Workshop Safety
Scope
Workshop Safety tests hazard recognition, the guards and PPE appropriate to each operation, and safe systems of work including electrical and fire safety.
Hazards and controls
- Machines: rotating cutters, blades, belts, kickback, ejected offcuts. Controls: fixed and interlocked guards, riving knife and crown guard, push sticks, feather boards, correct blade height.
- Hand tools: sharp edges, loose hammer heads, split handles, chisels rolling off the bench.
- Electrical: damaged leads, missing earths, wet floors; use RCD protection, tested tools, and isolate before adjustment.
- Fire: wood dust, solvent and polish vapour, oily rags (linseed oil rags can self-heat). Keep rags in a lidded metal bin; keep CO₂ extinguishers for electrical and foam or water for wood.
- Housekeeping: clear walkways, timber stacked level and low, no trailing cables, no compressed-air cleaning of clothing.
PPE
Safety glasses for machining and chiselling, hearing protection above 85 dB(A), FFP2/FFP3 dust mask for sanding, safety footwear, no loose clothing or jewellery. Gloves are for handling rough timber, never for a lathe, drill press or circular saw - they can be caught and drag the hand in.
Worked example
Setting up a circular saw bench: fit the riving knife level with the blade, set the crown guard, raise the blade just to clear the timber, check the fence is parallel, connect the extractor, use a push stick for the last 300 mm, and stand to one side of the blade line.
Traps
Removing a guard because it slows the job; wearing gloves at the lathe; treating a dust mask as protection against solvent vapour; leaving a machine running while clearing offcuts.