grinding discs for carving/ finishing

[doobin]

I've got a rasp disc for a grinder. I'm not a carver, but it's awesome for all sorts of things such as getting sleeper joints to look spot on when landscaping (oak sleepers in particular are never uniform, often out widthways by 10mm!) Removes material at the speed of light.

 

I have just one question for those of you advising against such a disc due to loosing half your hand: what were you holding the grinder with, your knob?

[orkneyalan]

I've got a rasp disc for a grinder. I'm not a carver, but it's awesome for all sorts of things such as getting sleeper joints to look spot on when landscaping (oak sleepers in particular are never uniform, often out widthways by 10mm!) Removes material at the speed of light.

 

I have just one question for those of you advising against such a disc due to loosing half your hand: what were you holding the grinder with, your knob?

 

I think your opening statement sums that up "I'm not a carver"!

I am sure your rasp thingy is not bad to use and safe enough ,I think the main point here is using a chainsaw blade disc when the guy is only starting at chainsaw carving .

[orkneyalan]

also with regards to the carving bar, i nearly bought one for my 201 but decided against it as i know i will end up running it into the ground and its my money maker, perhaps i should pick up a little saw, 170 perhaps?

 

I use a 170 with a cannon dime tip 12" and I would highly recommend it nice and light and plenty of grunt with a quarter pitch chain .

[dervishcarving]

Hey Doobin. "im not a carver".... then it might be hard to understand the issues...

 

using a chainsaw to cut wood in half is safe, you use the main part of the bar, you dont go anywhere near the tip and so kickback is highly unlikely, its a simple straight cut and assuming you dont pinch teh chain nothing can go wrong

when you are carving with a chainsaw you are rarely doing simple 'cut it in half' cuts, you use all of the bar including the tip a lot, you do a lot of plunge cuts, a lot of full depth penetrating cuts, a lot of half or partial depth ones too, you use the saw on its side and upside down, you use the side of teh chain a huge amount and you are chucking that saw around all the time. so many things can go wrong, teh chances of the tip touching something is huge especially in complex pieces, damaging the piece and making the saw buck like a mule. unlike simple logging-cuts you cant just let the saw do the work, you have to guide the saw and sometimes force it to go against the 'easy path'. this is why we use small saws when we can, its why we dont use standard bars if we can possibly avoid it and why we dont tend to use full chisel standard chainsa and if we do use a standard chain the chances are we have modified it to work with our carving bars.

its teh same when we use other bits of kit... a rasp-grinder (flat-burr disc, rotating plane-discs and all of that sort) are great tools and if you are working on teh flat with them and you have the guards in place then yes, they should be nice and safe BUT... its nto often that you have simple flat surfaces when carving. the chances are that you have complex shapes and that brings in big chances of teh disc touching an edge and kicking back. i suspect most accidents that carvers have with these tools are just that, the took touches an edge/angle and kicks and things go wrong. Im 99% sure thats what happened to me. i had on my gloves (which is the other possible cause, a thread or somethign from teh glove got snagged on teh rotating chain of the lancelot tool which dragged my finger onto the chain) and the guard but maybe the took touched a raised spot and dug in and twisted teh anglegrinder in my hand and it caught my finger. others have had the tool suddenly bight in and pull out of their hand, i even know of 1 man who was using an arbotech and it riped out of his hands and cut his thigh! luckily it missed his femoral artery otherwise he would have bled out in about 20 seconds!

 

we accept that carving is a dam silly dangerous activity but we do all we can to try to keep teh risks as low as we can. that usualy includes keeping knobs wel away from tools

 

hope that helps with the understanding doobin:001_smile:

[gobbypunk]

well said Dervish keep knobs away from power tools Cheers Mark

[wisewood]

well said Dervish keep knobs away from power tools Cheers Mark

 

LOL, I agree good post Dave.

I should add that due to poor work positioning ( kneeling down and trimming a long lateral curve with the bar nose) I raked across my hip pocket at the power head.

My mobile in my pocket had a chunk taken out, better that than my knob

[Gnome]

Good post Dave. I have seen Dave's hand in person and that is enough to stop me from getting one of these discs.

 

As Simon has stated work positioning when carving can put you in more danger than we would wish for.

 

If I could hold my angle grinder with my knob I think I would have a much more interesting career.

[dervishcarving]

scary that Si. i let my larger saw swing too far on a lateral cut and relaxed my hold too much, it swing right behind me and JUST touched the back of my carving trousers... gave me a heck of a shock. since then i learnt to pay more attention!