As a left-handed carpenter, I don’t suffer from too many limitations using right-handed tools.
Chop saws awkward? Not really, I just use it right-handed. I would even argue that I have an advantage since my right hand is only pulling the trigger and advancing the blade leaving my left hand to manipulate the materials I’m cutting giving me more control.
For a circular saw, there’s no difference when using a two-hand grip but when using a one-hand grip I have much better visibility of the blade and cutting area using my left hand than my right.
I’ve never had a problem with either chainsaws or planers and would use them whichever way I needed.
Really? I’ve found that I have an advantage turning things counter-clockwise but not clockwise.
Yep. 2 words… METAL SHEARS! Doesn’t matter which set I use, and I’ve bought several! I cannot see or cut shapes anywhere as easily or accurately as a righty.
While I am right hand dominant, there is a certain amount of evidence that I was induced to switch at a very early age. It must have worked; I’m largely ambidextrous for any task not needing fine control - and some that do.
A few years ago, I realized that it was more efficient to use a computer mouse left-handed, leaving my right free to work the keyboard. If you look at the arrangement of standard keyboards, the number pad is to the right, so if you mouse on that side, you either have to have your mouse way right or have the alpha keys to the left of center. Either one is awkward. But mousing on the left leaves the keys centered, with the number pad to the right and the mouse to the left in easy reaches.
I can use a circular saw equally well left or right, but left-handed puts me in the line of fire for the discharge chute. So good safety glasses and a bandanna are imperative.
I run a machine shop, the owner is wrong -er um, left handed. For the most part machines like lathes have two wheels that are universal meaning everybody uses the cross slide with your right hand and the carriage with your left. Where I occasionally cringe is watching him reach forward and around with his left hand with say a file or a piece of sandpaper and think he’s going to smash his fingers on the 3 jaw chuck.
I once reset a job with the cutting tool upside down and the lathe running in reverse for him so I wouldn’t run screaming from the room thinking he’s going to tear a hand off. The cool thing was all the hot chips were directed down and away. I thought wait a minute, why don’t I do it this way too? I tried and found my fine motor control with my left hand sucks.
I’ll add the occasional left handed person flaw onto the list of; fragile knees, failing eyesight and the uselessness of the appendix to my stock arguement of opposition to intelligent design. – sorry for the edging into great debate forum derailment.
Keyboard/Mouse scenario depends on what you’re doing. Ctr-C and Ctrl-V both are easily accomplished one-handed with the left hand. If you’re mousing and typing numbers, left-hand mouse is more efficient, sure, but other tasks such as photoshop and computer-assisted drafting (for specific examples from my life) a lot of the keyboard shortcuts you use frequently are on the left side of the keyboard.
Why?
I’ll be honest, I don’t use any antique tools but if I were to use a brace I would still hold it with my right hand and turn it clockwise with my left.
I can’t figure this one. Seems to me that a loaf of bread is symmetrical, as is a bread knife.
One time I was slicing bread (right handed, as usual) and I noticed that I couldn’t see the slice I was about to cut – I couldn’t tell how thick it was. It was very odd: there wasn’t a black spot or anything in my visual field; I just couldn’t see just to the right of wherever I was looking. Didn’t matter which eye, so I knew it was a brain thing and not an eye thing. Turns out it was a visual migraine symptom, and I had a few since. No pain, thank goodness.
I had to turn the loaf around and cut left-handed. I took special care to keep my loaf-holding fingers, which I couldn’t see, well away from the business end of the knife. In retrospect, I probably should have given up on the sandwich and made soup!
This is perplexing me, I have rarely had issues with scissors but never any power tools. Maybe I am more ambidextrous than a true lefty. I cannot write at all right handed. But I have no issues cutting straight lines and using chainsaws. I use standard scissors left handed without issue. Table saws, band saws, chop saws, jig saws, radial arm saws are all no issue. To use a chain saw I do use it right handed, but I never really thought about it and it is no problem.
I am trying to think about the circular saw, I rarely use mine but I guess I use it right handed. I sand, route and drill left handed.
First-rate scissors that have some kind of spring mechanism to maintain the blade tension (my desk scissors have a rubber nut; my mother’s best sewing scissors had a small leaf spring where a washer would normally go) can reduce the problem considerably. But if you’re cutting something tough, like sheet tin or copper, or if the scissors are simple, the difference between main hand and off hand use is considerable. I’m ambidextrous, but the difference between cutting my left fingernails (with my right hand) and cutting my right fingernails (with my left hand) is tremendous, because the scissors engage properly when in my right hand, but keep spreading apart when in my left.
Yes, as I explained, scissors themselves are handed - the action of operating the levers induces a torque about the pivot that makes the blades run against each other, and using them with the off hand tends to reverse that torque, which makes the blades pull apart.
However, it is possible to reverse the pressures on the scissor handles and operate right-handed scissors with your left hand. You just have to squeeze the handles with a weird pressure arrangement.
It’s possible that a lefty learned that early the same way righty’s learn their pressure pattern, and so it isn’t consciously thought about.
John, try pulling with your thumb and pushing with your finger while operating the scissors instead of the conventional pulling with your finger and pushing with your thumb. This is simultaneous with the up/down operation of the handles. It should make the blades rub together cleanly.
