Peter Sefton":39ocp6jb said:
.....
I use my hands but push blocks are very good and recommended by HSE, I never use push sticks and Jacob knows why.......
Yes I know why. It's because you have misread the HSE docs.
They make several useful suggestions about safety, which are not 'rules' but just helpful suggestions.
They don't
recommend using push sticks in the way I describe. This has been mistakenly interpreted by Peter and many others, that they actually
deprecate the use of push sticks. But this is not correct.
I blame the regulations for being vague and inadequate.
They don't recommend lots of things but this does not mean you should not do them, nor that you should
only do what they do specifically recommend.
I'm quite happy to keep on recommending push sticks over planers as it's more than likely that a few fingers have been saved (if anybody takes any notice of anything I say!). I expect the regulations will catch up eventually - not least because I'm recommending a higher level of safety than the regs (or Peter) which is also cheap and very effective.