Safe dados????? or why you need push sticks

[Bean]

Tony

how's she gonna react to a new floozie in the workshop...??

No wonder you got your fingers rapped !!

Bean

 

[RogerS]

Tony

What's the latest on your injuries?

On the mend, I hope?

Roger

 

[Anonymous]

Tony

What's the latest on your injuries?

On the mend, I hope?

Roger

Hi roger, thanks for asking.

Well, I had the dressing changed yesterday which was the first time it was open to the air since the operation (10 days ago) and the damage to my index finger is worse than I thought With all the blood, I did not realise that I had actually done a fair bit of damage to this one and thought it was only the middle finger.

Now I come to think of it, I remember being somewhat surprised to find the index finger bandaged up after the op. :roll:

The middle finger was the one that was nearly severed and that is healing quite nicely but it might be months rather than weeks before I can use them properly.


Feeling a bit disappointed and a little depressed :?

Good news is no more operations or skin graft (hammer)


PS My wife is a nursing sister who specialises in pain management and wound care and so she made me photograph it so that she could have a look too :roll: Suitable for the gallery? :lol:

 

[dedee]

Tony, sorry things are worse than you hoped, but it is only time. Sounds like you have some expert care at home which must be a benefit.

PS My wife is a nursing sister who specialises in pain management and wound care and so she made me photograph it so that she could have a look too :roll: Suitable for the gallery? :lol:

Perhaps this is a picture we should all have on our workshop door as a reminder or what can happen.

Get well soon.

Andy

 

[Neomorph]

PS My wife is a nursing sister who specialises in pain management and wound care and so she made me photograph it so that she could have a look too :roll: Suitable for the gallery? :lol:

Yes Tony... it would be a good for reminding people to take care when routing (plus I would like to print it off and attach it to my brother-in-law's router table when I give it to him.)

I'm really thinking of adding a perspex screen to attach to the fence and go over the router bit itself. That way you can see the bit and the work but prevent you from getting your fingers on the router bit.

 

[OPJ]

Neomorph, that sounds like an excellent idea.

I personally don't think we see enough guarding on home-made router tables - perhaps it's down to Norm again, or the threat to personal safety with dado blades in a table saw?

One idea I've seen (might be in the Axminster catalogue) is where the guard runs along a longitudinal groove routed in the fence. Two vertical slots in the guard itself allow it to be raised and lowered by slackening off or tightening the screws/bolts.

Good luck to you, I hope the rest of us follow in example.

 

[Neomorph]

Oswaldo I was just looking around the net to find different fences and I found this

I've got the perspex and a hot air blower so I think I'm going to have a go at building one myself. A few years ago a friend wanted to build a console in his car and we got some perspex and my hot air gun and we made a shaped panel that when it was painted on the back looked cool. After we added the embedded led lights the whole thing lit up around all the cutouts for switches and stuff. 8)

 

[Anonymous]

I love that little guard John, with one on my Incra fence, I would be typing this two handed with maybe a bruise on my left hand :?

I will be chatting to our laser cutting shop at work on Monday with a request for a few of those of varying sizes :wink:

 

[tibbs]

With that type of guard you'll need to be careful that its always set as close to the wood as possible - if you leave it too high then with your horrendous type of incident you could end up with your fingers being dragged in under it against the cutter and making things even worse by delaying or preventing your natural reaction to get them out of the way as quickly as possible.

I'm certainly re-thinking my guarding requirements as a result of this - I think sprung type guards that are in contact with the wood before & above the cutter, such as featherboards or Shaw guards, is the way I'll be going.

I hope you recover rapidly & fully Tony & thank you for sharing your experience with us all - I think its made more than a few of us re-think things & will certainly have saved some of us from such injuries in the future.

Richard

 

[filsgreen]

Come on Charlie, are you going to make this a stickie? :? As well as warning everyone of the inherent dangers in wood work, there are a lot of good ideas that have come out of Tony's misfortune. I know the post heeps getting bumped, but I don't think it will stay up there forever.

Cheers

Phil

 

[Neomorph]

I think there should be a sticky post but one that covers all the major disasters that could happen while doing woodwork with power tools. Maybe a list of what should be used and what happens if you don't.

• Router Table should be used with Bit Guard, Featherboards, Ear Defenders and Push Sticks - Ignore and you get Tony's DIY surgery
• Saw Table should be used with Anti-Kickback, Featherboards, Ear Defenders and Push Sticks - Ignore and you get DIY hand surgery again.
• Cutting and Sanding should be done while wearing a Dust Mask - Ignore and you get what happened to me with severe infected sinus and worse what happened to another guy on here (forgot name sorry) who ended up with breathing difficulties.
• :norm: : "... and nothing is more important that wearing, these, safety glasses" :wink:
• AND ALWAYS REMEMBER THE EAR DEFENDERS OR YOU WILL END UP TALKING LOUDLY LIKE THIS... EH?... WHAT WAS THAT???? THE TABLE SAW IS TOO PROUD??? WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????

There are probably a lot more but those are the main ones I can think of.

 

[Scrit]

There are probably a lot more but those are the main ones I can think of.

[*]Saw Table should be used with Anti-Kickback, Featherboards, Ear Defenders and Push Sticks - Ignore and you get DIY hand surgery again.

You missed the most important one - crown guard.....

But I like the positive thinking about this. Wanna see my scars? :roll:

Scrit

 

[Neomorph]

You missed the most important one - crown guard.....

But I like the positive thinking about this. Wanna see my scars? :roll:

Scrit

Ahh.. Nothing like losing the crown jewels is there... or was that family jewels... :shock:

heh... if you want to compare scars I have a 9 inch x 1 inch one over both hips where they operated on me after I had a bit of an accident with my parachute. #-o

Theres nothing like thinking "If only had... (insert safety comment here)" is there. :roll:

 

[Scrit]

heh... if you want to compare scars I have a 9 inch x 1 inch one over both hips where they operated on me after I had a bit of an accident with my parachute. #-o

Theres nothing like thinking "If only had... (insert safety comment here)" is there. :roll:

yes, but hardly a woodworking injury - or did you jump with a genny and a table saw strapped to your front? :roll:

 

[Neomorph]

heh... if you want to compare scars I have a 9 inch x 1 inch one over both hips where they operated on me after I had a bit of an accident with my parachute. #-o

Theres nothing like thinking "If only had... (insert safety comment here)" is there. :roll:

yes, but hardly a woodworking injury - or did you jump with a genny and a table saw strapped to your front? :roll:

Does the fact that I landed in a tree after the damn chute got a blown periphery count. Dislocated both hips and left hand's little finger. I really should have a phobia about trees after that... perhaps that's why I want to take up woodworking again.

Hmmm... I wonder if the landowner will let me go back and sacrifice the tree... Mind you it's been that long I can't even remember where the heck it is. Do you remember that TV show called "John Doe" where the guy knows lots of info about everything... well I should change my name to John DOH! as I can't hardly remember anything about everything...

 

[RogerS]

Does the fact that I landed in a tree .....

or that on my maiden flight in my 'new' glider got a severe case of PIO (pilot induced oscillation), pulled off early to protect the tug pilot and then suffered a bad case of 'get-you-home-itis' where, rather than taking the safe, recommended option of continuing in a straight line and landing in the emergency field, decided that I could turn back over the airfield, that I could land - the only problem being that I didn't have flying speed....erm..well, actually I did achieve flying speed - about minus 5 feet relative to the ground. Ho hum..

the things we do as hobbies

sorry...strayed off topic

 

[Neomorph]

I think that the moral of these stories is that if something can go wrong eventually it probably will and hence we REALLY need to take every precaution to prevent these things happening.

I do know that I'm going to make sure I wear protection (safety glasses and dust mask) and always use a push stick.

Also I seem to remember from somewhere that you shouldn't be directly behind the work you are pushing just in case of kickback. I haven't seen any mention of this here so far yet I think this could be as equally important as the push stick. Imagine routing a piece of wood that has mitres on each end. Now imagine you behind the work on the router or table saw... Kickback!... You now have your workpiece embedded in your gut!

 

[Anonymous]

UPDATE

Well, went to the "Plastics and Burns unit" today - almost 3 weeks since injury.

This is the first time the dressings have been off for 8 days and....


....the middle finger is healing really, really quickly :shock: :lol: :lol: 8) ccasion5:

Prognosis is still no movement in last knuckle, possibly no nail, and no feeling in finger after last knuckle, but I'm fine with that. Small price to pay when one considers the possibilities :?

Index isn't healing as well, but that wasn't as badly injured.

A RESULT :wink: Needed a bit of good news and that is it.


May be back in the workshop in 4 weeks

Cheers

Tony (getting really frustrated doing so many things with just one hand :evil

 

[dedee]

Tony,
glad to hear you are on the mend.

Andy

 

[Paul Chapman]

Tony,

Good to hear that the injuries are healing.

Paul