I am a novice woodworker with limited experience and less knowledge. I bought a tablesaw book with my tablesaw, and although I'm no expert, I believe I understand the potential dangers when using it, and I try to be careful.
My dad recently gave me his 40 year old Craftsman jointer, and I have used it several times when building a bathroom vanity among other things.
I have been as careful as I know how to be when using it, but unfortunately, Sunday night I had an accident. I was trying to run a 10 cm x 10 cm x 13/16" thick piece of wood across it. I now understand that a board that short cannot safely be run across my jointer using normal precautions. I was using a push stick with my right hand, and applying downward pressure with my left. As close as me and my dad can figure, I must have had my left hand too close to the front of the board, causing it to tip down into the opening where the blade is. When the board was knocked out of the way, my left hand went into the blades. It took a small chunk out of my middle finger and really tore up the tip of my index finger in addition to fracturing it. The result is that my index finger is going to look funny, although part of the nail should grow back according to the doctor. I actually didn't lose any length.
All in all, it could have been much, much worse.
The thing is, I thought I was being careful. In retrospect, putting my hand anywhere near the blade was obviously not safe, but it hasn't been a problem on the longer boards I've run through it. The problem was that I didn't know it was dangerous to run a short board through it.
Now, I'm wondering what other important information/knowledge I'm missing. My question is, how do I go about learning safe operating procedures for this thing so that I don't do anything like this again, or something even worse?
And I've got the "keep your hands away from the blades" lesson. I won't forget that one.
--Michael