Jointer Safety Help

[Lawrence A. Ramsey]

[charlie b]

snip

Ever seen a 24 or 36 inch disk sander with 60 grit on it?

charlie b

[Fred the Red Shirt]

If it's real small edge it with a handplane. Safer and does a better job. To do very small parts clamp the lane in the vise bottom up, or hold it in your lap with one hand and draw the work accross it with the other hand.

However, back to the jointer. One other concern is kick-back. I've never seen kickback from a jointer but it can catapult the board back opposite to the direction you are feeding it so don't let anyone you care for stand there and don't put anything you don't want broken there either.

[Andy Dingley]

Or if you feed it the wrong way (!) it'll snatch it right out of your hands. My jointer now has a big "

[Fred the Red Shirt]

[George]

Europeans use a different kind of guard, Fred. They can feed in the wrong direction.

[Andy Dingley]

We use "bridge" guards here in the UK, and Europe too AFAIK. You see some US-style sprung guards around, but I think they've been unsaleable on new kit since the '98 regs came in.

Here's a useful HSE guide (if you're in the UK, you should read this site - lots of good stuff)

this is a pathertic little benchtop jointer, it's the same guard as on my 6" 's a curved aluminium extrusion that slides sideways through the end of a rise-and-fall arm. For jointing, you slide the aluminium sideways. For wide planing, you lift the arm up and pass the stock under it. It has the disadvantage that the guard doesn't spriong back when you remove the stock, leaving an unguarded cutter, but on the whole I prefer them.

-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods

[Tom Kohlman]

...just a simple question. If the machine is capable of 1/64ths of an inch cut and common wisdom is not to exceed 1/8" at a time on a 6" machine, how can you ever get hurt unless the piece is too thin or narrow or short to begin with?

Only time I ever draw blood on the thing is in setting them up (twice now!!!...cleaning the factory grease off before even plugging the damn things in).

[Mike G]

Been following the thread with only mild interest. I was really curious to see how anyone ANYONE, as some poster had indicated could happen, could accidentally feed stock the wrong way through a jointer. So far I haven't seen the answer to that.

However, as to how one can hurt oneself taking only one 1/64" cut. While the blades only extend an RCH above the outfeed table there is still relatively a large opening between the infeed and outfeed table that will, should an errant digit enter it, allow you to get quite a manicure.

Say a thin or short board being fed on the trailing edge with the bare hand and too much pressure dipping into that gap.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

No matter how idiot proof a tool is, the world keeps coming up with bigger and better idiots. Someone will run a piece that is too thin, too narrow, or too short to begin with.

I can easily see someone taking a 6" wide cut 1/8" deep off the palm of their hand. Ed

[CS]

If you're not careful about it, the jointer will effortlessly remove

1/64 off any misdirected fingers 32 times before you even have time to react.

[Andy Dingley]

My own fault. I let someone use one of my machines, and as they were a "time served carpenter", I assumed they knew which way to feed it. Turns out they'd never worked in a workshop before, only ever on-site.

As an "unqualified" amateur furniture maker looking for work, I'm apparently only fit for minimum-wage labouring jobs. But some

2x4-muncher can pull a stunt like this.

-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods

[Mike G]

Well, I guess that just proves that where there is a will there is a way.

[Jay Windley]

My dad can affirm that you can feed a suitably substantial piece of stock the correct direction through a joiner, using the proper pusher, and taking only the merest fraction of wood off, and still turn the tips of your fingers into a fine red mist when the stock decides to jump. There is no safe combination of joiner drum and human finger. The only way to avoid serious injury on a joiner is to keep your fingers as far away (and preferably downstream of the feed direction) as possible from the drum.

[Mark Jerde]

Yurg!!

Does anyone use feeders with jointers? (I asked this already but if it was answered my filter ate it.)

-- Mark