handdoc

I am a hand surgeon with 10 years of experience doing primarily hand surgery, and 19 years of experience treating orthopaedic injuries of all kinds. I have operated on dozens of patients who had power tool injuries over the years and followed them through the rehab process.I always quiz patients when they come in about how their injury happened. The variety of injury mechanisms never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday I saw a 16 year old girl who was cross cutting tree limbs on a table saw and became distracted when her grandmother began to drive away on her 4- wheeler. I couldn't have made this up if I tried.
The girl lost half her index finger, and had an open fracture of her small finger, along with multiple other lacerations.

I have been an avid recreational woodworker for 25 years. I am paranoid about safety. I owned a Powermatic Artisan table saw for 23yrs and just bought a SawStop. I would agree with much of what has been written above, and would like to add a few comments below in no particular order:

1) Buy a SawStop

2) My experience has been the following in terms of injury frequency:

Tablesaw blade contact injuries either due to poor technique or kickback causing wood and hand to be pulled across blade when ripping - most common by a mile

Hand held circular saw

Chop saw

Bandsaw

Router/jointer roughly equal and both quite uncommon

Body impact from tablesaw kickback hardly ever but bad when it happens

3)Be careful about where the blade exits the back of a crosscut sled if you use one

4) Most handheld powertools have 2 handles- use them both- more control and hands are on the tool and not on the wood holding it down. Use clamps.

5) In reference to #4 above I have found myself more tempted to be "casual" with a laminate trimmer, which I have begun using more on small routing jobs and I have noticed showing up more in photos in magazines and on the web. Bad idea to be casual about any tool.

6) If you do the math for Blade RPM x tooth number on blade x 3/4 second human reaction time it becomes clear that at least a few thousand teeth have passed through your hand before you can get it out of the way.

7) I crosscut long heavy timbers to reduce their length using my Bosch jig saw (I don't have chop saw). This was suggested by Michael Fortune in a recent FWW and is way safer than trying to use a hand held circular saw and clamps to hold the wood. The wood is just too heavy to balance perfectly with the clamps and it shifts at the end of the cut, binding a circular saw blade. The jigsaw is more analagous to a small band saw for this application and is far safer.

8) I am just as paranoid with a SawStop and it is a very high quality tool. The riving knife and guard system are superb and add a lot to improving the safety of a still very dangerous tool.

9) If you think it is annoying to "waste time" changing blades, guards, making jigs, using push sticks, etc, consider the cumulative time and dollars spent that have appeared above in this thread for those who were injured. We have all waited in a doctor's lobby longer than we wanted, (my own patients too, unfortunately) and that time could have been much better spent at home doing what we enjoy with all our fingers.

10) I have no financial relationship with SawStop whatsoever- buy one. The cost will be less than one operation.

Would enjoy meeting you all at a woodworking show and not when I'm wearing scrubs and under some very bright lights.