The Fatal Chore – or the Riddle of the Sanders – Part 2

Australia – it’s a country where you rarely escape with your life. From the convict days of old, to just taking a pleasant stroll. If the snakes don’t get you, the spiders will. And so will the sanders.

Now I’m not talking about a rare type of marsupial found in WA: I mean the device used to get paint of wall. And ceiling. And everywhere else the talented individuals who painted this house back in the 90s decided to spray it. My trusty belt sander is now as battered as if it had gone through a war.
Tonight it was also very nearly the end of me – and would have been, were it not for a clever chap down a gold mine in South Africa.

He invented the RCD, or residual-current device, which disconnects a circuit whenever it detects that the electric current is not balanced between the energized conductor and the return neutral conductor, within the safe current-time envelope for ventricular fibrillation. In other words, if you touch a wire, it turns off the juice before it kills you. 

They’re not exactly common in Australia – or the UK come to that – and it took me ages to track one down. In fact I bought three – you know, in case two broke. However, I’m glad I did – for the umpteenth day I was perched on the top of an aluminium ladder, with the daily chore – or should that be the daily grind – of sanding down planks, when there was a spark & the lights died. But I didn’t.

Unbelievably, the sanding belt had cut through the mains cord, exposing the wire, but leaving a very healthy (to the sander, not to me) current flowing. The cable then rubbed up against the ladder, the live side came into contact with the metal lever, and a decent 240 volts flowed up my leg.

It sent goose bumps up my spine.