Ask anyone who has survived a buffer strike – the buffer is the most dangerous tool in the shop, hands down. Yes, there are other dangerous tools and machinery all throughout any shop environment, but few move at 82 miles per hour with up to 3 HP backing it like the outer edge of the buffer wheels do. Put your knife into that spinning demon in juuust the perfectly wrong way, and bad things can result.
The after effects of a knife getting caught in a buffer is pretty self explanatory, and again is a lesson never forgotten by anyone who has thrown a knife. Here’s the simple math on why: the speed of an 8″ cotton wheel spinning at 3450 RPM is approximately 82 Miles Per Hour. Yeah. And if that weren’t bad enough, add the pretty much unstoppable motor power, which in this case is a “moderate” 1 HP. You can see the way the blade rips into the cotton wheel, and the rotation takes care of the rest. In this case the blade looks like it bounced and hit in 3 places before getting thrown across the shop in less than a blink of an eye. So, be careful, and always wear eye protection. You have to position the workpiece so that the edge will always be facing away from the incoming rotation.
Above, we see on the left hand side the tear and bending caused in the blade as if the solid steel was suddenly room temperature butter. On the right hand side, we see same knife after the repair to the damage.
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