Hello all,
I’ve been lurking here for awhile, but wanted to introduce myself, share a story, and ask for some insight from those more experienced than I.
So let me introduce myself – I’m a graduate student in Colorado, an electrical engineer, and something of an amateur woodworker my whole life. I’ve recently started taking the hobby a little more seriously, and been acquiring some more tools.
The story I want to share is one that seems all too common – a table saw mishap. I was cutting a grove in a small piece of stock, and probably should have been employing several featherboards and pushsticks, but was just holding the stock with my bare hand and using the fence to guide it. As others have said, I “saw, heard, and felt” the kickback all at the same time. Thankfully, I didn’t touch the blade, but the piece smacked me in the hand hard enough to take a sizable chunk out of my thumb. No serious permanent injury (thankfully), but it sure hurt and scared the heck out of me.
I realize that no one has extra fingers that they can part with, but I feel especially concerned for mine because my livelihood is provided by spending all day typing. I want to insure than I’m doing absolutely everything to be as safe as possible.
So the question I would like to hear some insight from the experts on is, “How dangerous (relatively) is woodworking, really?”, and also, “Where does the danger come from?”. Allow me to elaborate.
There are several major tools that I think we can all agree are tremendously unlikely to ever cause serious injury. A thickness planar, a scroll saw, drill press, jig saw, mortiser, sanding station, etc, are all unlikely to hurt you (unless you do something really dumb). Other tools, such as a band saw, lathe, or router, may be slightly more dangerous, but again, would require a fairly major mistake for you to seriously permanently injure yourself on them. I would think a jointer would fall into that same category, although I did read a story of someone who had a piece of stock kick back out of their jointer, causing his hand to fall into the cutterhead. I can think of no other injury that might be caused by a jointer, though, and this injury could have been avoided through the use of push blocks.
The only major “group” of tools that remain, then, are table saws, radial arm saws, and miter saws. The two major accidents with these tools would be 1) touching the blade, and 2) kickback. The use of a blade guard with splitter whenever possible should help reduce both. Extremely careful attention to what you are doing would also contribute significantly to safety.
I realize there are also “freak” accidents which we have very limited control over. For instance, I read the story here about the gentleman whose arbor nut came loose on his miter saw, causing the blade to come out at him. While this is absolutely tragic, the same thing could have happened with my food processor in the kitchen (perhaps not as tragically, but my point is that such mechanical failures are hardly unique to woodworking). Proper maintenance of our tools can go a long ways towards preventing these accidents, as well.
So my question for the experts is: What sorts of dangers exist in a shop that I haven’t addressed? Would it be fair to say that anyone who could consistently keep their fingers at least 6” from any moving tool would be absolutely safe in the shop (aside from “freak” accidents)?
Also, what would the experts feel is the relative danger from hobbyist woodworking? Even the most careful person is not immune from accidentally getting distracted and touching the blade just once. What do people feel is the likelihood of this? I should also point out that I don’t pretend woodworking (or anything) can be made perfectly safe. I could get distracted just once while driving my car and cause far more injury than I could ever cause with my table saw (and I drive my car far more often than my table saw…). Enjoying life is inherently dangerous – perfectly sane people scale mountains and jump out of airplanes. But how do people feel the danger from woodworking ranks in comparison to the rest of life’s dangers?
Thank you in advance for the insight!
Dan Friedrichs