Originally Posted by
Mark Hennebury
One stuck two fingers into a spinning blade and had to get them amputated. His little finger and the one next to it.
Have you ever tried to watch eight or ten adults in a workshop using machinery.
Not an easy task.
I had two extra people in the shop that night they had doubled up from another class to get their projects finished.
The class was split into two groups based on what parts they were working on.
One group I set up to cut stopped dados.
The stock was 1 ¾” square pine.
Two different lengths 18” and 36”
The dado was ¼” wide x ½” deep stopped about an inch from each end.
The machine was like a mini table saw it had a 3 wing slot cutter router bit that would cut a ¼” wide slot in the stock.
There was a long fence set to center the cut.
There were two sets of stops clamped to the fence, one set for the short length stock, one set for the long.
I demonstrated how to execute the cut, by placing the end of your stock against the table, fence and end stop, then lower the other end carefully onto the blade until the stock was flat on the table , then sliding across to the other stop and lifting.
A fairly straight forward operation.
I got them started, then went to the other group to set them up on their task.
The first group finished and moved on to another job, I was dealing with the second group, when the accident happened.
One of the first group had forgotten to do two of his short pieces, and went back to do them, but the short stops had been removed and just the long stops were there. He decided to not bother putting the short stops back and just do it by eye.
He told me that he did it and ran the two slot without stops and got away with it, but went back again to make the slot closer to the end, and when he laid the stock over the cutter he pushed it the way that the cuter was spinning, and right near the end of the stock, with one hand on the end.
The cutter grabbed the stock and shot it out, his fingers went into the cutter and got chopped up.
The surgeon said that he mangled one and cut the tendon of the little finger, so it was better to remove both as the little finger wouldn’t operate anyway.
So do you expect me to predict what people may do? That is a big responsibility to put on someone.
After the fact is no problem.
It is tough to watch one person, but in a shop class with 10 adults all working on different things, and people talking to you, it’s impossible.
You have no idea of what people will really understand or what they might do.
What do you hope to achieve by putting a 10 second disclaimer on a 15 minute video.
Woodworking used to be a profession where people had apprenticeships and were trained.