Thread: The Bitter Pill

That was a scary read . I hope you recover soon and didn't get too much blood on the wood.
Ted

Hi Mobyturns

I can empathise with you entirely ... some nights as I am nodding off I get flashbacks on the day my bandsaw caught my shirt cuff, or how the slip of a finger took the edge of my nail on the router .. and the table saw kicked back a piece so violently that it punctured a 12mm ply wall board.

On EVERY occasion I was doing something wrong .. long sleeves, no push stick, cutting too thin... and yes I have had lucky escapes ... by the seat of my pants.

I take your unfortunate ""accident"" to be a reminder that you can be doing all things correct .. and yet come to harm.

Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Perhaps its time that swastop invented a jointer!!

Regards

Rob

Thank you for the well wishes, very much appreciated.

I guess all of life is about managing risk, wheter we do it consciously or not. Anything can get you at any time, just some hazards / threats are far more credible and probable risks than others. Even when you have all your ducks in a row it doesn't necessarily mean all will end well.

I have chosen to persue my hobby knowing that I face hazards and much higher risk factors due to my medical condition/s. I do it in a well managed environment and with the advice and guidance of medical professionals who do not necessarily agree that my choices fit general recommendations. One of those medical professionals rides a bicycle on public roads as I also do. He has experienced injury while doing so, and so far I have avoided injury while riding.

My opinion is that I face a much lower risk profile in my managed workshop environment than he & I both face in a quasi managed road environment. He agrees!

By managing my environment, and my medical conditions I reduce the severity of potential outcomes while still enjoying my hobby. This was a good wake up call to critically reassess what I choose to do, my management both worked and failed in some respects. Bit paradoxical as all hazard management is – zero harm really means doing zero.

Originally Posted by Tahlee

Perhaps its time that swastop invented a jointer!!

Regards

Rob

Interesting thought!

Crikeys!!!!!!!!!
I flinched as well as I was reading this.
Thank God no one has said ' No photos, didn't happen'. I am quite grateful that you decided not to add pictures.
Hope all gets better soon.

Sincerely
Willy
Jarrahland

Originally Posted by Willy Nelson

Crikeys!!!!!!!!!
I flinched as well as I was reading this.
Thank God no one has said ' No photos, didn't happen'. I am quite grateful that you decided not to add pictures.
Hope all gets better soon.

Sincerely
Willy
Jarrahland

It sounds worse than it really is. I've seen nastier wounds from hand tools. Many years ago a good mate decided a box cutter knife was the best tool for trimming / shaving 3mm ply being used as temporary cladding. He slipped and with the force required to make the cut he took the tips of a couple of fingers. We can compare scars now.

Hi,
"zero harm really means doing zero." And have a long lingering death dyeing of boredom.
Enjoy what you do with in your limits.
Speedy recovery.
Regards

I have reconstructed what I believe happened, hard to be 100% sure because it happened so fast, is that my left hand was already orientated to support the side of the custom "push stick" (not pretty - but effective) that I use. Left hand was basically palm outwards, fingers down. It appears that as I have stumbled I have extended my left arm forward to get support from the back fence but in doing so my fingers have opperated the pork chop guard in a relatively normal fashion as entering timber would. I definitely remember trying to curl my fingers up as they hit the guard, but couldn't because of my body weight forcing my fingers against the fence.

I also remember seeing a creas line on my palm about parallel to my left thumb while looking at the fingers to see how much damage I had done and where the damage was. The crease line could not have come from the "push stick", I think it was from the inwards top corner / edge of the jointer fence.

Non gory photos,

The patented push stick and one of the blanks I was squaring up,

Push Stick.jpg

a mirror with my good hand of where my left hand ended up - note the fence height matches my thumb to finger tip length. I will be adding a capping block of about 35mm just in case for future.

Mirror of hand position.jpg

The damage.

Extra crease line.jpg

Just come back from my GP - all is looking good, plenty of feeling and good blood flow, just no career as a hand model in my future.

Thanks so much for sharing this with the forum as many of us would not want to advertise our lapse and consequently not prompt so many woodworkers to reevaluate our risk assessments.

Good on you!

Steve

I agree with Steve - post #25. Thanks for sharing this with us. Other people in your position could be reluctant to post a mea culpa, but as always, you are trying to teach us about safety. Also thanks for the teaching, and for not preaching. (I was going to comment on safety nazis, but that is better left unsaid. Suffice to say that I do not regard you in that category.)

Cheers,
Alister.

Glad to hear you get to keep them mate, its a could have happened to any of us tale that we all can learn something from.

I dont know that a euro style guard would allow you to retain enough control given the short length of a lot of your workpieces. I'm wondering if we could run a track along the top of the fence to carry the push stick so you could work it from the off side of the machine. I can see how to do it in my head, I'll draw something up. That way if you have another turn and go down you'll fall away from the bitey part instead of on top of it.

Originally Posted by John.G

Glad to hear you get to keep them mate, its a could have happened to any of us tale that we all can learn something from.

I dont know that a euro style guard would allow you to retain enough control given the short length of a lot of your workpieces. I'm wondering if we could run a track along the top of the fence to carry the push stick so you could work it from the off side of the machine. I can see how to do it in my head, I'll draw something up. That way if you have another turn and go down you'll fall away from the bitey part instead of on top of it.

John, note that I didn't get any blood on that beautiful Silver Ash

I was in between jointer operations when this occurred, I was actually turning to pick up the next piece after I had restacked the completed items on an outfeed side bench (actually the top of the thicknesser). As far as I can work out in reacting to stumbling I simply placed my hand in the wrong place and it has slid along the fence enough to open the pork chop guard. I think the damage to the second finger is from how I reacted to pulling my hand away from the cutter - because the second finger is longer than my index finger.

The jointer was set for only taking off a minimal cut perhaps 0.1 - 0.2mm each pass to remove excess glue / veneer for squaring the edges for the next operation of ripping on the table saw. Could also be a different tale if I was taking a 1.5 - 2mm cut as I was last weekend while tidying up some rough sawn QLD Maple bits.

I agree the Euro style guard has problems and the pork chop style guard doesn't prevent access to the cutter head from the front, only from the top and out feed side.

I appreciate you input as any ideas we share will help make tasks on the jointer safer. Any device to place the opperator on the outfeed side would certainly help me out with the work I do.

My vertigo seemed under control, I chose to make hay while the sun shines so I rolled the dice .... I lost!

Originally Posted by Big A

I agree with Steve - post #25. Thanks for sharing this with us. Other people in your position could be reluctant to post a mea culpa, but as always, you are trying to teach us about safety. Also thanks for the teaching, and for not preaching. (I was going to comment on safety nazis, but that is better left unsaid. Suffice to say that I do not regard you in that category.)

Cheers,
Alister.

Yes I have certainly been called a safety nazi & worse. Unfortunately emotion gets in the way when we try to critically examine contributing factors to an injury. People get deffensive.

I'm certainly not infallible I just like to put my boy scout training to good use - be prepared. After all my spruking over the years I felt it would be cowardice to not fess up, some one would notice the scar eventually.

This event certainly had me checking my undies, big wake up call about managing my medical conditions.

Looking at your photos it looks like the main cause is the type of push block used?

The normal way I would tackle a piece of small short stock is using a pair of 300 mm long push sticks.
One stick pushes on the top LH corner of the piece and the other pushes on the back corner.
It takes a bit of practice but after a while it becomes relatively easy.

I also have very effective style of push block for small short stock that looks like about a #5-6 hand plane.
Is made of orange plastic and has a black foam rubber lining to grip the wood and two handles like a handplade - I think it was a Timbecon product although I don't see it on their website now.
With the fingers of both hands firmly wrapped around the handles the chances of fingers making contact with planer blades is very much reduced.

I also have a one handed version but I prefer the two handed version - this is on the timbecon website

Pushblock.jpg

Carbatech also have a safety kit on special for $18 that might also help
SK-5PCE.jpg
Most folks worry too much about how effective these sorts of push blocks will be at pushing up against the fence which is why fingers end up on the sides.
Relatively little side pressure is needed to maintain the workpiece up against a fence and enough sideways pressure can usually be obtained even from on top by applying a bit of sideways pressure.

For longer thicker stock it is possible to use your hands but to never place your hands into an imaginary area 100 mm in front of - and behind the line of the cutters. Unfortunately this hand-over-hand method takes a fair bit of practice but once you get the hang it is probably the safest method.