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neophyte

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Apr 23, 2012
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Pennsylvannia
Nail gun for the win…
The number of deaths from Nail Guns in OSHA injury reports is sort of startling.
It sort of annoys me whenever people mention the “Tablesaw” as the most dangerous tool in the shop.
14” diamond saws like the Husqvarna concrete saws also cause a number of deaths, from kickback causing the blade to go thru a chest, or neck or leg artery.
The same is true for smaller carpentry circular saws.

For general hand held weapon use, a claw hammer is a pretty good choice though, as would a taper ground screwdriver, or a pointed steel digging bar.
 

Rusted Nut

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Northern Arizona
So the perp asks the intended victim to wait a bit before being attacked while perp goes and steals the correct hammer. Perp sees a socket set and steals that too, a set of new screwdrivers, hmm perp could use this new tool as well….
 

AreBeeBee

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Wisconsin
I'm with the pointy-thing school if we're looking at tools-as-weapons, although hammers have a long pedigree (Thor) in these matters. And carpenter's or roofing/shingling hatchets.

But consider a sharp chisel, especially one of the long ones used in wood turning. The thing is, a lunging blow is harder to stop than a swinging one where you can't help telegraphing your imminent action.

How'd we get on this topic anyway?
 
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RTM

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I'm with the pointy-thing school if we're looking at tools-as-weapons, although hammers have a long pedigree (Thor) in these matters.
Also in a book / movie with Harrison Ford, where again, he wasn't the murderer, but was accused This shape, not this brand. I think the author referred to it as a whatchamacallit

 

AreBeeBee

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Wisconsin
Also in a book / movie with Harrison Ford, where again, he wasn't the murderer, but was accused This shape, not this brand. I think the author referred to it as a whatchamacallit

Oh, yeah! I have one of those. It must have been a freight-line promo giveaway because the wood handle has a decal of a 1930s? 1940? semi-trailer truck with the company name (Knox) on the trailer. Knox Motor Service was based in Rockford, Ill. (I think).

Also got me a Nox Tox (same catalogue, page 17), less deadly appearing but sure beats bare hands.

Boy, we lost some truly tough looking hardware when wooden crates were supplanted by cardboard boxes. Dang.

(That was The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. Good movie for a Friday night.)
 

Beerhippie

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Far NE Oregon
Oh, yeah! I have one of those. It must have been a freight-line promo giveaway because the wood handle has a decal of a 1930s? 1940? semi-trailer truck with the company name (Knox) on the trailer. Knox Motor Service was based in Rockford, Ill. (I think).

Also got me a Nox Tox (same catalogue, page 17), less deadly appearing but sure beats bare hands.

Boy, we lost some truly tough looking hardware when wooden crates were supplanted by cardboard boxes. Dang.

(That was The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. Good movie for a Friday night.)
Wooden crates are still in use. You need to buy bigger things.

I'm making table tops right now from plywood salvaged from a crate.
 

RTM

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OK, then. What movie was it?
Gonna give it a day in case others wanna guess, check back tomorrow.

From some web page on deaths in the Fugitive
Helen Kimble - Shot in the stomach by Fredrick Sykes, then struck five times with a rock causing her to suffer a brain hemorrhage.
 
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AreBeeBee

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Wooden crates are still in use. You need to buy bigger things.

I'm making table tops right now from plywood salvaged from a crate.
Fair enough, and I get your point. But I have three Depression-era booklets put out by the U.S. National Committee on Wood Utilization, Subcommittee on Uses for Secondhand Boxes and Odd Pieces of Lumber. (I'm not making up that title.) These booklets make it clear that early in the last century, America at least was swimming in cast-off wood crates:

"Grocery, hardware, or department stores and most other commercial establishments have a constant supply of wooden boxes and crates which they are usually glad to dispose of at little or no cost.... Since the lumber needed is all less than 8 feet in length, no difficulty will be found in transporting it. In some cases it may be feasable for several boys to cart away the boxes by wagonloads, as storekeepers generally do not like to be bothered with the handing out of one or two boxes at a time. In other instances the material may be carried in the car or on the running board."

The booklet titles tell a story: You Can Make It [published 1929], You Can Make It For Camp and Cottage (volume II, 1930), and You Can Make It For Profit (volume III, 1931). Each is about 50 pages long.

These talk about how you can make all kinds of things from wood that you salvage from standard ordinary shipping crates. The whole tone of these is that there are wood crates being thrown away or burned that you can salvage, take apart, reuse, and better your life by turning them into desks, footstools, hammocks from barrel staves, potting benches, wastebaskets, poultry drinking stands, garden wheelbarrows, laundry drying racks, etc., etc. (I did make a drying rack from the plans & description, and we use it every week on laundry day. But no crates were sacrificed to make it: the lumber came from Menard's.)

This is the social and economic context for why in 1917 a large mass-market hardware company (Bridgeport Hardware Mfg; see post #13) would be selling eight models of nail pullers and fifteen different tools for disassembling wood crates and boxes. Yikes on toast!

Wood crates and pallets are used today, but the vast majority of crating materials used in shipping now is — paper, in the form of cardboard.
 
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Beerhippie

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Fair enough, and I get your point. But I have three Depression-era booklets put out by the U.S. National Commission on Wood Utilization, Subcommittee on Uses for Secondhand Boxes and Odd Pieces of Lumber. (I'm not making up that title.) These booklets make it clear that early in the last century, America at least was swimming in cast-off wood crates:

"Grocery, hardware, or department stores and most other commercial establishments have a constant supply of wooden boxes and crates which they are usually glad to dispose of at little or no cost.... Since the lumber needed is all less than 8 feet in length, no difficulty will be found in transporting it. In some cases it may be feasable for several boys to cart away the boxes by wagonloads, as storekeepers generally do not like to be bothered with the handing out of one or two boxes at a time. In other instances the material may be carried in the car or on the running board."

The booklet titles tell a story: You Can Make It [published 1929], You Can Make It For Camp and Cottage (volume II, 1930), and You Can Make It For Profit (volume III, 1931). Each is about 50 pages long.

These talk about how you can make all kinds of things from wood that you salvage from standard ordinary shipping crates. The whole tone of these is that there are wood crates being thrown away or burned that you can salvage, take apart, reuse, and better your life by turning them into desks, footstools, hammocks from barrel staves, potting benches, wastebaskets, poultry drinking stands, garden wheelbarrows, laundry drying racks, etc., etc. (I did make a drying rack from the plans & description; we use it every week for the laundry. But no crates were sacrificed to make it: had to get the lumber at Menard's.)

This is the social and economic context for why in 1917 a large mass-market hardware company (Bridgeport Hardware Mfg) would be selling eight models of nail pullers and fifteen different tools for disassembling wood crates and boxes. Yikes on toast!

Wood crates and pallets are used today, but the vast majority of crating materials used in shipping now is — paper, in the form of cardboard.
Nowadays, those old wooden shipping boxes--if they still have labels--bring $$ on Ebay and Etsy.

Does it reveal my age that I remember them in use?

Shipping crates I encounter today mostly use screws. Lots of screws. But, oddly, where they use plywood, it's often high-grade, clear-one-side, free of core voids stuff. The structural lumber is usually also very good. Go figure.

Bike rack I made from salvaged crate lumber and keg parts:

53168727062_8dd2b9e633_b.jpg
 
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