I Bought Banned Woodworking Tools 

For all the talk of not being a Safety Sally you're the only person on the internet I've ever seen unplug a power tool before putting their hand on the blade. No one has accidents intentionally and I think it's really good that you kept the practical, doesn't cost you nothing, safety steps in so that people can see what it looks like and how effortless it is.

Fun video of things I'll never try. You are backwards on ground. You don't want to be grounded, you want to be insulated from ground because you don't want to be part of the path to ground. The rubber mat is insulating you from ground.

14:30 For anyone wondering, the woman’s name is Anne Reardon. She’s an Australian content creator and owner of the channel How to Cook That. The warning video itself was actually taken down by RU-vid because it advocated harmful activity.

“Me and the team researched this for a couple of hours” Cut to clip of John “you were supposed to research this shit!”

It's my understanding that Dado stacks are banned in Europe because power tools must come to a stop in under 10 seconds, and the additional mass of the stack makes that harder on the motor.

For someone who allegedly researched for hours about fractal burning, you got every electrical term wrong lol

John, you kept saying "grounded" when you went to step on your rubber mat. Actually you are "insulated" when you are standing on the mat. You never want to be grounded when you are dealing with electricity. That's probably why those 35 people met their maker.

As someone who works with electricity and has made videos doing this with a microwave transformer, your terminology was way off. That doesn't really matter because the message of the video was still well recieved; if you don't know what you're doing, don't do it.

There's a youtuber named styropyro that builds super lasers and messes with huge homemade capacitor banks for fun. He seems incredibly knowledgeable on electricity and its dangers. Dude's nuts. He's also spoken about the homemade fractal woodburning devices that have killed people. He says you touch the wrong spot and you're a corpse before you hit the floor.

You want the tool/device to be grounded, you want yourself to be insulated. If the tool isn't grounded, YOU become the grounding wire. Insulating yourself helps make sure ALL the electricity goes through the grounding and neutral wires, and doesn't branch off in go through you, too. An important thing to do us take off metal jewelry, it can act like a "lightning rod" and encourage it to branch to you. A tattoo or silicone wedding band is all around a better/safer option for any kind of work.

You selling hotdogs John? Fly was down half of the video 😂

After Stumpy Nubs tried carving with that chainsaw disk he almost had stumpy nubs. It took him months to recover from that. He also did a very good video on what should be in a first aid kit and how it should be stored because of it, especially for us single-man shops.

That chainsaw disk says "1400 Max RPM" on it. Angle grinders spin at 10,000+ RPM... Scary!

John; ' This is so dangerous, no one should try this! Let's give it a shot."

Just something to keep in mind regarding the fractal woodburning: Two of the people that died attempting this were trained electricians. You can be wearing insulating gloves and have them melted onto your hands. Just don't do it, a lightning pattern on wood is not worth your life.

I've been doing fractal burning for the better part of 5 years now... although I refer to it by it's technical name; a Lichtenburg figure. Yes, it's dangerous... yes, people have been killed doing it... and EVERY single case that I've investigated has been for the same reason; handheld probes... very much like the one you featured here. My rig, which is 100% homemade with transformers salvaged from old microwaves, puts out over 4,000V at 60mA, and is completely no-touch... and I researched it for several months in every aspect before I even attempted it the first time. I have VERY strict safety protocols when I'm working and I've demonstrated the process to countless guests in my shop without any issues. Excellent video and I agree with you 100% in one category; safety. :) Respect what the tool is capable of and it can't hurt you.

You have grounded and insulated backwards. The rubber mat insulates you from being grounded. The More You Know.

In 1979 my dad and I went in together and bought a new Craftsman tables saw, radial arm saw, and lathe. These are all still in my shop. We also got some accessories, one of which was this exact Craftsman wobble dado. Over the years I have built probably a dozen different cabinets and bookshelves as well as other projects using the wobble dado. I still have it in my shop. I used it mostly on the radial arm saw to rabbet half-laps for face frames. I've also used it to cut dadoes for inserting the metal strips for adjustable shelves on bookcases using the table saw. The scariest part of it is when using the radial arm saw is the guard won't fit. You have to use it without any guard at all, so you have this spinning wheel of death very near hands and face. The other disadvantage of the wobble dado, it doesn't cut a square bottom dado. The wider the groove, the less square it is. Another funny thing...years ago I bought a set of stackable angles washers that let you turn a regular saw blade into a wobble dado! Also scary and won't cut square bottom dados. A few years ago I did finally spring for an actual stacking dado. Much nicer!

Why the chainsaw disc is so dangerous is because it mimics the tip of a chainsaw bar….which is the part that causes chainsaws to kickback into you. Being circular, no matter which direction you use it from, you are courting a kickback. When a chainsaw kicks at least the length of the bar provides some inertia and the longer the bar the less it can get to your face. The chain disc has zero length and if it grabs the wood it will spin the tool right around on you. It will be sudden, a snatch too quick to react to. It might spin around onto your hand, or groin or into your clothing and run up into your neck, chewing you exactly how you’d expect the tip of a chainsaw to do. If the idea of a running chain saw being thrust into your neck sounds horrific…it is because it is, and using this chain disc is just asking for serious injury or death, no exaggeration!

Don't blame the tool, blame the operator. when I was 15, I put a ten- or twelve-inch table saw rip blade on a nine-inch Milwaukee angle grinder without any type of blade guard foolishly thinking that I could cut a large timber much faster than using a hand saw. You think a chainsaw disc on a four-inch grinder is dangerous, you ain't seen nothing yet! I'm 66 and still have everything that I originally came with and everything works. Lucky for me when I pulled the trigger and spun it up to operating speed and started the cut, the blade grabbed and ripped the grinder from me and that was that. A fantastic learning experience with a lucky outcome that taught me to think about how things are going to act befor doing something stupid.

I love the fractal burn patterns. Looks like lightning. But that's just me.

. Gf was watching the video with me. And goes “someone’s flying low”. My grandpa always said what can’t get up can’t get out. Great channel. Have a good sir.

I remember playing with a fractal burner my dad made 30 years ago. No safety or precautions at all. I remember holding the tool almost drawing with it. Looking back probably not so smart. Thanks Dad.

3:06 your fly is down, and questionable saw blades. What can go wrong.. or did it?!?!😂

This whole video reminds me of weather people standing out in hurricanes telling us don't go out in the hurricane.

the number of activated Saw Stop cartridges you have is kind of concerning. I hope that they went off due to the blade hitting something in the wood, and not hitting you or your guys. . . :-) Also, I do know a guy who does the fractal burning; I do think that in some cases it looks interesting, but i'm not going to do it. I freely admit that I do have a tendency to get complacent with my tools, and I've been lucky enough to not get hurt yet. That one however, yeah no. I don't play with electricity.

About a year ago my grandpa passed away, while going through his woodworking tools I found one of those wobble dado blades.

Honestly, your videos are incredible. I'm not into woodworking, or carpentry, for that matter, but I came across one of these videos and was absolutely entertained and watched to completion. Thank You.

There seems to be a myth about dado stacks beeing banned in germany - they are not. As long as your table saw is build to support the use of dado stacks. More specific if the shaft is long enough to let you use the dado stacks and still has enough thread fasten to the nut. If the manufacturer of your table saw say. that a saw doesn't support a dado, than you will use them on your own risk. If something happens, it will be your fault. If something happens during work hours at your job, than you might get in trouble with the insurance, for missusing your table saw. So it is a liability thing and not the fact, that germany think dado's are dangerous.

The problem with some dado stacks is that due to the weight they will keep on turning for longer than desired. They're not really banned in Europe though, it's more that table saw manufacturers can't sell their saws with them installed or state that they're compatible with them if they don't add heftier brakes on them, which is expensive. You can and has always been allowed to buy them yourself both from any decent store in Europe or import it from e.g. the US.

That kutzall disk is the same one that I dropped on my foot at 11000 rpm! I was wearing my safety sandals, but there was still many stitches, a full month on crutches and almost lost a toe. Wear your safety gear folks, even at home. 😂

This is hilarious~!! I remember first seeing the wobble dado cutter years ago when they came out and thought "what a janky idea~!! Someone's gonna get maimed, killed, or worse~!!" LOLOL Thanks for this one, John~!

How about a wobble dado blade on your radial arm saw? I have a friend with this set-up. I encourage him on the regular to get rid of the whole mess.

I'm soooo glad you brought up James Hamilton from Stumpy Nubs. That’s honestly the first thing I thought of the second you mentioned that disc. I personally only use my grinder for metal and masonry and have no plans to try power carving with it, but if I did, I would run as fast as I could away from that disc

As someone who has used the adjustable dado blade from craftsman since I was in my 20's......I'm 62 now, the only problem with the adjustable dado is it takes trial and error to get the width of the dado just right. Once you get the width right, it cuts just fine and is no more dangerous to use than any other blade. I will admit that I prefer a dado stack. Just follow one simple rule to avoid injuring yourself while working with tools.......Don't be a dumbass.

Skydiving without a chute is safer than the chainsaw angle grinder

I don't think dado stacks are actually banned in europe, they're just not common because saws need to be able to brake and stop fast. So manufacturers don't bother making longer arbors. Also, small shapers (sometimes integrated into a single sliding table saw/shaper/thicknesser/etc) are a lot more common in Europe than they are in NA, that's what people traditionally use. Which kind of shows that the issue with dado stacks is not really safety (because a shaper is pretty damn good at removing stuff that isn't wood), just different habits/traditions. Definitely agree about fractal burning, it looks cheesy as fuck and the fact that someone would risk their life for this shit boggles the mind.

Dado stacks aren't banned. The issue is only in commercial settings and is you can't use them without a blade gaurd at least in the uk

"I thought you researched this" "me and the team researched this for hours"

"If your doing it, fk you" proceeds to do it...

You're confusing grounded with insulated.

I used a wobble dato for years before I got the stack dato set. I never had an issue with it but the big problem was that the bottom of the dato was rounded because of the offset. I have put my old wobble to rest and will stick with the stack.

When I first saw those chain saw grinder blade... I thought "that thing will kill you and it's going to hurt the whole time!"

"If you are considering doing this... DON'T" 🤣🤣

I bought one of those chainsaw wheels for a project, then I saw Stumpy Nubs video, I have never used it; when it comes to the project I got it for, I'll use my actual chainsaw or a power carving disc.

At 8:29 literally telling us to avoid dangling things while wearing a hoodie with dangling cords 😂

You have my anxiety at 100 watching this! 😂 I’m literally yelling at my screen, “DONT DO IT, JOHN!!!!”

I used one of those wobble dado blades for five years making cabinets and bookcases. Worked great for us, I didn't even know they were banned, haha.

So I have done Fractal burning myself with the same kit you bought. It's much slower than some other peoples because it's lower voltage. The ones that go really fast are absolutely dangerous. Like you I bought a dead mans switch and I back away when doing this. I have gotten shocked through the gloves a couple of times but I have gotten a decent burn out of it on one of my projects. I think it's just a mater of taste for if you like the burn effect or not.

I think John gets scared of his own shadow

I got a pucker when he was touching the fractal burner without the gloves, I don't know if they are absent in the fractal setup but microwaves often have high power capacitors as part of the power circuitry that is being DIY rigged and the internet kits are often just doing that DIY for you so there is still a risk of getting a nasty shock when it is not actively operating.

There is a guy that does displays of the fractal burning near me. Just posts up at a festival and gets to burning, then hangs out with the glass blowers.

I really wish content creators would stop perpetuating the idea that dado stacks are illegal in Europe. It's just not true, and it's an easy thing to debunk. And understanding the details of why they're rare in the EU is a really good way to understand the dangers of dado stacks so you can use them safely.

This video annoys me SOOO much. It's full of a bunch of misinformation. The wobble dado: It's putting a lot of forces on your table saw that they're just not built for. It's a whole lot of mass off center with high momentum. Sure, the idea seems convenient. It's less messing around with lots of parts. But it's a whole lot of mass that's being used in a relatively uncontrolled way. Okay, comments about the power carver are fair... The fractal stuff... Hoo boy! You state in the video that you and your team did hours of research... and you keep talking about how dangerous it is BUT you immediately undermine that with misinformation! Like you respect it so much you're not going to talk about it any sort of an accurate or helpful way. The rubber mat for example: It doesn't make you more grounded. More grounded would be standing there barefooted with nothing between you and the earth. The point is to make it more difficult for your body to become part of the circuit. i.e. NOT GROUNDED. So if someone is watching that and they take your words seriously, they'll know that to become more grounded they should be essentially planted in the ground - which is a whole lot less safe. You plant so much of your dissuasion in the aesthetic of the technique when tastes are subjective. If people didn't like the result, they wouldn't be trying to make it. It's just a terribly argument to make when the argument you should be making is "It's freakin' unsafe. To get better results, it gets less and less safe". You keep throwing out terms, which again, you said had been researched, without regard to what they actually mean. Compressing frequencies etc. when you can't even be bothered to learn about the relationship between wattage, current and voltage and what any of it means. Putting this information out there in this way, where you're blatantly not giving the dangerous subject matter the respect it deserves, is irresponsible at best. You can do better.

Quickly becoming one of my favourite channels. Recommending it to all of my friends/family. I have done woodworking for 10 years now. Still lots to learn!

Those chainsaw chain heads, they are just one big kick zone. So dangerous! Well done raising awareness

You're using the lichtenburg machine, or fractal burner wrong. Like the technique or not, don't discredit it by not testing properly.i enjoy watching your videos but you should do a little more research.

Remember kids a microwave transformer and a potentiometer is a poor man’s buzz box

Thank you, John, for the information in this video. This needs to be spread far & wide at how freaking dangerous fractal burning is.

in my high school electrical class we made one of those wood burning microwave things

Fractal wood burning…. Yes, it’s super dangerous! But you’re crazy John! It looks FREAKIN AWESOME!!!

Maybe try to use a suit of armour while testing these gadgets. Something flies off and so do parts of you😂

electricity does not travel through water, but rather the minerals suspended in the water. If you were in a pool of absolutely pure distilled water, and dropped a live wire into the pool, nothing would happen to you.

I used to have one of those wobble blades. It works ok but leaves a curved bottom on the dado. I also bought one of those chain wheels and once I got it I was too scared to even try it. It's still in package on a shelf after 8 years.

Never laughed so hard, his fly was down the for a long time hahahahahahahahahaha lol almost the whole beginning till he went to the sawstop

I work in EMS. I've been to a.young.man who messed up work with the electric arc wood burning. He was using some transformer. Killed him instantly. We "got him back" but he never made it off of life support.

I was gonna say, basically I’ll use any tool unless it involves putting a wood cutting blade on an ANGLE GRINDER!!! LMAO

John, you have now, in detail, explained 3 things that I have zero desire to ever to try. Great reenforcement!! However, I am old enough that I do remember that my father had a wobble dado from Sears. I threw it away decades ago.

You had me until 9:37 when you appear to grab the blade of a plugged in death trap … 😂

Dude I’m calling it. This channel is gonna be huge. I definitely predict a mill subscribers by 2025

I have a wobble Dado and the Lichtenberg word burning setup (Homemade with microwave transformer). The few times I use it I am standing about 15 feet away when I plug it in and then initiate the burning. I have a few clients that love this look as a natural art type item. The wobble is interesting, but mine has a set screw to "keep" the setting.

One of the first major woodworking tools I bought was a 10 inch Radial arm saw from Sears some 35 years ago and I loved it. This is the tool I use the exact same Wobble Dado blade on that you were demonstrating. It is easy to adjust to the exact width that you want, and by making multiple passes when it's set at the widest cut of 3/4 of an inch you can make grooves as wide and deep as you want. The only thing I have found when I use it is to push the blade into the wood, because if you try to draw it across the wood and it bits, it has a tendency to tear across the wood.I like the radial saw because you can see where the blade is cutting as apposed to a table saw where the blade is hidden by the wood. My cousin Is a cabinet maker in Holland and he told me that he has never seen a Radial saw before. I have noticed in all the wood working shows that I have watched on RU-vid, I've never seen anyone use a radial arm saw. Why is that?

Lmao this channel is basically a PBS program telling people to NOT try new ways of making money.

I remember using the wobble dato cutter in highschool, my shop teaher hated them cause the sound and vibration of them would like put students in a daze, I remember when he got a dato stack for the shop, never seen a man more happy to be incharge of 30 teenagers in a woodshop

That wobble dado was the exact one we used in high school back in the 80s as a kid back then never did we ever think about safety it was just cool shit to do LOL 😂

8:07 He's with 80 bpm while he's scared, and i'm 94 bpm while chilling on my bed

I remember using a wobble-head dado head when in high school during wood classes. They worked great but we almost never used them without the instructor checking the setup.

I reckon you should have linked the Ann Reardon video explaining how and why it's dangerous, it includes how safety gear was ineffective and how electricians have been victims. Because "it looks dumb" is only going to convince people who value your opinion on aesthetics

I had a foreman who had one of those 4 inch chainsaw wheels and when he slipped, and it hit his hand, he lost two months of work while they patched and refigured his hands. They are truly dangerous and I always felt he was a careful person. careful person wouldn't have even put that on his 4 inch grinder.

I lost a friend to fractal burning. He was explaining it to me on a Friday. I told him it sounded dangerous. He wasn't at work Monday.

Lol Mans fly is down hahah 2:50 i love you dude hahaha

i use the wobble dado for the last 40 years even had it sharpened once. Works great on large cabinet panels. had one table saw that it was dedicated to for 15 years.

As if the wobble blade isn’t dangerous enough, you’re using it with your fly undone 😂😂

Fractal woodburning is easy when you follow one rule. DON'T TOUCH IT WHEN IT IS ON!

The most dangerous tool i've been around was a bandsaw with no guards at the bovine disassembly factory , the operator cut feet into smaller pieces for 2000 bovines. Whenever he had holidays, someone would lose a finger trying to fill in. So about 16 cuts a minute for 8 hours is the pace. And the material is not flat and will be wet and slippery.

On fractal burning: it's not just that it can stop your heart, it's that it can flash-boil whatever part(s) of you that end up touching it, so if you DO survive, you will almost certainly not do so unaltered

The wobble dado blade was the standard of my shop class in 2003-2007.

Someone looked at an angle grinder and thought: "Hmm.. now how can I make this MORE dangerous and terrifying than it already it?"

That mugshot of Tim "the toolman" Taylor @ 0:08 from his cocaine bust cracked me up.

I remember something similar to fractal burning, but it involved glass and cracking it with a current to create a similar pattern It also happens in like, a fraction of a second.

My dad had that dado when I was a kid. I remember it vividly, but never remember him actually using it.

Dado stacks are only banned in a commercial workshop. Because they don't come to a stop within 10 seconds. You can still use them at home all you want.

Ladies and gentleman, the kit he has, I personally own. It works fantastically, and I get orders for fractal burnt pieces regularly. One of my top 3 requests on orders so his opinion aside, a lot of people like it. The one we have is from a neon sign. And instead of painting the entire board with water, ur only supposed to just paint the water brush width up to, I do about 6 to 7 inches. Takes a lot less time when u direct the current where to go with the water. If u want to do it, buy the kit. It's not expensive, and it's a lot of fun

I think I’d rather watch paint dry than put electricity through wood. You really can’t fix stupid. Thanks for taking one for the team I think

I made a Lichtenburg machine from a microwave and while it is VERY dangerous, there are ways to do it more safely. Most importantly is to make sure you are nowhere near the wood or electrodes when it is powered on.

Yeah where your buddy said "It's unplugged," that's where people die, because the DIY ones with the microwave transformers (not, by the way, the part that actually produces microwaves; it's just a power supply to create the correct voltage for the part that does) can hold a full charge like a capacitor (not sure if it _is_ a sort of capacitor or just _has_ some big nasty capacitors feeding it) and dump it right into you just when you chuck your gear and touch both tips at once because "it's unplugged" and you think you're safe. Your Amazon unit probably has a safety to prevent that, and some of the better DIY guys who take the next step and make them in their garages to sell or give away also build safety features into them for just that reason.

Subscribed just foe your saw. Thanks for your brain stuff in your videos. Alot of stuff I could learn, hopefully it sticks 😅

The issue with them using the high voltage side of a microwave transformer is that it galvanically isolates the high voltage from the circuit breaker so as you are being shocked and possibly dying, the circuit breaker has no idea there is any issue, so it doesn't kill the power to the circuit. you can safely repurpose a microwave transformer by taking out the high voltage coil and replacing it with a very thick cable like 6 AWG to 2 AWG (it won't work for burning fractals into wood though) to use as a very low voltage high current metal melting circuit , or cheap arc welder because it wont have enough voltage to penetrate human skin (if you did it properly it would be like 8 volts max, but at like 300 amps)

We used those wobble dado blades in my shop class in the early 2000's. They always scared me but worked just fine.

I've used the wobble dado on my unisaw for 50 years without issue...I don't use it often but the results have always been satisfactory