Every time I hear one of these "I grew up running hand fed blah blah blah" reminds me of things like putting up hay when youve got several generations of people in the hay field and one talks about putting up hay with a scythe and sled, dragging it in with a sled, stacking it around a pole, another always used a sickle bar mower maybe drawn by a team or behind a tractor, the youngsters are running a haybine or a disc mower or discbine and then you really get in the weeds when the crap breaks out about square bales or round bales.
That people grew up in a different era doesn't really mean anything. It just means that we learned a different way, that we are not uncomfortable with. Doesn't make it right, or wrong. Safe, or unsafe. It's just what it is, or was.
Square bales suck. That's 700lbs that is just a pain to move about, once it comes off the tractor.
The simple fact of the matter is if you grew up hand feeding with feather/pressure boards you need your head examined if you in any way shape or for think that the "youngsters" or those "coming up" are in any way challenged by their collosally smart advantage over you with their new fangled feeders.
I don't think we need our heads examined, at least not for that reason. Machines changed for a few reasons, and not least among them is that people operating them were getting hurt, and or dying. That's a fact that cannot be disputed. Making a machine, or process, safer should always be a priority.
We still do, or perhaps I should say "I" still do, quite a bit of hand feeding. The reason I dont have employees hand feed is because I cant afford the comp. And if my insurance agent or the OSHA inspector walked in, whether they knew a thing about nothing, they would have a fit. In fact if I were to ever have had my best employee standing there with a sled feeding material by hand I would be a little un-nerved and tentative.
Your needs to hand feed are the same as anyone else. Sometimes the material doesn't accommodate being power fed.
Feeders are simply a no brainer. They are smarter, they are safer, they are faster, they reduce operator fatigue by a factor of 100, cut quality is 1000% better, tooling life (cost, resharpening cost) is through the roof, production is way up.
No dispute there. An engineered safety solution, is always better than a safety practice.
Anyone talking about the good graces of coming up hand feeding in this day and age needs their head examined. You may well have a great grasp of the physics of whats going on with the tool but the simple fact of the matter is the vast majority of us trying to hire people on a daily basis will likely never in our careers have the luxury of an individual who is truely interested in absorbing the physics and minuscia of subtleties of setting up a hand fed operation. You need, and the hobbyist running a shaper needs, to be able to setup a smart operation where you put a part against the fence, engage the feed wheels, and it works.
Sometimes the parts don't always fit up against a fence. Sleds, jigs, templates, etc, must be used.A shaper can be safely operated in absence of a power feeder, but the method will be much slower, and in the end more costly. In a production shop, such as yours, this is just not possible, and as you pointed out, the liability is too great.
Arguing in favor of the days of old is a fools errand. I have guys in my shop on occasion that tell endless stories of panel raising by hand and having parts fly across the shop, a piece of gnarly grain sending a corner of a panel flying for 75 feet. I personally couldn't afford the liability to reproduce that shop today.
I wouldnt trade a feeder fed operation for a hand fed operation with featherboards and pressure hold downs for a million bucks.
As far as a production shop? Definitely a powered fed operation wins hands down.