Tablesaw Safety Reminder

[timf67]

A friend of mine's father, who has been woodworking for longer than I have been alive, had a tablesaw accident Sunday and needed 16 stitches to repair 3 fingers of his right hand. He cut all the way to the bone on the backs of the three fingers, but luckily other than a lot of pain he will be okay. I don't know all of the details other than he was ripping some lumber and tried to move something that was sitting on the tablesaw out of the way when he brushed his hand over the blade. I am bad about using my tablesaw as a workbench and leaving stuff on it when I am cutting, but I am going to take a lesson from this and take my time to clear off my saw when cutting!

 

[Glennbear]

I am bad about using my tablesaw as a workbench and leaving stuff on it when I am cutting, but I am going to take a lesson from this and take my time to clear off my saw[STRIKE] when[/STRIKE] BEFORE cutting!

Paraphrasing what you wrote, after this story I will be using more caution. :wsmile:

 

[CDPeters]

Might also be a good reminder that the GRR-Ripper is a very good value!

(No, I'm am not affiliated in any way :gar-Bi)
C.

 

[zapdafish]

Might also be a good reminder that the GRR-Ripper is a very good value!

And a crosscut sled.

 

[richlife]

We would all never do that, but somehow someone always does. Thanks for the reminder, Tim. We really can't get too many of them.

Rich

 

[b4man]

Another reminder of why we should never raise the blade high enough to cut over a fraction of the stock

 

[cptully]

First, my condolences and best wishes for a speedy recovery!

As a safety minded blockhead... I have often disabled safety devices (like the lovely little shields built-in to the European plug adapters I bought on a recent trip across the pond - those shields were designed to prevent you from sticking things that should not go into an outlet into the adapter; unfortunately they were designed such that in order to plug in my computer I had to stick a pen into the ground plug's location to push the shield out of the way - so much for safety!:BangHead.

Now for my table saw, I am unfortunately in the habit of using any horizontal surface to hold whatever is in my hands, so my TS is often covered with stuff. Of course it is usually enough stuff that in order to use the saw at all I have to clear the table - I guess that at least forces me to clear the whole table.

I also have a simple rule that nothing ever gets set on the blade side of the fence.

I have permanently removed my blade guard - because it does not fit - go figure! But as soon as I did that I made a push block that holds my hand ~4 inches above the board, and I have long had the habit of only raising the blade ~1/4 in above the top surface of the board.

I have recently also been much more concerned than ever before about hearing protection - I keep the earmuffs handy at all times.

Chris