident. While these statistics are for industry, it’s not too far a stretch of the imagination to assume that similar laxness also occurs in many home workshops.
So why aren’t we wearing safety glasses? In my informal focus group (I talked to a bunch of woodworkers), I gleaned that: “they’re ugly and uncomfortable”; “they fog up”; “I wear glasses and they don’t fit over them”; “I wear glasses, so I don’t need them”; and my favorite, “I can blink fast enough to avoid getting hit!”
Let me tackle that last one first. While you might be able to blink fast enough to avoid something hitting your eyeball, I’m pretty sure your eyelid isn’t made of Kevlar and it isn’t going to stop a ricocheting brad nail like the one shown here. In all honesty, it was pretty difficult to get that brad nail to puncture the safety glasses. I had to get within 1″ of the lens to produce a puncture. Everything else just bounced off. That’s protection that appeals to me.
From the April 2006 issue #154
Buy this issue now
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