AROUND THE HOUSE : Locks Are Key to Safe Power Tools

Back when I was a kid, my father had a standing rule that I was not allowed to work in his home shop when he wasn’t around to supervise.

For some reason, he didn’t trust me to obey this rule, so he installed a 1-inch dead bolt on the shop door and kept it locked whenever he left the house.

He made one mistake, however. When he partitioned off the shop from the rest of the basement, he cut a slot about 8 inches high and 5 feet wide through the wall. This was supposed to make it easy to get large planks and sheets of plywood into the shop, but it was also just large enough to admit a skinny 10-year-old. Many was the time I slithered through that slot to get my hands on my father’s tools.

I never did hurt myself, but now, 35 years later, I’m in my father’s position, looking for ways to keep my own 12-year-old out of the emergency room.

Locking the shop is the most direct approach, but for many of us, this isn’t practical. Often the “shop” is just a corner of the garage or basement. In that case, the best way to keep your kid out of trouble is to lock up your tools, or at least those that are most dangerous.

One way to do this is to put any tool you consider hazardous to your child’s health into a lockable cabinet. A simple hasp and padlock are easy to retrofit on any cabinet with doors.

This works well for portable tools like circular saws, but it won’t do the job with large, stationary tools such as table or radial arm saws. An effective way to disable tools like these is to put the shop on its own electrical circuit, with a lockable circuit breaker box on the shop wall. Turn off the breaker, lock the box, and those tools are out of commission.

Some makers--Sears, for one--take another approach. They put lockable switches on all their stationary power tools. A simple plastic key must be inserted into the switch before it will operate. Remove this key, hide it and the tool can’t be used.

For tools without such switches, you can use the simple trick shown in the sketch. Just put a small padlock on the electrical plug. This works for portables as well as stationary tools, and it’s a good way to keep neighbors from borrowing tools without asking.

Somehow, despite your best efforts, your kid will probably still find a way to get to your tools. So it pays to do what my father did: Teach your children shop safety and instill a healthy respect for power tools at an early age.

A good book such as “DeCristoforo’s Complete Book of Power Tools” can be a big help. Also, any power tool you buy will come with a long list of safety precautions, right at the front of the instruction manual. Go over the list with your kid, discussing each rule and explaining why it is important to follow.

Of all the lessons my father taught me on shop safety, however, the one that affected me most was entirely unintentional.

One night, while working late at a repetitive task, he lost his concentration and cut a finger off on the table saw. I don’t suggest that you do the same as a lesson to your kids. But I can assure you that every time I turn on a power tool, I think about my father’s finger and I’m extra careful to make sure I keep my own.