Tag Archives: table saw

Useful Sites

Friday’s Rehearsal Notes

The Food Network gives some credit to the shows’ prop master (or design director). Wendy Waxman is responsible for decorating and accessorizing the sets of all the shows filmed at the Food Network’s studios at Chelsea Market.

Congressman Das Williams has introduced legislation to make flesh or proximity detection technology mandatory in all table saws sold in California after January 1, 2015. I have mixed feelings about this. I think safety is important, and I feel in a lot of situations, companies will put out unsafe products until forced otherwise; this is more true with chemicals and toxic substances. But this kind of feature on a table saw is expensive and unwieldy. The vast, vast majority of table saw accidents happen on untrained home hobbyists. [ref]Popular Woodworking analyzed the injury statistics for table saws put out by the CPSC last year.[/ref] This law would make trained users pay for a safety feature that’s more needed for untrained users. Not only that, but job site saws and contractor saws are far too small and light to utilize this technology; I’m only guessing, but I would imagine these kinds of saws are more likely to be used by home hobbyists. Why stop at the table saw? Why not legislate these features on band saws, planers and circular saws? Is it just because a table saw is statistically more dangerous? Because if we’re looking at statistics, a door causes just as many finger amputations per year as a table saw; why not require flesh detection technology on all doors? Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming months.

Speaking of dangerous tools, AnnMarie Thomas makes the case to let kids use real tools to build things, and not those cheap toy versions. She mentions how an engineering professor asked his class of 35 first-year students whether anyone had ever used a drill press before, and not a single hand was raised. Looks like props people are single-handedly preserving manual-arts training in higher education. Maybe if kids were taught to use tools, we wouldn’t have so many table saw accidents (the majority of which are sustained by men in their 50s; age does not make one safer, only training does).

I’ve wanted something like this for awhile, but never actually sat down to plan one out. But this adjustable sanding jig for a disc sander looks like it’s the perfect design.

The Studio Creations website has a nice tutorial on vacuum forming plastic. Don’t have a vacuum forming table? No, problem, they have a tutorial on how to build one of those as well.

News

Top Prop News of 2011

I will be taking the next week off for the Holidays, so it will be 2012 the next time you read this. The world of props isn’t exactly one of constant change, but news stories occasionally affect us. I’ve narrowed down four of the most notable ones of 2011. Here they are, in no particular order:

  1. E-Cigarettes are banned in Boston workplaces. I am not sure how this affects their use on stage. I’ve written about e-cigarettes before on this site as their legal status and safety issues are constantly changing and evolving. Expect e-cigarettes to continue to make the news in 2012.
  2. Guns on the set of Brad Pitt’s World War Z were seized by Hungarian authorities. This story first appeared with sensationalistic flair in the gossip and tabloid sites; they got most of the facts completely wrong, and the real story was far more interesting to props people. I did my own round-up and debunking of what really happened.
  3. Occupy Wall Street began on September 17th, and dominated the news through much of the autumn, and is still happening in various forms throughout the world. If you’ve looked at any of the photographs, you may have seen some protesters wearing a certain kind of mask. “Say,” you ask yourself, “isn’t that a prop from the film V for Vendetta?” It is, and several news articles discussed who is behind the masks and interviewed Alan Moore, creator of the original V for Vendetta comic.
  4. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is soliciting comments from the public on new proposals for table saw safety. If you are familiar with the SawStop technology, they are basically considering whether to make that technology mandatory on new table saws (You can read the actual proposal here). The Popular Woodworking blog has been keeping up to date with this story since it began, as this will have quite the effect on anyone working on the carpentry side of things.
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Odds and Ends

For all of you hip people, I am on Twitter, @ericbhart. I share links about props and theatre, and sometimes say funny things.

In case you missed it, About.com had an article about the lack of recognition for theatrical props people, featuring some quotes from me, Eric. In a similar vein, BroadwayGirlNYC wrote this heartfelt appreciation for those who work behind the scenes of theatre after a stagehand died backstage of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Here is an (unfortunately, very brief) look at how the California Shakespeare Theater releases all the blood in Titus Andronicus.

Speaking of bloody, here’s a newspaper article on Autonomous F/X, a California company that makes realistic body parts and corpses for medical dramas and police procedural on television.

This site is pretty self-explanatory: Table Saw Accidents. It takes a comprehensive look at the statistics of all reported saw injuries and explains why table saws can be dangerous. Not surprisingly, most table saw injuries occur making common cuts rather than attempting things out of the ordinary.

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Link Before you Leap

We’re right in the middle of tech for this year’s Shakespeare in the Park, so I don’t have time to write as extensively as usual. Here are some interesting links to keep you busy in the mean time.

  • Jesse Gaffney writes about her goal to create a Chicago props community. It’s a good rundown of how to create a community of props people in any locale, which is good for sharing resources, mutual borrowing agreements, and knowing who to recommend when you can’t take a job. We have one here in New York City.
  • If you’re a fan of Instructables, you’ll like Make: Projects. From the same people that publish Make Magazine comes this library of user-submitted DIY projects and how-tos.
  • Speaking of Instructables, if you are a teacher and like the promise of the site, but are unsure how to integrate it into your classroom, the editors have just published a post on how to use Instructables at school.
  • Here’s an oldie but a goodie: an in-depth look at Nino Novellino, founder of Costume Armour Inc., one of the largest creators of theatrical armor and all manner of sculpture and props.
  • And finally, it’s always a good idea to remember How Not to Hurt Yourself On a Table Saw.
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First Links of Spring

Happy Spring everyone! I’d like to say that in the week since I’ve returned from USITT, I’ve found time to write even with tech rehearsals for the new Tony Kushner play and prepping for rehearsals of Shakespeare in the Park, but I haven’t. To paraphrase a great quote I heard in Charlotte, I’ve been busy making fake houses for fake people. Nonetheless, I have some links for you to spend your time reading and filling your head. With knowledge.

The Restraints Blog is a whole blog dedicated to historical means of restraints, such as handcuffs, padlocks and the like.

Last month, Popular Woodworking ran an important article entitled, “How Not to Hurt Yourself on a Table Saw“. It was the culmination of a series of posts looking at recently released data on the number of table saw injuries in the US (also worth reading). It is a good read for anyone who uses a table saw, beginners and seasoned pros alike.

Toolmonger asked the question, “What’s the best book for a N00b machinist?” The readers’ comments are filled with a number of great book (and video) suggestions for getting started in using machine tools for shaping and milling metal.

The Prop Blog features a number of auctions of screen-used film props. Though I do not talk about buying and collecting props on my site, I do love the pictures at The Prop Blog; quality photographs of cinema props can be hard to find, but this site has them in spades!