"Holly Gates" wrote in message
om...
: Last year I cut the tip of my left index finger off on the TS. I was
: cutting some thin strips from a 2x4 on a friends crappy contractor
: saw. Dull blade, underpowered saw, and light saw frame, so I was
: holding down the saw with my left foot while feeding with both hands.
: I was down to the last strip from a 2x4 and was pushing with my right
: hand using a pushstick. Since the wood was so hard to feed into the
: crap blade, my left hand ended up doing some pushing instead of just
: guiding the wood against the fence. The saw also had a gaping wide
: throat plate, and the sliver of an offcut ended up getting sucked into
: the throatplate, which sucked the workpiece into the blade really
: fast. I tried to pull my left hand back, but it was too late and I
: watched it go in. Felt like someone hit my fingers with a big stick or
: something, and I pulled my hand back and saw hanging parts of meat
: from my fingers with a bunch of blood. At that point I didn't feel I
: could look at it any more and just said "Oh ****. I think you'd better
: drive me to the hospital." So I ended up in the emergency room with a
: bloody rag wrapped around my hand. Kind of the "walk of shame" for a
: woodworker, eh? I was blacking out by thinking about my fingers
: getting cut off, since at that point I wasn't really sure what the
: extent of the damage was.
:
: Luckily the hunk that got cut off was hanging off by a little piece of
: skin, so we didn't have to go looking for it in the saw. The blade
: chewed off the end of the bone, but they were able to kind of file it
: off and cover it up with the chunk of flesh. I had a good orthopedic
: surgeon, and the repair seems to have taken, and even regrown some
: nerves in the chunk that was cut off. The nail sort of grew out from
: the piece of cuticle that was left and out over the repaired piece. So
: now its a little shorter, is shaped funny, has a wierd nail, and
: doesn't have good feeling in it. But my surgeon said thats about as
: good as you can hope for when you put your hand in the table saw. He
: also said that the most popular injury for him was fingers in the
: table saw and toes in the lawnmower. So I feel relatively lucky.
:
: Well, thats probably more detail than you wanted to hear. Kind of
: gross, really!
:
: Now I'm scared to cut my fingers off every single time I use the table
: saw, and have started imagining how I could be hurt by nearly every
: other tool I use too. I guess that is for the better, and it could
: have been a more costly lesson.
:
: Lessons learned:
:
: - use a zero clearance throat plate
:
: - use a sharp blade
:
: - use good tools
:
: - don't get into a situation where if something goes wrong your hands
: will end up in the cutter. I of course knew this, and actually right
: before the incident happened I was starting to get little alarm bells
: in my head that this might not be the best situation.
:
: So even before my finger was out from under dressings, I went out and
: bought a 1973 Powermatic 66 and have been restoring it for the last
: year. Now its up and running with a WWII and a zero clearance insert,
: good fence, etc. It cuts well and I don't need to jam wood through it,
: and isn't tipping over when I feed boards. Much harder for things to
: be sucked into the throat plate now as well.
:
: After reading about TS injuries though, I am probably even more scared
: about kickback, so I now have a little screw in splitter in my throat
: plate too. Probably will get a blade guard at some point but I haven't
: decided which option will be the least annoying.
:
: -Holly
:
Yikes, made my heart beat faster just reading about your injury. The
blade guard on my Delta is pretty standard and I've gotten used to it very
quickly, I was surprised. I now think thrice before removing it, working
out the steps I need to take exactly. And I put it back asap. Doesn't
look expensive - are they sold in catalogues? Glad you are back
woodworking!

Josie