Fine Woodworking and Tablesaw Safety

[Steve Maskery]

I've received FWW's newsletter this morning, on which they have a link to 5 minute video telling you all you need to know about how to make rips and cross-cuts safely.
http://www.finewoodworking.com/tool-gui ... ng-eletter

Hmm.

The photo to the link, does, at long last, show a proper riving knife, but there is no guard, a full-length fence and he is wearing a ring and a wristwatch!

Oh the irony.
Steve

 

[doctor Bob]

I can see the reasoning for not wearing a wrist watch and ring, however I think if you end up that close to the blade it's 50:50 as to whether or not they may even offer protection, a clink on the watch strap or a clink on your wrist!
Admittedly it may drag your wrist in further, but for me I'd rather wear these items as normal and concentrate on keeping my fingers a decent distance from the blade.

I don't wear a ring anymore simply because it ended up a sort of triangle shape after getting squashed so many times.

Strange how the short fence seems to have been a trade secret for years, I see a lot on here have switched to a short fence but still people stick with a long fence thinking it's better.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Bob
Wearing a ring or a watch - it's not about the blade. They can get caught on things and releasing them is a distraction. In a high percentage of industrial accidents involving finger injuries, it was because of a ring. I wish I could give you a reference for that but I can't. But it's something I read or heard many years ago and I know from the days when I did wear a ring that that is a risk.

 

[doctor Bob]

Bob
Wearing a ring or a watch - it's not about the blade. They can get caught on things and releasing them is a distraction. In a high percentage of industrial accidents involving finger injuries, it was becasue of a ring. I wish I could give you a few for that but I can't. But it's something I read or heard many years ago and I know from the days when I did wear a ring that that is a risk.

Fair point Steve

 

[Jacob]

Their alternative push stick is really very bad. Hand really close to the blade and arm reaching past it. The one they rejected is much better and safer, not least because you can push the workpiece past the blade without your hand going past it too.
Proper ones give you extra reach, theirs does not.
I'd copy the plastic one (twice) in wood as it's a lot safer - plastic can shatter if it gets caught but a wooden one just gets neatly trimmed. And use two, one to push the other to hold the end in (and/or down) as it goes past the saw. Makes life a lot easier as well as safer.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Agreed, Jacob.
Although personally I don't like the long plastic design, I prefer the boot shape, but with a tote handle, so my hand is not at blade level, and a notch at the front for pushing past. I think it is the best of both worlds.

S

 

[MrYorke]

I had to stop watching as Americans are just not funny!

I still wear a ring on my finger as I don't want to upset the wife when I've forgotten to put it back on. However, there was this one time that I had my hand beneath the floorboard and something got snagged on my ring (no jokes please) and was sweating a little for 10 mins trying to pull my hand out.

 

[Jacob]

Agreed, Jacob.
Although personally I don't like the long plastic design, I prefer the boot shape, but with a tote handle, so my hand is not at blade level, and a notch at the front for pushing past. I think it is the best of both worlds.

S

I see that plastic design as a boot, but safely positioned at the end of a long leg. I use two if them most of the time on a TS.

I had to stop watching as Americans are just not funny!.........

At least they weren't lecturing us about gun laws!

 

[Shrubby]

Google WIS16
Safety standards in America are bizarre and best ignored
Matt

 

[Tinbasher]

Years go a workmate of mine jumped down off the back of a wagon but caught his ring on a nail (stop sniggering at the back there!) it totally degloved his ring finger, it were orrible! They whipped it off in A&E to neaten it up but it stopped me wearing my wedding ring at work.

 

[Steve Maskery]

TinB
That is a very typical ring finger injury.
The other one I remember was a mechanic wielding a spanner on a car engine. The spanner caught the terminal of the car battery, everything shorted and got very hot very quickly, welding his ring to the spanner. His finger was cauterised off.
I hope you are not having your dinner right now.
S

 

[dickm]

Well, that's one advantage of suffering from Dupytrens contracture in fingers, then> It usually results in swollen knuckles (bl**dy painful if you bang them on something) and so gives a perfect reason/excuse not to wear any rings.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I wore a wedding ring years, but after working with a crane driver who had had his finger ripped off at work, I made sure I cut the back and rounded the edges. I've had two rings torn off and lost, but no finger.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Actually, I was talking only today with a guy who had completely severed his forefinger.. Not a woodworker, but a butcher. The surgeons managed to sew it back on. That was all 22 years ago, and now you wouldn't really know. It's a bit misshapen, but it bends where it ought to.
He wears a chainmail glove now when chopping meat. I'd never seen one before, just like medieval armour.
S

 

[Jacob]

Actually, I was talking only today with a guy who had completely severed his forefinger.. Not a woodworker, but a butcher. The surgeons managed to sew it back on. ......... It's a bit misshapen, but it bends where it ought to.
....
S

Where did they attach it? Same spot or somewhere else?

 

[custard]

We shouldn't be too smug. How many of use can say, hand on heart, that we scrupulously employ the highest quality dust extraction?

There's a frighteningly high incident of nasal cancer amongst woodworkers (and what's even more scary is the data was compiled before the widespread use of MDF). I don't want to lose a finger, but I'd rather that than being diagnosed with cancer of the nose.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Good point Custard. It's going to be a high priority in my next workshop.
S

 

[yetloh]

Just spotted this thread which seems to have got fixated on rings and wrist watches. Surely the wider issue is FWW's scandalously casual approach to safety in general - one of the reasons I stopped taking it several years ago.

Jim

 

[Steve Maskery]

They are not mutually exclusive, Jim.
I have, with the utmost reluctance, come to accept that workshop safety culture is simply different over there. Far inferior, of course. It's quite astonishing really given their litigious culture, too, but that's how it is.
I really do think that the best we can do is constantly to remind people, especially beginners, that just because a practice is commonplace, it doesn't mean that it is good.
I do that, my guess is that you do that. We just have to hope that people heed us more than they heed YouTube.
S

 

[yetloh]

Couldn't agree more, Steve.

Jim