Thread: The Bitter Pill

Visions of Steven King, a deli machine and a rotational spray of blood to the roof.

You were a very lucky chap. My mind reels at the prospects.

Ive the same jointer as you. It's a great little machine. My only thoughts of upgrade was to carbide knives or a nifty after market spiral head.

Its a tool that has always made me worry. The table saw used to, but much use has made me aware of the dangers and a near automatic avoidance of danger is now muscle-memory.... But the jointers use and the difficult nature of using the pork-chop means it's never a fluid confidence inspiring process.

One thing that's useful is I use the Grrrippers for both hands. It keeps my hands well away. I made a heel that sits on the back of one to help force the wood over the surface (it seems to stick occasionally).

Im glad you are safe.

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

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.

at the risk of offending you I'm going to go hard in favour of Euro style guards. Replacing your "pork chop" guard with a Euro style guard would make your jointer much less dangerous.

If you are face jointing, a Euro style guard should completely cover the cutter head and be just high enough above the table that the board can pass underneath. Used this way, your hand can can not contact the cutter head unless you put it under the guard. On higher level machines, like Martin, the guard rises to allow a board to pass underneath and drops behind the board.

if you're edge jointing, the Euro style guard would be located just above the cutter head with the gap between the guard and the fence being just wide enough to allow the board to pass. Again on higher level machines, the guard moves to allow the board to pass and closes behind the board.

have a look at the first minute or so of the video at this link Experience perfection with MARTIN: T54
You would have to be very unfortunate to fall onto a Martin guard and contact the cutter head.

BTW
I like your push stick. Depending on how short your stock is, you might extend the push stick completely cover the piece you're working on.

Originally Posted by BobL

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

Bob, When I am passing items over the cutter head I use techniques similar to what you describe.

However, I was not actually performing a task on the jointer / surface planer when this occurred. My fingers were not on the side of a work piece.

I was rotating my body back to the infeed side to pick up the next item and the push stick, when I lost my balance. Because I had restacked the items on the outfeed side I did not have anything in either hand. I'm pretty confident that my variety of disposable push sticks are suitable for the tasks and I'm not in the habit of passing my fingers over the cutter head. Your suggestions & input are greatly appreciated though.

This one I have to put in the subjective hazard category - I was competent in my assessment of my medical conditions and suitability to opperate the machine on that day.

Originally Posted by John.G

"safety enhancement that lets me continue to do what I love and saves everyone the worry I might fall over and chop fingers off. If I stop woodworking I'll be underfoot in the house and drive everyone crazy"

I just bought 5 truck loads of gear off Peninsula Timbers in Cairns (they closed up shop)

A man after my own heart, I suggested that perhaps I should give it away - and got the stare! From that I inferred that I was not to be "underfoot in the house and drive everyone crazy."

Another one gone! Mr Richardson has a lot to answer for!

Originally Posted by ian

at the risk of offending you I'm going to go hard in favour of Euro style guards. Replacing your "pork chop" guard with a Euro style guard would make your jointer much less dangerous.

If you are face jointing, a Euro style guard should completely cover the cutter head and be just high enough above the table that the board can pass underneath. Used this way, your hand can can not contact the cutter head unless you put it under the guard. On higher level machines, like Martin, the guard rises to allow a board to pass underneath and drops behind the board.

if you're edge jointing, the Euro style guard would be located just above the cutter head with the gap between the guard and the fence being just wide enough to allow the board to pass. Again on higher level machines, the guard moves to allow the board to pass and closes behind the board.

have a look at the first minute or so of the video at this link Experience perfection with MARTIN: T54
You would have to be very unfortunate to fall onto a Martin guard and contact the cutter head.

BTW
I like your push stick. Depending on how short your stock is, you might extend the push stick completely cover the piece you're working on.

Ian, certainly no offence taken & I value any constructive input.

One thing I want to make very clear I was not actually performing a task on the jointer / surface planer when this occurred, I have over balanced and placed my hand into harms way. Yes I was performing a series of jointing operations but not actually passing a work piece over the cutter head or even had a work piece on the machine at the time.

The jointer was set up for edge jointing, I had been using the push block shown previously with the standard red plastic push stick supplied with many machines as a hand held feather board forcing the workpiece against the fence.

In this event the injury would still have occurred with the gap between the Euro / Bridge style guard and the fence, in fact it may have been worse. Even though the "pork chop" style guard opened to let my fingers contact the cutter head, I believe the resistance from the spring and the guard prevented my fingers going deeper into the cutter head. With the Euro style guard there would have been a gap there & no resistance from the spring & guard at all.

Perhaps if the spring was stronger my fingers would not have made contact, then it would be difficult to operate in a normal fashion.

The ideal would be an automated bridge style guard that senses wood contact, opens to permit the work piece through then closes automatically with flesh detection technology i.e. will only open for wood & not flesh.

Thank you for the Martin T54 link. Very nice machine but well out of hobbyists budgets. In recent time I have seriously considered a small power feeder and the Euro/Bridge style guard, both have practical issues and as a hobbyist I simply don't have the volume of work or budget to justify their purchase.

This is one of those events that fits into the plausible but unlikely category but has serious enough outcomes (i.e. digit amputation) to warrant attention. I thought I had covered those hazards / risks, and made the judgement that at the time I was medically fit & competent to operate the machine. I rolled the dice - it went pear shaped.

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

One thing I want to make very clear I was not actually performing a task on the jointer / surface planer when this occurred, I have over balanced and placed my hand into harms way. Yes I was performing a series of jointing operations but not actually passing a work piece over the cutter head

Perhaps if the spring was stronger my fingers would not have made contact, then it would be difficult to operate in a normal fashion.

The ideal would be an automated bridge style guard that senses wood contact, opens to permit the work piece through then closes automatically with flesh detection technology i.e. will only open for wood & not flesh.

This is one of those events that fits into the plausible but unlikely category but has serious enough outcomes (i.e. digit amputation) to warrant attention. I thought I had covered those hazards / risks, and made the judgement that at the time I was medically fit & competent to operate the machine. I rolled the dice - it went pear shaped.

From a purely safety perspective my worry is that you're going to have another turn like this around the machine and - regardless of whether it's engaged or not - next time its going to be more then a fingernail and a bit of skin and hair. And I agree - there are risks everywhere and hey.. somebody else can have something go wrong driving down the road and run into you and you're dead, or a meteorite can belt into your head when you're mowing the lawn or...

Its about realistic appraisal of risk because we all of us are going to die someday and somehow. I've had more close shaves then I care to admit courtesy of a life not spent wrapped in cotton wool, and had two "near misses requiring stitches" and a whole heap more of "plain dumb luck kept me alive" incidents in the industry, at least one of which was a million to one chance of it ever happening thing and theres no way I could have foreseen it occurring. I aint staying home because of them.

I reckon it would be easy to put a heavier spring onto the guard. Then put a little pneumatic ram onto it to override the spring tension, said ram operated by a foot operated pressure switch on the floor. The foot switch will be "loose" ie its on a line that allows you to shift it somewhat so you can start differing workpiece sizes with your foot on the switch . You put your foot on the button to operate the ram and the guard opens, take your foot off and the piece is held against the fence by spring tension and the spring closes behind it as it passes through, maybe even a roller or three on the workpiece side of the guard to reduce friction - just like an air control on a feed hob basicly.

All up cost would probably be around $300 if you've already got a compressor in the shed, and its not rocket science engineering so long as you get the ram stroke and positioning right to allow it to open to the full width of the cutterblock.

But I'd still be investigating them mini CNC routers... theres nothing like the frustration of learning to master a new toy.

Mr Richardson didnt have much to do with this closure(Peninsula) ... my understanding is they got an offer for the land&buildings too good to refuse.

Originally Posted by John.G

From a purely safety perspective my worry is that you're going to have another turn like this around the machine and - regardless of whether it's engaged or not - next time its going to be more then a fingernail and a bit of skin and hair. And I agree - there are risks everywhere and hey.. somebody else can have something go wrong driving down the road and run into you and you're dead, or a meteorite can belt into your head when you're mowing the lawn or...

Its about realistic appraisal of risk because we all of us are going to die someday and somehow. I've had more close shaves then I care to admit courtesy of a life not spent wrapped in cotton wool, and had two "near misses requiring stitches" and a whole heap more of "plain dumb luck kept me alive" incidents in the industry, at least one of which was a million to one chance of it ever happening thing and theres no way I could have foreseen it occurring. I aint staying home because of them.

I reckon it would be easy to put a heavier spring onto the guard. Then put a little pneumatic ram onto it to override the spring tension, said ram operated by a foot operated pressure switch on the floor. The foot switch will be "loose" ie its on a line that allows you to shift it somewhat so you can start differing workpiece sizes with your foot on the switch . You put your foot on the button to operate the ram and the guard opens, take your foot off and the piece is held against the fence by spring tension and the spring closes behind it as it passes through, maybe even a roller or three on the workpiece side of the guard to reduce friction - just like an air control on a feed hob basicly.

All up cost would probably be around $300 if you've already got a compressor in the shed, and its not rocket science engineering so long as you get the ram stroke and positioning right to allow it to open to the full width of the cutterblock.

But I'd still be investigating them mini CNC routers... theres nothing like the frustration of learning to master a new toy.

Mr Richardson didnt have much to do with this closure(Peninsula) ... my understanding is they got an offer for the land&buildings too good to refuse.

The spring loaded pork chop on the 16" pointer at the tree loppers yard has been replaced with a larger, HD, all Al, chop utilising a HD door closer mechanism.
I don't have a photo of it on the machine but here it is held in my bench vice with the old one alongside.
The closer spring is much stiffer than the usual pork chop spring, which suits the HD nature of the planing operations it is used for.
I also like the idea of a pneumatically operated ram of some kind.

Jointer-guard.jpg

is there an after-market euro guard available?

Good news. The second lot of dressings have been removed, the stiches have held and all is coming along nicely. My first aid helped preserve the skin etc as viable for reattachment. It will even look like a normal finger!

Originally Posted by woodPixel

is there an after-market euro guard available?

I haven't seen any after market Euro / bridge guards specifically for the Carbatec jointers / surface planers. I have noticed that most jointers supplied to the hobbyist in Australia have a "pork chop" style guard fitted whereas the combination machines (jointer / thicknesser) tend to have Euro style guards. I have been informed that "pork chop" style guards are not permitted in NZ.

If a wood worker uses the rebate facility on most jointers they have to remove the "pork chop" style guards. For thick work pieces a Euro guard is typically elevated for "under the bridge" jointer operations which imo presents a much higher risk profile than "pork chop" style guards. Even a 19mm opening onder a bridge guard presents significant risk to fingers.

I'm not convinced that a Euro style guard would have prevented my injury, quite the opposite actually. If I had a Euro guard fitted & correctly set up for the task I was performing that portion of the cutter head would not have been covered at all, only while a work piece was over the cutter head. At least the "pork chop" style if correctly maintained returns to cover the whole of the cutter head after each pass.

Neither style of guard offer total protection, each has some sort of short comming, which is where good training in safe use and a diligent operator is valuable.

Geoff, sorry to hear of your mishap today (particularly after I learnt that JM had won Best of Show again).

In time, I think Sawstop technology will be applied to ALL woodworking machines. I do however suspect I will be long gone by then....

regards Jeff

You can't put a saw stop on carving knives or draw knives etc. Next you will want to put seatbelts in cars.

It had me thinking about the sarcastic responses to "sawstop on this and that".... there is another thread where a new drill press has some smarts built into it. It stops drilling if the user's hand gets too close.

Jointers, router tables, thicknessers, bandsaws and tablesaws are pretty "dumb" devices and lack anything that I'd call technological improvement.

They sure look fancier, but the underlying tech could have been implemented in 1950 for all the change. Of course, the argument of "its proven and it's cheap", or "why bugger with something that works".... but looking at this thread.... hmmmm. I'd like the *option* of buying one at least.

A jointer with a touch sensitive instant-stop would have saved an en-manglement.

It doesn't strike me as *especially hard* to implement touch sensitive instant-off in a great number of tools. It doesn't need to be as dramatic as a SawStop (BBBOOOOMMMM!!!!!).... but an electric/magnetic/physical/friction brake seems entirely do-able.

How many people have slipped when using a router table? A router that has a cartridge brake that slams into a special area of the shaft to cease rotation is trivial.

Amazing that this isnt an option on a great many stationary tools, considering SawStop have been flogging their products since ~2002.

I cant see that (compulsory sawstop type technology, or at least the tech. as it currently stands) working perfectly under every conceivable situation because some woods can conduct electricity better then others due to (a) variations in cell structure and density (this is why different timbers have correction factors over MM guage readings) (b) moisture content - wet wood is still a conductor (c) trace elements in the wood and (d) the different extractives and oleoresin compounds that the timber might carry, maybe even (e) treatment/paint/coating that the timber might have had applied. So while sawstop might be a really great idea, I suspect its actual application is not as flawless as the manufacturing blurb suggests.

Not that the fact that it doesnt necessarily work ever stop government from regulating something as compulsory *eyeroll*

Then factor in Fred Woodworker whos fitted with a pacemaker... is an electrically charged blade more or less risk to him? I guess the question is do you want to find him dead on the floor from a heart attack or bled out but... its a question Id be asking if I had a pacemaker and was looking at one of these.

Don't get me wrong, I think its great technology and if it saves someone serious injury then its a good thing. But I also worry that it might teach a wee bit of complacency into the next generation, which is harmless so long as they never use anything but "guarded" machines. Problem is not every machine can be guarded, some machinery and operations are inherently riskier then others, and practicing safety is a habit that is easier to forget then to instill.