I've never hurt myself (yet) but the closest calls seem to come from impatience waiting for the saw to stop. Those 15 seconds waiting for the blade to stop sure are long.
I'm working on a mod to my saw right now to add resistive braking. I figure I need about 10 ohms, but I'm not sure how much power rating it will need. Perhaps a heater coil would be best.
Anyway, the resistor across the motor windings should slow it down much faster than just letting inertia do the job and hopefully reduce the risk of being impatient.
Last year I cut the tip of my left index finger off on the TS. I was cutting some thin strips from a 2x4 on a friends crappy contractor saw. Dull blade, underpowered saw, and light saw frame, so I was holding down the saw with my left foot while feeding with both hands. I was down to the last strip from a 2x4 and was pushing with my right hand using a pushstick. Since the wood was so hard to feed into the crap blade, my left hand ended up doing some pushing instead of just guiding the wood against the fence. The saw also had a gaping wide throat plate, and the sliver of an offcut ended up getting sucked into the throatplate, which sucked the workpiece into the blade really fast. I tried to pull my left hand back, but it was too late and I watched it go in. Felt like someone hit my fingers with a big stick or something, and I pulled my hand back and saw hanging parts of meat from my fingers with a bunch of blood. At that point I didn't feel I could look at it any more and just said "Oh shit. I think you'd better drive me to the hospital." So I ended up in the emergency room with a bloody rag wrapped around my hand. Kind of the "walk of shame" for a woodworker, eh? I was blacking out by thinking about my fingers getting cut off, since at that point I wasn't really sure what the extent of the damage was.
Luckily the hunk that got cut off was hanging off by a little piece of skin, so we didn't have to go looking for it in the saw. The blade chewed off the end of the bone, but they were able to kind of file it off and cover it up with the chunk of flesh. I had a good orthopedic surgeon, and the repair seems to have taken, and even regrown some nerves in the chunk that was cut off. The nail sort of grew out from the piece of cuticle that was left and out over the repaired piece. So now its a little shorter, is shaped funny, has a wierd nail, and doesn't have good feeling in it. But my surgeon said thats about as good as you can hope for when you put your hand in the table saw. He also said that the most popular injury for him was fingers in the table saw and toes in the lawnmower. So I feel relatively lucky.
Well, thats probably more detail than you wanted to hear. Kind of gross, really!
Now I'm scared to cut my fingers off every single time I use the table saw, and have started imagining how I could be hurt by nearly every other tool I use too. I guess that is for the better, and it could have been a more costly lesson.
Lessons learned:
- use a zero clearance throat plate
- use a sharp blade
- use good tools
- don't get into a situation where if something goes wrong your hands will end up in the cutter. I of course knew this, and actually right before the incident happened I was starting to get little alarm bells in my head that this might not be the best situation.
So even before my finger was out from under dressings, I went out and bought a 1973 Powermatic 66 and have been restoring it for the last year. Now its up and running with a WWII and a zero clearance insert, good fence, etc. It cuts well and I don't need to jam wood through it, and isn't tipping over when I feed boards. Much harder for things to be sucked into the throat plate now as well.
After reading about TS injuries though, I am probably even more scared about kickback, so I now have a little screw in splitter in my throat plate too. Probably will get a blade guard at some point but I haven't decided which option will be the least annoying.
In article , snipped-for-privacy@eink.com (Holly Gates) wrote: [snip gross but instructive story]
This is probably the most important of the lessons to take out of that experience: *listen* to that voice inside your head that says "this is not a good idea".
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
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It's all the *other* voices in my head that I have to watch out for...
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
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I Googled 'stop saw' and found what you are referring to. Not quite the same thing. That person I believe has released an entire table saw with his safety technology. If it works, I have to hand it to him. I suspect he is using capacitance much like those lamps that you can turn on just by touching them.
No, what I'm attempting is much simpler. It doesn't sense a finger in the blade, just stop the blade faster when you hit the stop switch or take your foot off the footswitch. This type of circuit is common in industrial motor control. (Anyone else here using one? Everyone?) From my own work habits I think the greatest risk of injury (for me) is impatience waiting for the blade to stop before clearing junk from the blade, or retrieving the cut piece.
I doubt there is enough energy in a 3hp motor to cook a hotdog. (Perhaps you could test that out for me ;)
Hi Jay. This tools 're design 75-100 years ago. And yes. they will get you at first chance. But is never to late for you to learn of another way. The Dead Wood Concept by Eurekazone. Where the wood stays put and your hands never go close to any moving blade. Hi Guys. My name is Dino (the carpenter) and my mission is to make woodworking Fun-safe-Smart-Easy and affordable to anyone. Because woodworking is a good thing. Please visit our website
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and I will be happy to answer any questions, I saw some hits in our site from this forum and I stop over to say Hi. Hi Guys. Your carpenter friend. YCF Dino
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
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I hate to tell you this but with a radial arm saw the wood stays put and your hands never need to go close to any moving blade but people cut themselves with those regularly. Also with miter saws, which work on the same deal. Also with circular saws, same deal.
Safety doesn't come from gadgets, it comes from safe work habits. The gadgets are the second line for when you momentarily forget the first.
I try to think of how stupid I'm going to look sitting in the emergency room with a bloody towel around my hand.
There ain't much wrong with a bit of paranoia in the wood shop. You won't just look stupid with the bloody towel. You feel stupid and besides that, DAMN IT HURTS!
Experience talking here. After 25 years of woodworking I had the incredibly stupid gall to say to my wife "....done pretty well because after 25 years I haven't been injured" The real message was I had reached a level of complacency. I still went through some of the motions associated with a safe shop but the mind wasn't fully engaged.
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