Procuring Wood

We are men of action. Lies do not become us.

― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

No doubt Gentle Reader will agree that the sights, smells and other sensations of working wood are wonderful. And of course we all appreciate owning beautiful, enduring, useful objects made from wood with our own hands and tools, but how best to obtain this supremely sustainable environmentally-friendly material for our projects?

For purposes of this article I am assuming Gentle Reader does not use fully-milled S4S (surfaced four sides) boards exclusively, nor that you start each project from standing trees or even logs, but rather begins your projects with rough-sawn lumber of the sort pictured above and sold not at home centers but at lumber yards.

If this assumption is correct I encourage you to build a relationship with small sawmills, often located far from the beaten track, who are willing to sell directly to craftsmen at their yard. This may take some hunting and travel. And you will need to build mutually-beneficial, respectful relationships with the owners of these small businesses. To that end, I encourage keeping a few things in mind and acting accordingly.

Remember that, while sawmills are small businesses, Sawyers aren’t shop keepers, waiting by a register at Home Despot with nothing to do but play Candy Crush Saga on their iPhone until you arrive. They are always busy, their profit margins are thin, and their time is money, so if you want to do business with them, you would be wise to not waste their time. This requires forethought, planning, preparation and action as outlined below.

Planning

Your humble servant is fond of making a good plan, and then working that plan, while remaining flexible and responsive to reality. In commercial situations, a good plan for woodworking must include complete drawings with dimensions and clear details, materials specifications, a cost estimate, a time schedule and a reasonable contract to be reviewed and approved by all parties involved before work begins. And shop drawings too must be produced and approved, of course.

But in the case of personal woodworking for pleasure, I like to leave the details of the plan a little looser, a little more flexible to allow me to better adapt to time, cost and material constraints and to permit interesting improvisation. My tools love improvisation. What about yours?

When it comes time to procure wood, we need at least an initial plan that lists approximately how much wood we need, its species, length, width and thickness. This plan must take into consideration the limitations of the tools (e.g. jointer, planer, bandsaw etc.) we have at our disposal to mill the wood after we purchase it. With this in hand, and assuming a realistic fudge factor of 13~20%, we’re ready to go hunting for wood.

Seeking a Source of Wood

Home centers and lumber yards are convenient to purchase wood from, but the cost may be relatively high and selection may be poor and/or boring. Given the option, and the ability to transport the wood (or to have it delivered), I prefer to purchase directly from small sawmills instead.

When I was residing in the USA, locating sawmills was not easy. I ended up purchasing hardwood mostly from Amish sawmills in Central and Eastern Ohio, and both hardwoods and softwoods from mills in the mountains of Northern California and Southern Oregon. But nowadays the internet appears to make sourcing much easier.

Father and son surfacing boards in an Amish sawmill

I enjoyed purchasing wood from Amish mills. No frills, no BS, just honest wood sold by honest men. They’re not as convenient as Home Despot. They don’t advertise, don’t have websites, may not have telephones, won’t do email, and they’re always closed on Sunday, but if you drive into Amish country and ask around at local stores and gas stations you can usually find them. They are deeply religious and absolutely family-oriented folk, so watch your language, be polite and respectful, and be sure any women accompanying you dress modestly.

I don’t trust evil Google anymore, but a quick search on DuckDuckGo just now listed dozens of sawmills selling lumber to end-users around the US. A local Chamber of Commerce might be able to direct you too.

Other sources of information about sawmills I’ve had good luck with are cabinet shops, stair shops, custom door shops, millwork contractors, and interior contractors, all businesses that buy a lot of roughsawn wood. Better to drop by and ask in person than to just telephone or email.

If there’s a woodworking club or guild in your area they’ll know the local suppliers for sure and for certain.

Storage

Before you select and purchase your wood you should make sure you have space to store it unless, that is, you plan to cut it all up in a day or two after purchase. Be sure you don’t buy more than you can conveniently and safely store.

Improperly storing lumber so it’s not supported correctly will cause it to warp. If it’s exposed to rain and snow the resulting differential moisture content will always cause warpage. And of course, your boards may become dirty, or bugs may infest it. I hate wasting good wood.

If your ceilings are high enough, you can stack boards vertically, leaning against the wall in a corner of your apartment, house or garage. Be sure to stack it carefully so it won’t warp. Most importantly, tie it off securely so it can’t fall over and crush your kiddies. Notice I wrote “can’t” not just “won’t.” This deliberate choice of language is evidence of my deep confidence in Murphy’s active inclination for malicious harm. Indeed, here in Japan, most lumber is stored vertically, and many injuries and even deaths have resulted from toppling lumber.

A Gentle Reader pointed out that storing lumber this way with the board’s end resting directly on soil may invite termite infestation. Of course this is absolutely true, assuming the ground touching the board is infested with termites and the moisture content of the soil and wood are inviting to such insects, conditions that are often easily met. Best to elevate the boards above the soil by resting on concrete, bricks or cinder blocks, or on the floor of your apartment, house or garage, as noted above.

A Japanese lumber warehouse with vertically-stored product.

The best and safest way to store lumber, IMHO, is to place some stickers (three minimum) on a level floor, in a place protected from the weather, and to neatly stack your lumber on them. 2×4’s placed on edge are usually good, but you may want to skew them a bit for improved stability in the long direction of the lumber they will support. Be sure these stickers are all the same width and that once placed the top edges of all your stickers are situated level and planar (in the same plane). Don’t assume for a second that the floor or ground are level. If your check confirms it isn’t, shim the stickers so they are level and planar.

Use a spirit level to confirm the top edges of your stickers are level, and a stringline (aka “dryline”) to confirm the top edges are all planar.

Place thin stickers of uniform thickness between each layer of your lumber, so it will continue to dry without warping.

It’s easy to store lumber outside under the eaves of a building, but since it will be more exposed to rain, snow, weather, dust and critters, a few extra precautions may be called for. Once again, place your stickers properly and lay plastic sheeting on top of them. Then stack your lumber on top of the plastic, and wrap the plastic over the top of the stack so rain and snow can’t wet the wood, but leave the ends loose and tented so air can circulate. It may be best to place a few sheets of plywood or roofing material over the stack, well-weighted down so it won’t blow away during a storm.

Once your lumber is stacked, place newspaper or other paper on top to protect your beautiful wood from airborne dust and grit. Plastic is OK if the stack might be exposed to rain, but be aware it may slow the wood’s drying and/or cause the growth of discoloring mildew, so you may want to plan for some air circulation.

Another storage option is to attach steel or wooden brackets high on the wall of a garage, barn or outbuilding that can safely bear the weight. The top edge of these brackets needs to be level and planar to prevent the wood from warping. Don’t place your lumber directly touching these steel brackets, however, but lay down plastic or wood under your lumber to prevent dark lines of iron corrosion from developing in the wood.

Again, place newspaper on top of the stack to protect it from dust accumulation. Getting wood safely onto and down from these high brackets may be challenging, so be careful.

Preparation & Action

Once you’ve formulated a plan, located some potential sawmills or sources, and arranged safe storage, it’s time to take action. I recommend the following preparations and actions.

Call ahead or visit and make introductions, describe your needs in some detail, and arrange a time to select wood. Make sure the proprietor understands that, after an initial perusal, and on condition he has the wood you need, you will conclude your purchase immediately with hard cashy money and without any tedious paperwork. The Amish, for instance, accept only cash.
Know what variety, and approximately how much wood you need before calling the sawmill. For instance, you need to be ready to say something like “I need 200 board ft of 8-quarter (2” thick) maple, 10’ long 10” wide. ” He may not have that species wood, with that figure, in that size, in that quantity in-stock. Even if he doesn’t have exactly what you need, he may be able to suggest alternatives, or point you to other suppliers.
Be sure to ask if the wood he can supply has been kiln-dried or air-dried and how close he thinks it might be to equilibrium moisture content. He may not know, and that’s alright too. On the other hand, if he says everything he has in-stock is freshly milled and sopping wet, you may want to look elsewhere unless you’re prepared to wait for a couple of years for the wood to dry in storage.
Learn how to evaluate lumber grades and how to calculate board-feet.
Ask the following questions:
1. “Do you have a minimum sales volume or dollar amount?” He’s not a Home Despot focused entirely on high-volume retail sales in small quantities, after all.
2. “How late are you open?” Sawyers tend to start work early, so you need to be done with your selection and complete payment well before he locks the gate at the end of his workday.
3. “Can I bring my truck into the yard to load, or must I park out front?” and “Where should I park my truck so it’s out of the way?” Customers parking willy-nilly and blocking traffic are a frequent problem for most lumberyards. If he won’t let you bring your truck into the yard, you’ll need to bring/borrow a cart or be willing to hand-carry your boards to your truck.
4. “Are there any varieties of wood or stacks not for sale?” Sawyers often receive orders from regular commercial customers months in advance and keep partially-filled orders set off to the side, so while it may appear he has plenty of the wood you want, it may not be for sale, or he may be unwilling to break down a stack for the few pieces you intend to purchase. If he does have such reserved stacks, find out which ones they are, don’t touch them, and don’t pester him about them.
5. “What are your safety rules in your yard?” As mentioned above, the Sawyer may require you to use full PPE (personal protection equipment) including safety shoes, hardhat, safety vest, safety glasses, ear protection, and cut-resistant gloves, or he may be OK with your usual business-casual attire of frayed jeans shorts and flip-flops. Fashion statements aside, it’s just professional to be prepared and learn the rules beforehand.
When you visit the mill, bring all the safety equipment the yard rules require. Even if they are not required, please have the sense to wear certified safety shoes, an orange or yellow reflective safety vest (very important in a lumberyard where vehicle and foot traffic meet in tight quarters), and to have cut-resistant safety gloves tucked into your belt. It is also wise to bring safety glasses, ear protection, and a certified hardhat just in case. You may think you don’t need this PPE, and perhaps you won’t, but the Sawyer’s yard safety policy and/or insurance may require it. Best to be the prepared professional.
Bring a tape measure and moisture meter with you to check the actual moisture content of the actual wood yourself before you purchase it because, if it’s too wet, you will need to sticker/store it while it dries. Be sure you understand the acceptable range of moisture content you buy. 12% is pretty good for lumber stored outside, and 18% may be just fine, but 30% MC will be too high. High moisture content may not be a problem if you know how, and are prepared, to deal with it, but even then please don’t pay full-price for lumber you’ll need to dry for a year or so before it’s useful.
Be prepared to attach at least one red or orange safety flag to any lumber you purchase if it projects out past the end of your truck’s bed much (6′).
Bring enough rope and/or ratcheting safety tie-downs to keep the lumber you purchase from shifting in the bed of your truck while underway. Watching your newly-purchased pretty boards spread artistically all over the freeway in your rear-view mirror may be exciting for you, but I guarantee you folks in the vehicles following will not thank you.
Be prepared to do all your own grunt work, including sorting, lifting, carrying and loading. Don’t expect the sawyer to do more than use his forklift to move stacks around for you, even if you’re accustomed to other retailers accommodating your bad back. Bring a helper if necessary. Bored sons and young boys are useful for this and can benefit from the experience, at least that was my father’s viewpoint, and in retrospect, I heartily agree. Be sure any young folk that accompany you are cautious, respectful and follow the sawmill’s rules, as will you. Provide cut-resistant gloves so their mothers won’t berate you for any cuts or slivers they manage to collect. Modern mothers are irrational about that sort of thing. And hi-viz safety vests can prevent crushed kiddies.

In the Lumberyard

Dealing with retail customers that purchase in small quantities is a pain for all businesses, so if you want to develop a reliable source for good wood without buying by the trailerload, make of yourself a mellow, good customer. The following tips will help.

Jimmy Choo’s Safety Shoes from his new “Prostate Exam” Collection

Leave Fido, your pet goat, your mother-in-law, and all small children at home where they’ll be safely out of the way. I grew up in lumberyards, so I know how dangerous they can be with trucks and forklifts operated by tweaker teenagers zooming around, teetering stacks of wood aching for a chance to topple, and sharp slivers, nails and bloodthirsty staples sticking out everywhere. If you bring a teenager to help, be sure he too wears the required PPE.
Most Sawyers are not setup for efficient retail sales, and few can process credit cards or online payments. Of course, checks from people they don’t know well are never welcome. In fact, he may not agree over the phone or by email to sell to you directly at all, but once you are face to face, cash in hand, and you flash your best Brad Pitt smile, everything should be fine. In any case, it’s important you help make the selection and payment processes go as quickly and smoothly as possible, so unless you have an account with the Sawyer, be prepared to pay the exact amount in cash, without requiring change for big bills.
If you need to park your truck in spaces between stacks, leave your keys in the ignition when you step away for a bit so the Sawyer can move it to allow large trucks or loads of wood to pass.
When sorting through lumber stacks, set some stickers (at least three 2×4’s on-edge) on the ground nearby (out of the way of passing trucks and forklifts) to temporarily place the lumber you’ve removed from the stack and to keep it off the ground and clean.
Never place a board directly on the ground or pavement until you’ve paid for it. And don’t ever be so rude as to toss boards you haven’t paid for.
Never step on wood until you’ve actually paid for it. It isn’t yet yours to mark with your pretty pink boots from Manolo Blahnik’s Ironworker Collection.
Never place the end of a board into dirt or gravel until you’ve paid for it.
Keep a running count of the board feet and approximate grade of the boards you have selected to purchase. Tell the Sawyer your final count, and show him your calculations, but be prepared to defer to his count if it differs, at least until you become a large-volume customer.
Lumber dealers, and especially those who are accustomed to selling in volume to commercial accounts, dislike customers who “cherry-pick” their stacks taking only the best boards and leaving mediocre boards behind. More despised are those rude, lazy souls destined to roast for eternity spitted and rotating over Satan’s tar-fired barbecue pit who leave stacks a disorganized jumble inducing the remaining lumber to warp. Please firmly control your inner penny-pinching Scrooge (excruciatingly difficult for many) and select a mix of boards, not just the best ones. They’ll all come in useful. If the only boards you can find are hopelessly useless, discuss the problem with the Sawyer using a non-belligerent, even apologetic, tone of voice. If it’s your first time visiting this sawmill, consider buying some sub-standard lumber just to get off on the right foot. Hopefully he’ll make it up to you next time.
After sorting through a stack of lumber, if reasonably possible, be sure to expend the time and effort to fix or realign the stickers so their top edges are level and parallel (a spirit level and a stringline are handy for this task) and always neatly restack the boards you’ve moved but won’t be purchasing so the stack looks better, is more orderly, and more stable when you leave than before you touched it. This is supremely important. Besides looking tidy and saving the Sawyer work, this minimum human courtesy (vs. arrogant, pigish rudeness) will help preserve the value of the lumber you leave behind, it will show respect to the Sawyer, and will earn you respect in turn so you’ll be welcomed back again. Sawmills often give slightly better rates to return customers with such professional manners who make less work for them. The inverse is also true.
Bring something to share with the guys at the lumberyard and office they can enjoy and that will cement your cherubic face in their memories. For example, personally hand each one a cold beverage, or a couple of your wife’s award-winning double-death-by-chocolate chip cookies. It helps to make friends.

I hope this little article has been a little useful.

YMHOS

Just where the heck is that stack of 8/4 zelkova wood he mentioned?

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, or thieving Instagram and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie may slivers infest my bed.

Safety – Part 2

A construction crew in Japan during the Edo Period (1603 – 1686) depicted in a woodblock print erecting temporary scaffolding (the round timbers secured with rope), and at the same time assembling a structural framework (yellow timbers). The guy at the far left is a fireman (“hikeshi” 火消し）hauling a “matoi” 纏 up the scaffold to install at the top of the frame. Another matoi is partially visible at the lower left. Performance art and superstition aside, this decorative matoi flag is a symbol of a specific team of firefighters, and marks this project as their responsibility.

Danger gathers upon our path. We cannot afford – we have not right – to look back. We must look forward.

– Winston Churchill

Your most humble and obedient servant published a well-received article on this website earlier about the safe use of sharp handtools. In this follow-up article we’ll extend that discussion to safety on construction jobsites. Never fear, unlike many bloggers desperate for content, any content at all dammit, I won’t be posting more, increasingly-stupid additions on this subject forever.

But why bother at all with such a tedious subject on a blog about tools and woodworking? Glad you asked! First, and foremost are my personal motivations. For you see despite attestations from the Mistress of the Blue Horizons to the contrary, I have a healthy conscience and want Beloved Customers who use our tools in the field to return home safely everyday without leaking any red sticky stuff.

A related motivation is regret for the past, because, like many older guys with scars (Beloved Customer is a miraculous exception, of course), I’m beginning to suspect I just may not be immortal. No, no, seriously. Sometimes I even get the niggling feeling that the light at the end of tunnel I sense is not the Road Runner with a headlamp, but is actually an approaching, but silent, freight train.

At such times I feel regret for not learning and applying these lessons sooner. But mostly I regret not doing a better job of sharing them with those around me back in the day.

Alas, if I could only use my tardis to redress past oversights, but who knows when the repair shop on Gallifrey will have it fixed. I need to call them using an official tardis telephone to check on progress. Do you have one I can borrow, please??

Scars and regrets aside, my primary objective in all this scribbling is to help as many Beloved Customers as possible live healthy, productive lives surrounded by fragrant sawdust and shimmering shavings.

Disclaimer

First, I must begin by clearly stating that the suggestions presented herein were not taken from a training manual, or scrounged from the infallible internet, or formulated by a half-wit, AI oven toaster, but are based entirely on my personal, often painful, and occasionally bloody, experiences. Moreover, I am not a professional safety consultant looking for the next gig, a “Slippin’ Jimmy” style labor attorney sneaking around hospitals, nor a representative of any legal entity or bloated government agency. Accordingly I accept no liability whatsoever, so when your ambulance-chaser cousin expresses concern, please tell him for me to suck the yellow off a lemon.

Second, these suggestions are neither comprehensive nor complete, much less all that one needs to know to work safely, but are just a few of the many safety procedures and rules you would be wise to learn and follow.

And third, I am thoroughly aware that safety professionals everywhere will heap teetering piles of odoriferous scorn on what I write here. They will say it is dangerously incomplete, or that some details are wildly inaccurate, or that they are completely inapplicable to the country and area they were trained in. One motivation for this scorn may be the fact that they didn’t make any money from writing it. Or it may be they think OSHA’s rules should govern the entire world. In any case, I don’t work for them, nor do they control my actions, much less my conscience, so I will give them all the careful inattention they deserve.

But as I mentioned in point No. 1 above, unlike the “experts,” “safety professionals,” and liability lawyers that may object, in publishing this I am intentionally neither seeking nor receiving compensation of any kind, not even clicks. Moreover, it is not among my objectives to provide complete, much less universally, legally correct, training. Indeed, please do not confuse this with training at all, for it it is only a list of a few cautionary examples, often taught and more often ignored, from my direct experience, that may benefit Beloved Customer.

Despite what some nazgul-ridden shysters will screech to the contrary, in the end it’s your body, and its safety is ultimately your responsibility. Accordingly, it behooves you to gain comprehensive knowledge and training in safety and to understand all your legal and statutory obligations related to safety compliance where you work. There are tons of free resources available nowadays if you don’t require formal certification.

So let’s dig into some details

Safety Specifics

I hate the nanny state and won’t bore Gentle Reader with a list of the myriad safety do’s and don’ts bureaucrats have imposed, but there are a few precautions which receive scant attention even in formal training classes of which you should be aware.

Trips & Falls

Cuts and sprains to the hands are the most common jobsite injuries, but are seldom fatal. Trips and falls are the real killers. They’re easily avoided, but usually occur through negligent housekeeping and/or stupidity. Please don’t be stupid. Keep your jobsite clean, orderly, and free of trip and fall hazards.

Ladders

A performance of firefighter teams attended by foreign military types. The guy on the ladder is thrilling everyone with his acrobatic feats, while many firemen hold the ladder in place using fire hooks. Pre-explosion Mt. Fuji is prominent in the background. What, no safety harness?

Without exception, the misuse of ladders is the most common source of fall-related injuries and deaths on construction jobsites. This is not conjecture.

Accordingly, you should view every ladder as a death trap. Seriously. Never say I didn’t warn you.

Here in Japan the better large general contractors (aka “Super Zencon”) forbid the use of ladders over 1 meter high on their jobsites. Extreme? Unwarranted? Death and injury statistics say no. Where possible please use well-constructed scaffolding or a certified manlift instead of a ladder.

When I was a boy of 14 working my first jobsite in the Nevada desert, my foreman had me working on the underside of the eaves of a 2 story house from a ladder perched on the elevated forks of the forklift he operated. Exciting times! I didn’t know any better at the time, but the foreman who assigned me that job later put several other workers in the hospital through similar negligent behavior. Back in those days, if a worker fell and broke his fool neck, it was his fault, you see, not his supervisor’s.

If you must use a ladder of any height, make sure it’s braced solidly at both its top and bottom ends. By “solidly” I mean it can’t be made to wiggle, and it’s impossible for even Murphy to knock over.

Never stand on the top rung of a ladder even if it’s solidly braced. Easy to say, but the irresistible Darwinian compulsion to climb to the top rung, fall off, and die in agony with unsightly bone splinters poking out everywhere and red sticky stuff making a mess all over the place overcomes thousands of guys every year. How unfashionable!

Ladders truly excel at skimming floaters from the gene pool, especially when combined with forklifts. Don’t you be one of them!

Fire Hazards

Jobsite fires are extremely common because of the garbage and flammable material that careless fools leave scattered around. All it takes is one idiot to toss a cigarette butt. Or one spark from a welder, torch, grinder or cutoff saw. Or one short in a damaged extension cord.

Garbage and clutter aside, construction sites are always at high risk for fire because for months they have only temporary power which is frequently not compliant with code, miles of extension cords strung everywhere, and careless workers with welders, cutting torches, electrical grinders and tobacco incinerators wandering everywhere. And depending on where that fire starts, the fuel available to it, the amount of time it’s allowed to grow, and the difficulty of emergency egress, too often people get toasted. I know this from direct experience.

So keep your jobsite clean and clutter-free.

Inspect your extension cords daily.

Strictly forbid smoking on your jobsites.

And for heaven’s sake, please be sure to establish and strictly enforce “hot work” rules, provide related essential equipment, and inspect that equipment daily to ensure it works or hasn’t tottered off on Darwinian adventures. Your life may depend on it.

So let’s next consider why hot work safety procedures are important.

Hot Work

“Hot work” such as welding, cutting metal with oxyacetelene torches, grinding, or using cutoff saws, etc. etc. is dangerous as I know from direct, personal experience of starting a fire in a pile of discarded cement sacks on a construction site in Las Vegas many years ago. Fortunately, while I was a stupid kid at the time directed by a drunk to do something stupid, I was also paying attention and put out the fire quickly. But that’s no excuse for not creating and not following hotwork rules.

More recently a subcontractor started a fire with his welder on my jobsite in Yokohama in a similar manner. Four fire trucks arrived. Because of the location and time of day human life was not at high risk, but it could easily have been a financial and PR disaster for my high-profile international client (one you know). Fortunately, while the GC violated housekeeping rules and the steel fabrication subcontractor blithely ignored mandatory hot work rules, it didn’t get too badly out of control because the GC had established a high-quality safety plan in-advance, fire extinguishers were staged in appropriate locations, and responsible people were more-or-less paying attention.

It wasn’t my fault, but I ended up having to apologize to both my client and the Mayor of the City of Yokohama for this embarrassing blunder in company with the GC. I tell you, it was a heavy blow to my towering humility.

But hot work violations are not always so harmless. Another ironworker started a fire in the basement of a data center owned by a big company (another one you know) under construction in Tokyo some years back. I did not manage the jobsite but only supplied heat-exchange equipment.

Molten metal sprayed by an ironworker’s oxyacetylene cutting torch landed on a stack of urethane concrete insulation blankets stored 3 stories underground and melted its way to the bottom where it smoldered unseen. After an hour or so went by fire and volcanic levels of toxic smoke suddenly exploded from the stack into the dark, cluttered underground spaces quickly killing 2 workers and 3 firemen.

Reports submitted by police and fire departments attributed the deaths to a series of criminally incompetent violations of obvious, well-known safety laws. But I would wager that none of the workers or supervisors involved even considered the possibility of dying in smoke and flame beforehand. And obviously they didn’t have a proper fire watch. Murphy was a whimsical killer that day.

I really need to get my Tardis working again.

A jobsite I managed in Japan a couple of years ago was owned by a British company that had lost 2 entire buildings outside of Japan stuffed to the rafters with very flammable retail product and robotic material handling equipment containing literally tons of lithium-ion batteries. Needless to say, that company was sensitive to fire hazards, so their safety rules permitted zero hotwork on their jobsite in Japan. Welding, cutting, grinding, soldering or any other activity that might throw a spark was absolutely prohibited inside the jobsite fence. No exceptions. With lots of steel to erect and equipment to install, these uncommunicated, unanticipated safety measures made it difficult to complete the project on-schedule and within budget. There were injuries on the jobsite caused by stupidity, but we experienced no incidents of fire.

That’s an extreme example, and your workplace or jobsite is probably not at such a high risk, but nonetheless I strongly encourage you to scrupulously plan and meticulously follow competent “Hot Work” rules even if it means having guys standing around simply watching welding, cutting and grinding operations with fire extinguishers resting on their toes (smartphone use should be banned entirely while on fire-watch).

By “plan” I mean produce a thorough, professional-grade, site-specific, activity-specific RAMS (Risk Assessment Method Statement) and getting written buyoff from everyone on the team. If you don’t know how, you must learn. Yes, it’s a pain in the butt, but educational and much less painful than 5th degree burns to the same.

It can get expensive, but don’t neglect to assign a dedicated human fire watch with no other job while hot work is underway. Allow me to reemphasize: forbid smartphone use during fire watches!

A woodblock print by Toyohara Kunichika of a fireman carrying a matoi. Such men were considered heros.

Always provide fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, and emergency alarm systems wherever hot work is undertaken and at several locations around the jobsite so that one can be grabbed and deployed in under 30 seconds from anywhere on your jobsite. Not two minutes, 30 seconds. Excessive? Not in the least.

Fire extinguishers make perfect sense, of course, but why lights? We tend to think that fire produces lots of light, but that’s not the case at all. In fact, smoke makes everything dark and confusing. And what if you are working in a basement or attic or other enclosed space without lights? Without exception, the smoke and confusion of a fire immediately disorients everyone to one degree or another, so that they can’t locate an extinguisher or the exit in time. If this confusion continues for more than two or three minutes people will die of smoke inhalation long before they are toasted.

And why alarms? Won’t screaming and running around like a chicken that’s misplaced its head suffice to warn everyone?

When a fire breaks out, things go bad at warp speed, so if you have any conscience, you will want to make everyone in the vicinity aware of the danger quickly so they can evacuate and/or deal with the danger immediately in an orderly manner. But running around screaming like a scalded chihuahua will needlessly burn both time and people. Besides, when you discover a fire, your time is best spent deploying a fire extinguisher to put it out quickly and completely and then evacuate instead of running around screaming. Right? Right.

It’s an ancient truth that to survive an emergency one must make physical preparations in advance, so please provide the appropriate number of fire extinguisher stands housing a range of useful and fully-charged extinguishers, emergency lights and a push button alarm placed in critical locations. Easy to make them yourself.

If you are not directly responsible for safety, loudly and incessantly insist the safety dude/ dudette prepare this equipment, create a distribution plan, and conducts frequent inspections to ensure the fire extinguishers are always fully functional and haven’t sprouted legs and walked away, as they are wont to do.

Fire stands are important because extinguishers left sitting on the floor are a trip hazard and are easily “misplaced.” A better solution is to place multiple fire extinguisher stands with alarms linked by radio so if one is tripped, all of the linked alarms go off warning everyone quickly. They can also have a red strobe to guide people to escape routes. In the case of a fire, not just flame and smoke, but confusion and time are killers too.

When you or your safety inspector conduct their daily safety rounds, demand they check and document that each fire extinguisher stand is in its assigned place and completely stocked with the appropriate and fully-charged fire extinguishers. It only takes a few minutes.

PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)

Fall Prevention Equipment

If you need to work at a height greater than 2 meters, and there is any possibility way you might fall, please wear a full safety harness, one that straps around legs, torso and shoulders with a lanyard connection at the center of the back. Be sure to tie it off so it will prevent even a single limb on the stoopid tree from hitting you on your way down to kiss the concrete floor.

Please, don’t try to get by with a cheaper safety belt instead of a full harness because a belt alone will break your back if you fall. I’ve seen it.

Full safety harnesses along with their dual lanyards, hooks, reels and shock absorbers are not cheap to buy or comfortable to wear, but they are worth every penny of cost and minute of inconvenience unless you actively want an image of the Darwin Award etched on your headstone.

Hardhats

I hate hardhats. They’re hot, get in the way, diminish the heroic elegance of my supermodel profile (ツ) and hide the saintly glow emanating from my noble noggin! But whenever I think of not wearing one on a construction site or in a factory, I glance at the scars on my left hand and forearm, try to fully flex my left middle finger, and painfully recall the gouges carved into my arm and back when an ironworker installing corrugated metal decking on a jobsite at the El Cortez Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas pushed sharp cuttoffs off the edge of the 14th floor slab striking your humble servant as I was erecting concrete forms in the basement. In deference to Beloved Customer’s refined sensibilities I will not repeat the inelegant sentiments I voiced at the time!

My injuries from this incident were serious, but could have been much worse as witnessed by the damage to my hardhat. The sharp sheet metal decking shredded it leaving it hanging around my ears and shoulders. And while it didn’t protect the rest of me from cuts, it did save my face, head, neck and most of my shoulders. That hardhat saved my life. And the Project Superintendent and my foreman both helped to save my life by insisting I wear that plastic chapeau.

The lesson? Please wear a good hardhat every second you are on an active construction site even if there aren’t any drug-addled ironworkers with bombsights supplied by Murphy hovering overhead. Nowadays you can even buy hardhats with fans to cool off your hot head.

A Klein hardhat with cooling fans and headlamp.

Over the years hardhats have changed. My first was made of fiberglass, and my second of aluminum. The rest have all been plastic. I’ve thought about getting one made of carbon fiber, but the cost/performance benefits are unclear to me.

But the most important recent improvement in hardhats has been increased protection against side impacts, a damage mode for which older models don’t account but which is critical in the case of blows to the head occurring during trips and falls. European industrial safety regs takes this into account with a special certification, and hardhats complying with EU rules look more like climbing or military helmets. Just something to consider.

Headlamps which can be attached to one’s hardhat are available too. As I get older and my eyes weaker I find these lights extremely helpful during quality control inspections. In fact, my headlamp is almost always mounted on my hardhat not only because it’s safer, but because it helps me do better, more accurate work in the less-than-perfect light conditions frequently found on construction jobsites allow. A word to the wise.

My point is you would be foolish to not own a quality hardhat, and to not wear it whenever you are on a construction jobsite, even if it is uncomfortable and may reduce your chances of getting your pic in GQ magazine.

I have more true bloody stories about eye protection and safety gloves too but won’t bore you with details. Use them.

Conclusion

The key takeaways can be summarized as follows:

Ladders are death traps;
Wear a full safety harness, with lanyard(s), hook(s) and reel(s), when working over 6 feet high.
A cluttered jobsite can injure and too often kill;
Hot work kills;
Fire extinguishers have legs, and must be able to scream;
Always wear a quality hardhat when on the job.
Create a plan, and be prepared. Don’t rely on safety dudes, lawyers or bureaucrats to keep you safe.

Take note; take heed: these words are a gift freely given without let, lien or loan.

A young man looking for his misplaced safety shoes?

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, or the IT Manager of the DNC and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. May I fall from a dozen stacked ladders if I lie.

Safety Rules for Edged Handtools

Go back

Category: Safety