question about carving

[wgrecco]

To all,

I see alot of people mention that they have done carvings that take 6,8, 10 hours or more. Here is my question... I have seen people mention that their machine has caught fire while doing a carve... I am petrified to leave my machine for any length of time at all. So how do you guys leave your machines for that long??? Arent you afraid of what could happen?? How do you overcome this? any suggestions?

[jaroot]

I personally only do long carves when I can be around doing other things. I have a dust collector attached to mine so I don't worry too much about fire. I worry more about something going wrong with the machine. I don't stand there and hover over it while it is cutting but just check on it from time to time to see its progress. I believe the units that have caught on fire were allowed to accumulate chips and sawdust but I don't know for sure. Anyway when mine is working I check on it at least every half hour or so and/or do other things in the shop. I don't run long carves overnight mostly to keep from annoying my neighbors. Some guys have cameras on there units so they can watch them and I suppose it would be prudent to have a smoke detector in the shop.