When you’re working in the privacy of your own woodshop, it can be tempting to forego safety measures. After all, who’s going to tell you no? Unfortunately, not wearing safety gear often means a trip to the emergency room, sometimes with long-lasting consequences. Discover how important safety gear is in a woodshop.
Protect Your Eyes
Probably the most important item of safety gear to wear in a woodshop is a good pair of well-fitting goggles. Goggles protect your eyes from tiny (or not so tiny) splinters of that fly off of your machines. They also help protect you from sawdust in your eyes. While not as dangerous, it’s still irritating.
Do Glasses Count As Goggles?
People who wear glasses sometimes decide not to bother with goggles. Lenses will basically do the same thing as goggles, right? Wrong! Your glasses don’t completely enclose the area around your eyes, so they don’t have the same protective power.
Avoiding Cuts and Splinters
Another important item of safety gear to keep in your woodshop is a pair of thick gloves. Some people avoid wearing gloves out of fear they’ll get caught in something. The trick is to find a pair that fits snugly but comfortably.
You can even find gloves with added grips on the palms and fingers. If you’re trying to stay safe while using a bandsaw or other power tools, good grip is important so that you can avoid cutting yourself while you hold your project steady.
Pull Back Your Hair
If you have long hair, make sure it’s secured away from your face and out of reach of machinery. The last thing you want is to end up like the woman who lost most of her scalp in a power tool accident. Not only will it hurt, but there could be serious consequences.
Wear Durable Shoes
Everyone drops things on occasion, but there can be dire effects if you drop something in a woodshop. Close-toed work boots are important safety gear because they protect your feet from anything you might drop on them. Heavy objects can break toes, while sharp ones can cut through flimsy footwear.
The bottom line is that wearing safety gear protects you from both small and serious injuries in the woodshop.
