Post #211737 by tikigap on Tue, Jan 31, 2006 10:52 AM

I'm a novice carver, but not a novice with tools in general. I'm pretty safe usually, especially with scary, ominous power tools, such as an angle grinder with a chain saw blade on it.

I just recently bought one. Never used it before. This thing is DANGEROUS to say the least. I cannot emphasize DANGEROUS enough in this type face.

I ripped it out of the box and fired it up, (without a blade on it, and without reading the directions, of course). Ok, that worked - nothing flew off or anything. Then I realized that the shaft-nut could have come of or something, so I set the tool down, and read the instructions. This thing spins pretty fast.

It says in the instructions that one should NEVER attach a chain saw blade to the tool. So I attached the chain saw blade to the tool, and tightened everything up real nice, and I couldn't see the harm in at least trying it out.

I got out a scrap piece of wood and clamped 'er down, and fired up the angle grinder and went into the wood. Real nice! Just ate it up! My hand got a little irritated by the flow of wood chips from the blade directly to my hand, so I thought I should wear gloves, but after reading this thread, I see that gloves are probably a bad idea.

Then I put the tool down again to contemplate what I had just seen. If that were skin or bone, it would have been catastrophic!

So I went to show a buddy this bad-ass tool. After plunging into the test article, he reached over and unplugged the grinder exclaiming that he feared for his life after seeing what it could do. I gave no thought to the fact that he had just unplugged it, and that the grinder does NOT have a momentary switch on it. Once it's turned on, it stays on: no finger control required. That's a bad design wether I'm using a chain saw or regular grinding wheel.

I didn't think of checking the switch the next time I plugged it in, and off it went! Across the bench, down to the floor, spinning at 14,000 RPMs and grinding up everything in sight. Luckily my curious son wasn't holding the tool or I wasn't holding it improperly (I wasn't holding it at all - but that's a whole nother level of stupidity).

I'm going to buy a momentary-floor-switch that the tool plugs into so I have to be standing on the switch before it goes again. I was really lucky to learn this lesson without pain or death or other serious injury.

Now I know why they said to NOT, NEVER, EVER hook up a chain saw to it. The lawyers made them say that so they wouldn't be liable. Do other angle grinders have momentary switches? Maybe I just bought the wrong kind.

TikiGap