Jointer injury

[Jason White]

Well, it finally happened. I lost part of my right ring finger to the jointer. This could’ve been avoided, but I was rushing and not paying close enough attention to what I was doing and where my hands were while jointing the edge of a 5” wide board. The guard was also not retracting all the way and needed repair, which I knew about. “Just a couple of quick cuts,” I thought. Not looking for sympathy; nobody to blame but myself. Please learn from my mistake and take some time to review safety practices in your shop. Stay safe out there!

[Stewart Lang]

Happened to me. My pinkie was too low jointing the edge of the board and I jointed the top of my pinkie off.. Luckily it healed up and now I can use it as a reference surface..

Hope the injury isn't too bad and you can continue on with woodworking!

[Aaron Rosenthal]

Jason I hope you have a speedy recovery.
I know how easy it is to have an accident, and you’ve just warned us that experience is no insurance against a mishap.

[Jason White]

Thanks. I’ll be ok. Very lucky it’s not worse.


Happened to me. My pinkie was too low jointing the edge of the board and I jointed the top of my pinkie off.. Luckily it healed up and now I can use it as a reference surface..

Hope the injury isn't too bad and you can continue on with woodworking!

[Matt Day]

Very sorry to hear this Jason.

Curious how exactly it happened? 5” wide board, assuming 4/4 or so and a few feet long? If so, it seems hard to have your right ring finger come close to the cutterhead since the board would be against the fence right?

[glenn bradley]

Really sorry that happened. Thanks for posting about it. We all need frequent wake up calls on safety.

[Mel Fulks]

Jason, Thanks for the ringing reminder as you deal with the throbbing reminder. Rigorous non - deviating habit is the best safety device.
Ruminate slowly and heal quickly.

[Derek Arita]

I think about that every time I use the jointer, but much appreciate the exclamation point. I hope you heal up quickly. Makes my knees weak just thinking about it!

[Paul Wunder]

Jason, sorry to hear about your injury and I hope that your healing is speedy and uneventful.

[Jason White]

Really hard to say exactly how it happened, because it happened so fast. Board was about 20” long and 1” thick. I think I dropped my hand and brushed the cutterhead at the very end of the cut, cutting three fingers and partially amputating one of them. A fully working guard would’ve probably saved me, but in the future I’ll be looking for ways to keep my hands much farther away from the cutterhead at all times. I’m also considering buying a jointer with a European style guard on it. They appear much safer to me.


Very sorry to hear this Jason.

Curious how exactly it happened? 5” wide board, assuming 4/4 or so and a few feet long? If so, it seems hard to have your right ring finger come close to the cutterhead since the board would be against the fence right?

[Charlie Jones]

Sorry to hear you were injured. I escaped a kickback today. It is so easy to lose attention and get hurt. You post will certainly help me pay attention. I’m wish you a full and speedy recovery.

[lowell holmes]

I use push sticks when using my table saw or jointer.

https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=E211US739G0&p=home+made+push+sticks

[Lisa Starr]

Thank you for the reminder and best wishes to you for a speedy recovery. I once read that accidents/errors are much more likely to occur when you're tired or rushed. Since I deal with fatigue, I try to always keep that in mind and stop working the minute I start feeling tired. It is hard not to "just finish" whatever operation I'm performing, but I'm getting better at it.

[Patrick Kane]

Because of these stories, i always think about my trailing hand's fingers and where they are when face/edge jointing. I can think of atleast 3 youtubers and other folks on forums that took off a piece of their pinky at the jointer. I would guess jointers and table saws are closer than one might imagine when it comes to the injury count. Hoping for a speedy recovery.

[Randall J Cox]

Jason, so sorry to hear about your injury. I'm in my mid 70s and find myself making dumb mistakes that I wouldn't have done in my earlier years. So I try to be extra careful, knowing I'm not as sharp as I used to be. You posting is another reminder. Thanks for the reminder to all.... Hope you heal with no serious complications. Randy

[Jason White]

Thanks for the kind words, everybody. They are very much appreciated.

[Bill Dufour]

Sorry to hear about this. I do not think a porkchop style guard would have prevented it. It might have reduced it to only one fingertip cut.
Bill D

[Charles Coolidge]

Yeah I winced and cringed, sorry to hear this Jason. Good reminder to STAY FROSTY around machinery.

[Scott Clausen]

I kind of like the Euro style guards too but I see a potential problem with people not adjusting guard to completely cover the cutter head.

[Brian Holcombe]

A different guard may help, but the technique needs adjustment. For my students I typically recommend hand over hand feeding rather than using a trailing finger as a hook. This allows one to avoid having a hand over the cutterhead all together.

If that doesn’t solve it, I stand in-line with the cutterhead and have them walk around me to continue feeding the board. This usually makes my point and is annoying enough to break the habit.

As they progress and are able to use it with just my witnessing if I see a hand over the cutterhead I kill the machine and explain the entire approach to jointing all over and I do this until the student understands how best to feed material.

[PAUL A DALEN]

So much this. I had a close call once and I swore that if I were ever tired or in a hurry I would leave the shop. I've tried to make a habit of intentionally slowing down and thinking through every move before I turn on a tool. I don't know if it helps, and sometimes I forget, but I'm getting better at training myself in this.

[Warren Lake]

ive never hooked a finger on the end and would not even consider it. it would not even occur to me to do that. Ive seen you tubes of guys with fingers hooked around the board, From memory we never got a lot of instruction on jointing. Too long ago

Hand over hand I always did. Do remember one who said lift the hand over the knife area. Sensible. Look at how many guys feed and stop then start again, you see it often in you tubes, even from manufacturers. I tend to think they have not spent time on the machine. Once you are on there some amount of time hand over hand just occurs on its own as its logical and you move better and better from repeating so much.

Ive used the heal of my hand 1000 times on the end of the board over the cutter head, its not perfect. Best when I reach for the push thing. Depends on the boards as well as well you dont always have to be right at the end. Ive always had a rubbe maid with a wet sponge by he jointer. Hands hit the damp sponge I get more traction.

[William Hodge]

ive never hooked a finger on the end and would not even consider it. it would not even occur to me to do that. Ive seen you tubes of guys with fingers hooked around the board, From memory we never got a lot of instruction on jointing. Too long ago

Hand over hand I always did. Do remember one who said lift the hand over the knife area. Sensible. Look at how many guys feed and stop then start again, you see it often in you tubes, even from manufacturers. I tend to think they have not spent time on the machine. Once you are on there some amount of time hand over hand just occurs on its own as its logical and you move better and better from repeating so much.

Ive used the heal of my hand 1000 times on the end of the board over the cutter head, its not perfect. Best when I reach for the push thing. Depends on the boards as well as well you dont always have to be right at the end. Ive always had a rubbe maid with a wet sponge by he jointer. Hands hit the damp sponge I get more traction.


Try push pads. They are a tool that allows one to grip a board with a sponge rubber on a D handle. Bear on the outfeed table as soon as you can. Bearing on the infeed table used to get people sent to the glue room where I worked.

[Warren Lake]

never been interested in trying them. I could see having more grip as good but its not a natural hand position to me. Hands dampened work fine. push thing works fine and safer than heal of my hand.

[Alan Lightstone]

I always use push pads with mine. Anything that keeps my hands away from spinning blades is a good thing in my book.

I find the GRR-Rip Block Smart Pushblock really good for this, as it has retractable feet the you can hook on the back edge of the wood and help push the wood through. Of course, the wood has to be thicker than the feet, but I don't recall that ever being an issue.

Sorry for your injury.

[Tom Bussey]

I am short on my index finger on my right hand. I have the knuckle but no nail. I know exactly what you are and will go through and I am sorry to hear of your accident and I wish you well.

[Mark Hennebury]

Sorry to hear about your injury. I hope that you heal fast. Thanks for telling us.
I would be interested in seeing how you were working when the accident happened if or when you feel up to it.

[Wes Grass]

That sounds awful, wishing you a quick recovery as well.

I've still got half a fingernail to grow back, from ... oh, the shame ... a hammer ;-)

Got the thumb about 15 minutes earlier, and all I could think was: "I'm always very careful where my fingers are around sharp spinning things. Why doesn't a hammer get the same respect?" And then ...

My right index finger is about 1/8" shorter than the left. Gears ... greasy gears, on a lathe. 11 years old. Never have understood why they don't numb it up before scrubbing the debris out with Betadine ...

[Thomas McCurnin]

So sorry about the injury, and posting this took some courage as well.

Posting about injuries keeps the rest of us safe and reminds us that:

--Never Take Any Power Tool For Granted. They are dangerous machines and deserve respect.

--Never Use Any Power Tool When You Are Tired or In a Hurry. I save my critical cuts on power equipment for first thing in the morning after I have had my cup of coffee and am alert and relaxed.

--Rehearse Protocols. For almost every time I use a power tool, I do the set up and before I power up, I rehearse the cut--where the board is going to be, do I need a hold down, do I need a push stick. if it is thin stock or narrow stock, I take a second look at safety issues relative as to whether there is a safer tool in my shop to do this cut. Once I have rehearsed the cut, and am satisfied that it is safe, I power on the tool. Often I find that a hand tool, such as a plane, hand saw, rasp, or chisel ends up being the preferred tool.

Again, I thank the poster for the courage in posting this accident.

[Warren Lake]

Hope you heal up well, I have friends who have been in the jointer and they have healed up and carried on. One is a very talented cabinet maker and customer car builder.

I would not be a good example of what to do. Still I look on the net and see people worse than me.

Here are some examples of what not to do, fourth safety way that would not work for me and why Id rather learn from old guys.

................

Whether you have a guards or not in you tubes ive seen guys doing stuff with fingers pointing down and thought ... this hand position fingers pointed down is asking for trouble. It would not occur to me fingers pointing down. Done enough with heal of my hands and dont go over the cutter like this guy does. ID have to video tape myself to see waht I do likely heal of my hand has gone over the cutters enough times but if so never fingers extended pushing down like this.

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What is this? fingers hooked around the board?

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here he is unaware of his finger tips and hes got a guard set up to be almost useless

461024



this below being safe guy little no control over the material, pressure at time of photo on the infeed.

Id take the guard out of this and use a proper push thing. Ive found jointers rarely kick but can, we take smaller depth cuts on them for one and the outfeed table works as a chip limiter holding the material up not falling into the cutter as it would on old style cutters say on a shaper. You have to understand the shape of the board you are feeding in and if its better one way than flipped over.

If he had to do 50 or 100 pieces like this its a poor set up compared to a good push block. Its likely by the book and what teachers teach. Id never do this.

My push block would likely span most of this shorter board anyway and likely this could be done with one hand with the block if you stay aware of how your pressure is as you enter and exit.



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[Eric Arnsdorff]

I wish you a speedy recovery as well!!
I’ve gotten away with some bad decisions and letting us know about this helps remind me to always plan out safe cuts.

I was using my tablesaw yesterday with the guard and thought to myself that I see posts of how SawStop kept some incident from being worse, etc.

But the thing I never see is a post about how the blade guard made it so safe that there was no injury at all. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a post saying I only needed stitches because my blade guard saved an amputation. It works so well that my fingers don’t come close to the blade. Im happy to say it worked yet again!

I’ll use this as a reminder to always make my cuts on all my tools safe enough that I have nothing to post!

[Jason White]

Very hard to say, but I've since repaired the guard... just in case. ;)


Sorry to hear about this. I do not think a porkchop style guard would have prevented it. It might have reduced it to only one fingertip cut.
Bill D

[Jason White]

Hard to use them when edge jointing, but I'll be experimenting with some different jigs and push sticks to make sure this doesn't happen again.


Try push pads. They are a tool that allows one to grip a board with a sponge rubber on a D handle. Bear on the outfeed table as soon as you can. Bearing on the infeed table used to get people sent to the glue room where I worked.