You wouldn’t think putting in some weather stripping would be dangerous. But you could be wrong.

Last year I was all set to install the wooden brush-type door sweep for our front door. The problem was it needed trimming. It was a couple of inches too long for our door.

I read the instructions. It said to trim to length with a hacksaw. Hhmm. I don’t like hacksaws. It’s too hard to cut a straight line with a hacksaw. So I looked at the ends of the wooden sweep and to me it looked like the brushes were embedded in a hard plastic strip that was then pushed into a routed part of the wooden piece. I thought I’d use my power compound miter saw.

I could stop right here and many with saw experience could finish the story for me. But to those who have never tried to cut a thin piece of wood with a metal strip inside with an electric miter saw, I’ll tell you what happens to the best of my recollection (though I was in shock.)

When you lower the spinning saw down and it starts to cut and then hits the metal part, in a millionth of a second it grabs the strip right out of your hands, mangles it up, splinters the wood into several sharp flying pieces and flips it across the room if you are lucky. If your aren’t lucky, you may not have an ear or an eye or you could find the piece embedded in your chest or face. I think it must shoot it out of the saw at over 200 mph as best i can figure or faster.

It isn’t that I don’t know saw safety, it is more a matter of my eyes deceiving me into thinking it was a black plastic strip. I know to check for metal and nails before using my saws. However, everyone should follow instruction (which said to use a hacksaw but they didn’t say why.) I really think they should have a warning saying the inside is metal because almost everyone has to trim those things to fit your door and it is hard to tell.

So, after that incident, it took me quite a while to use the saw again. I was lucky that time as I always stand somewhat to the side when I use the saw….just in case something flies out. I never got a door sweep put in last year.

If you live through something like that, you really learn from it. I’ve learned a lot because of close calls. Another one was using my belt sander and ran over the cord. You can’t shut it off fast enough. Lights out. That’s a whole ‘nother story. What doesn’t kill you makes you wiser.

I have my new door sweep and I’ll be installing it this week. I have my hacksaw ready to go.