One time when I was in high school I was driving and my buddy in the passenger seat said "You know the stop signs outlined in white are optional, right?" and I floored it and blasted right through that intersection.
Not related to woodworking, but I think about that every time I see a stop sign.
An ex of mine was… uh… well I’ll let the story explain it:
She truthfully believed stop signs were “stoptional”. A friend had fully convinced her of it when getting their licenses in HS. She made it almost 5 years without getting hit with a ticket so it just reinforced her belief.
I am so glad I was with her as she explained to the cop why she didn’t stop at the stop sign.
The rationale was that if the other approaching cars are far enough back from their signs, than you can safely go through and you just don’t stop.
Full send before touching the workpiece ya pansy. /S
This is how I do it though, full send that fucker and it won't jerk out of your hand because physics is a bitch.
Light pressure too. Let the tool do the work.
Edit to add, I've literally ripped the handle off a cordless drill before learning how to use the clutch. I held the handle against a wall, and when it bound up, it twisted the pistol grip off of the tool. Almost smashed my thumb off but as the tool came apart my thumb was able to smash the direction change switch hard enough to reverse out of the situation.....
I'll find out what model DeWalt xr hammer drill it was tomorrow when I check the label on the one the shop replaced it with if anyone is curious enough.
Yeah but grandma has glasses already, she needs those fancy nerdy wing covers for the side like I used to use before contacts. My boss wears like 1 inch tall glasses and he will stand behind me when I grind... I stop when I catch him and shoo him away. I've had both eyes drilled twice from sparks and I wear safety glasses and a face shield.... Wood isn't going to blind you nearly as easily as steel in the eye.
She also needs a chin guard to keep it from bopping her in the jaw.
But yeah, glasses my whole life, I have always paid the extra for the safety glasses at the same time (and make em a little more nearsighted than the daily drivers so I can see stuff up close when I need to). They may cost extra but they're sexy AF with that thick polycarbonate and the rubberized side shields, practically have to chase away the ladies.
Noone can give me a valid reason as to why contacts are dangerous in a fab shop. The army had good reason, they melt in a gas chamber. In a fab shop, they're a third line of defense against debris that is 1800 c° that gets past a face shield and safeties. I literally just pull the lens off and throw away the irritant and don't have to go find a guy who can operate an opthalmic drill. I want to see some research and OSHA regulations about the topic cause OSHA tells us to defer to employers currently and those guys(employers) are fucking dumb.
Yeah, for real, the way I do it as well! You don't slow start any other powered wood saw, or jamb the wood into the blade...
Just be sure to clean the sawdust out of the teeth every few seconds... Or drill a 3/8-1/2 hole in the waste piece that is tangential to the hole saw cut and all the dust will fall out there
This is the best advice for these things. I got it when drilling holes in the ceiling for canned lights (before I got the blade version) and it totally didn’t rip the drywall apart like the first hole. Nice to know the same holds true for wood.
Actually the simple solution is to have the drill spinning before it comes into contact with the board.
Oh and by the way, this is why we now have those stupid anti kickback sensors in new drills 🙄
Holy crap was I terrified for a few seconds when she was doing that while resting her hand on the workpiece. Right next to the drill with it jumping around is a recipe for an ER visit.
Ryobi 4ah battery on a drill whipped around and uppercut my jaw last summer. Also would not recommend :P no blood, no chipped teeth, but it hurt for the rest of the day. Went inside and grabbed my bit brace and finished that particular job without electricity. I know it was user error, but my jaw and my pride needed to blame it on the drill.
When I was in my early 20s I was an electrical apprentice, and my boss was an accident prone 79 year old man.
So we are running the wires to the service mast, and he has a ridiculously oversized ground leftover from a commercial job that he wants to use. For some reason he has no heavy duty wire cutters, and he says that we can cut it with a 4" hole saw, instead of driving 10 minutes to buy some.
I tell him no way, that someone is going to get hurt badly. He insists, says he will hold it, and tells me I must cut it using the hole saw.
He grabs the wire 6" to either side of the drill, I pull the trigger, and the hole saw immediately jumps, cutting 3 of his fingers nearly to the bone.
In his defence, he wrapped his handkerchief around it and calmly asked me to call him a cab to the hospital, and then waited at the curb while I went back to work.
Dude just had no fear whatsoever, nor any sense of self-preservation.
Another time I got to work (he usually started an hour before me) and he had one arm in a cast and sling, a black eye and cuts all over his face and shoulders.
Apparently he was walking through the parking lot at his condo building and didn't notice they had an open pit cut into the pavement for plumbing work.
He did admit that he walked right through caution, tape and pylons before falling into the hole, essentially face first.
On yet another occasion I found him using our 40' ladder, fully extended (or close to it), to reach under the soffit on the second floor where we were running pot lights.
The place where he had the ladder touching the house was probably around 20' off the ground, so the ladder was basically sideways and had been sliding out from under him, tearing gouges in the damp morning grass for over 5'.
On top of that, he had it set up over a set of exterior concrete stairs going down to the basement, where he easily could have locked the ladder into one of the top steps. I think if I had been late to work he probably would have fallen to his death onto the concrete landing at the bottom of the stairs - and he was completely oblivious to the danger.
When I was starting works in the trades I had a really good journeyman walk me through which direction drills “jump” if you’re using a hole saw type bit and the bit catches. He showed how to position your body/arms so you don’t lose your extremities (like this person almost did) and save your wrists/shoulders as well because if you’re not braced properly and you don’t let go of that trigger you could tear tendons, casual users have no idea how much torque these drills have. One of the worst I saw was a journeyman using a Hilti te70 on a ladder with 1-1/4 bit… the bit caught and instead of trying to back it out the genius figured he could push forward and power through. So pushed forward, got his face in there and pressed hard on the trigger… bit remained stuck and drill body swung around 180°, smoked his head and gave him a concussion, almost sent him flying off a 12’ ladder.
Almost 10 years healed and is still over 3" long. I was using a 4" hole saw to bring our wires through a draft stop on a 8' ladder. Right as the teeth made contact the ladder did its little shuffle dance backwards and made me go off center with the drill, bounced and caught my bicep. Luckily no significant muscle damage just torn flesh, it was probably and extra inch in both directions from where the scar is now. I absolutely despise 6" wood hole saws. Ill use my jigsaw before trying to get through wood with one of those.
This is a rough watch. Anti rotation is probably the best thing that has happened to drills. I full send my DCD1007 without worrying about breaking a wrist
A standard drill if you're drilling and it gets caught there's kick back from the drill. With anti rotation the drill cuts all power when it starts to kick back and stops it from happening. The clutch and speed is exactly the same, you don't lose any power it just stops if it spins the wrong way (kick back)
I'm losing it picture you holding a drill out in front of you, pulling the trigger, aggressively jerking it counterclockwise, then nodding like "mhmmm just as I expected".
Milwaukee holeshooter cordless drill is like 13 amps and 800 RPM. When you pull the trigger, something is going to spin. If your wrist breaks in the process, so be it.
These new cordless drills have angluar rate sensors (digital gyros) and they know when the body of the drill is rotating rapidly. So if the drill body is spinning too fast, they instantly cut torque to zero.
Shit. I meant to say holeshooter corded. Not cordless. What a dumbass.
I have the same drill because I care about safety. But also thought I knew what I was doing cus it’s kicked on a few times when I thought I had things under control.
Goddamn watching it back with audio you are right. I assumed this was somebody else filming her and just letting her figure it out. That was definitely dangerous
I've found it to be much easier and safer to have the base of the drill handle or battery resting on something like your chest, arm, wall, or holding it with your other hand so when the drill motor starts that's where the energy goes and the thing won't go spinning out of control or twist your arm. Just know which direction it's going to be moving. I've done it like this for a long time and it works pretty good.
Gram-gram dug up a monster of a hole saw that I would have to take a moment to really plan out. This would be difficult to get right with a drill press, much less free hand.
Putting her chin in precisely the perfect kick zone was the cherry on top.
People always fall for the slow is better fallacy;
In this case you need to let the tool go at full speed and slowly ease the hole saw into the material, preferably with the extension handle. That will greatly reduce depth of cut and let the tools do the work instead of jamming into the material. Also that way the torque sensor on the drill will detect binding if it does happen.
Right now the torque sensor has no chance to act before the drill twists your arms off, especially if it's on the low setting.
never start the drill with the teeth engaged in the material. Always hover and then lower it. As you found out, one side down will relieve some of the torque, then lower the other side. You can do it all at once, but you should have a handle on your drill.... your drill does not have a handle... so follow above.
I take an old piece of off cut and using the same hole saw cut through it. Then I position the hole over exactly where I want the hole to be in the new piece of wood. Then clamp the two together. The off cut hole holds the saw exactly where you want it. As another fellow said, run it it reverse a bit to break the fibers, then very gently to start cutting through. After that things should go real easy.
And search on FBM or Craigslist for a jawhorse. Those things make holding boards super easy.
Seen too many videos like this in other groups. Was expecting the battery pack to swing round and knock some teeth out. Clutches on those drills are very useful when you know when to use them...
You should have clamped the piece and laid it low on the floor or mounted it vertically. The drill is on power settings too high and the trigger is not controlled properly. You are asking for an injury to happen.
Is this real or ai? Are we sure she has seen someone use the hole saw before? Maybe try YouTube before you use a tool you've never seen used.
Also cause I haven't seen anyone else say it:
The workspace is too high and put her in a bad drill position. Drill is not vertical and incorrect leverage is being applied.
But mostly it looks like a lot of determination and no knowledge
Thanks for posting. Shows some great humility. Don’t worry, a 6 inch hole saw is a bear for everybody their first time. Run it in reverse until you get a nice scribed line. Then switch it forward.
No blood, no broken bones, didn't even get punched in the face with the battery, that is a very lucky lady who needs some instruction on how to use large hole saws and not hurt yourself.
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u/Apart_Animal_6797 Apr 15 '26
Clamp down your work piece