While having my (suddenly shorter) finger tended in the ER, I got into a discussion about the relative saftey of jointers and table saws. The ER doc (also a woodworker) sees many jointer injuries and argued this tool is the most dangerous. He argued that more table saw injuries are seen simply because more people use the saws than use jointers, and that the frequency of use by the average woodworker is higher than for a jointer. This could be true, but he could not cite any data about injury incidence such as the number of accidents per 100 hours of use.
Any good data out there or at least some interesting preconceptions?
Replies
Definitive statistics about tool injuries are hard to come by, since reporting methods vary enough that the results are often vague.
I would suggest, however, that the most dangerous tool in the shop is a dull mind.
A mind can be dulled by exhaustion, or by simply being mentally lazy. If we think about the reasons behind safety procedures, and about the reasons behind protective accessories, the mind can be resharpened.
Totally agree
Also, A lot depends on the machine operators competancy and experience with the tool. As well as with physical health.
I was a co-instructor for a lathe turning class and one of the students was about 80 yo and had Parkensons disease. One soon learns or should accept their physical capabilities. In his case riding the bevel was impossible and using scrapers was still precarious at best. A few big catches and he decided the lathe was not for him. Luckily no harm was done, except for his pride.
Resharpening
Ralph,
" the mind can be resharpened"
Any workshops, DVD's? Free-hand (I mean free-head) or jigs/guides? I wants to think gooder <g>.
Best wishes,
Metod
Just keep your nose to the grindstone. Takes a while to reach the mind...
Ray
Thinking gooder is OK, but it is only an intermediate step. Thinking bestest should be the goal. ;-)
For mind honing, I like to use a jig/guide - thinking through each step in a process, what the tool is doing, what is needed for the tool to do that task, and what might go wrong somewhere in the middle (kickback, hands slipping, etc.). For final stropping, I think about the sharp part(s) of the tool, and how many times they might rip through my flesh in a couple of seconds (i.e. one's reaction time). Sobering thought, that.
Absolutely, the woodworker is the most dangerous tool in the shop. You are usually immediately knowledgeable when you do something stupid. If you get cut, you did something stupid.
Early Lessons
When I was out of college a Contractor let me use his shop at night and gave me some lessons on tools and cabinet making. The tool he was most concerned about my using was the jointer. "More fingers are lost on that than any other tool." he warned. "Don't joint any short boards and always use push sticks." "It can happen so quick, you won't even see it coming..."
I had a jointer for a while...never used it much. I was also a bit nervous when I did by those early lessons. And based on that one may, I'd tend to agree with the ER doc.
Peter
I taught school shop class for 33 years, the only accident of any consequence was from the drill press, and that was a student that wasn't supposed to be there.
Most Dangerous
Another 2-cents - all else (operator) being equal:
MOST DANGEROUS
1. Table Saw. Statistics bear this out.
2. Chain saw. Yes - I use one.
3. Router/Shaper - particularly with large bits.
4. Hand held circ saw. Binding, kickback.
NEXT SAFEST (for the operation)
1. Power sanders
2. Bandsaw
3 Drill Press (excepting the idiot who leaves the wrench in the chuck)
SAFEST
1. Hand tools - Planes, chisels, hand saws etc.
Safest
I've found hand-sanding blocks and wax applicators to be pretty safe, too. ;-)
Interesting... I had always understood the Radial Arm saw to be the most dangerous...
Also regarding the stats... are they total or based upon hours of use?
Jointer injury
I had a jointer injury last year. The owner of a woodworking store commented that jointers are more dangerous than table saws because the rotation of the cutterhead can pull the hand down into the machine. Fortunately, I just injured my fingertip.
As is usually the case, I was in a hurry. We were going to go out and I wanted to get a little work done before we left. Better to have waited until another day.
You can't mandate safety
I work for a large defense company with about 4000 employees engaged in various manufacturing processes in my building. Management is constantly coming up with various rules, regulations, and different pieces of PPE for the workers in an effort to reduce injury (and by extention company expenditure on medical costs). I think its wonderful that the company is motivated to reduce injury, as it should be, but I feel that the focus is in the wrong area - you can't mandate people to be safe.
As a carpenter and woodworker with over 20 years of daily shop experience I still have all my digits and have never had a serious accident on the job. Why? Because I stop and think through my task before I start it. Most of the tools I use are older, with few or no guards, and I get by just fine because I think things through and I make use of the appropriate safety gear (safety glasses, push sticks, etc.). The daily injuries I see at job #1 are almost all preventable, and 9 times out of 10 they occur because the person either wasn't paying attention to the task at hand or refused to wear the PPE.
I don't believe safety mandates, rules and corporate regulations are the path to safety - they might help but personal accountability and situational awareness is the way to a truly safe workplace.
PS as far as the most dangerous tool in the shop, my vote has to be the table saw. More people are likely to own a TS than the other big offenders and a lot of the guys I know are old school and don't use dust collection which brings me to another point - the TS throws a TON of dust when it isn't being collected efficiently and can cause serious bodily harm many years after the fact.
-Ian
I'd have to agree on the jointer. I've been so inundated with tablesaw safety to the point of paranoia, but never gave the jointer much thought until it bit off the tip of my left middle finger a few weeks ago. There's a huge difference in relative safety between edge jointing and face jointing and it's seldom mentioned. It only takes one bad nip on a face knot to drag your hand right into the blade.
Really the most dangerous tool in the shop is the one you don't respect enough.
The most dangerous one is the heaviest. I once got a hernia after lifting a tool chest. After that, I had to get an Umbilical hernia support belt to hold my back intact. I still haven't recovered completely. My only advice to you is that you should be careful.
Certainly operator fatigue and distraction are the main culprit .Next are dull tools,power or hand. Next is ignorance about hold downs and feather boards.I have attached tracks to by Delta guide to hold feather boards,invested in magnetic feather boards,have feeders for my shaper and router table,made push boards with plane like totes for the joiner and use my shaper feeder on my table saw when ripping lots of stuff.I am 79 and dont fix easy
Problem with the few statistics you find is they don't take into account the tools owned and numbers of people using each one.
First tool almost everyone has is the tablesaw. Probably 100 tablesaws per joiner out there. So naturally it is the tool with the most injuries. But if you could look at it per hours used or number owned I think the numbers would be dramatically different and much closer to each other.
Do not what is the most dangerous but the joiner scares me more than any other. I use mine a fair bit and flatten board faces always makes me a bit nervous. I use push sticks more on here than any other machines.
Funny thing is I have cut twice,on what most is typically considered the safest machine in the shop, the bandsaw. Freak accidents and poorly designed guard but doesn't matter when you fingers are bleeding.
The only power tool that has ever drawn blood, for me, is the bandsaw. Twice. Very minor, not even a bandaid, but still.
The most scared I've ever been is ripping narrow-ish bits on a radial arm saw. It was the only stationary tool I owned back then. I'm glad it's gone.
I love my RAS but I have no plans to rip on it. I looked long and hard to find mine.
My bandsaw cut was bad enough to the Doc. Just wanted the antibiotics though. I turned away, remembered something and quickly turned back and slapped the blade guard with my hand. Guard flexed and sliced open the back for three of my fingers and one fingernail.
FWW conducted or published a study many moons ago, I forget what issue... as I recall the Radial Arm saw came out on top as being the most dangerous.
Perhaps the editor could help me out here. With the advent of chop saws I think RAS has been slowly relegated to bottom of the list on "must have tools".
At least with table saws and RASs you have a hope of reattaching your digits thanks to the medical community, Jointers and routers however will turn your fingers into applesauce.
Whether it's rational or irrational but I have this uneasy feeling whenever I use my bench grinder.
One wheel explosion and it's curtains.
"FWW conducted or published a study many moons ago, I forget what issue... as I recall the Radial Arm saw came out on top as being the most dangerous."
I would love to see that study. I hear it all the time but the RAS is the machine I am least scared of. As long as you don't put you fingers in front of the blade how could you cut them??
I have never tried rip cuts and that may be where people get hurt. But the fear and rumors of how dangerous they are baffle me. They really isn't much difference in the Miter saw and a RAS design.
I'd have no issue crosscutting on the RAS at all. Ripping, and the 1,000 other things they claimed they could do are dangerous.
I'll see if I can roust it out.
I’ve had several mishaps working tired. So I don’t do that anymore. Several with the router and table saw over the last 40 years. A saw stop help eliminate some of those issues but introduced others. ( running metal into the blade is a quick $70 spent).
Recently the router and jointer require the utmost attention.
Funny that no one’s mentioned hand tools like the chisel. You’ll feel a dull one cut your finger but probably won’t notice a really sharp one until it’s gone really deep. So keep your fingers/hand in BACK of the work.
I also called out the young helper doing our siding who was using his leg to prop up a piece of siding he was cutting with a circular saw. He had a lax attitude about it and went ahead. I told the contractor owner on the walk through. I don’t know the result of that.
In a cabinet shop the most dangerous tool is the Shaper. Using it without a power feeder is treacherous, but even with a power feeder it can be a serious source of injury.
and the winner is !
https://www.wwgoa.com/article/shop-accident-statistics-woodworking-safety/#
According to that RAS is the safest and everyone knows they will jump out and rip your heart out of your chest. :-)
Without additional data that just tells you more people own a table saw than any other. Therefore more get hurt.
“[Deleted]”
Power tools are known to cause more horrendous injuries likely because they operate at higher speeds than do unpowered hand tools and can quickly cause more extensive damage. Minor nicks and scratches from unpowered hand tools are unlikely to enter the statistics.
Comparing stationary power tools to hand power tools, the hand tools are generally in wider use and should therefore contribute higher incidence to the statistics, but again, many of these accidents are minor and not reported, possibly leading to erroneous conclusions about their safety.
With stationary power tools we are frequently pushing work toward a blade. In the case of a table saw binding and kickback contribute a lot of risk and quite often we find that accidents occur when safety features have been defeated or blades allowed to become dull. Band saws are considered safer because there is typically not much problem with binding, but they offer similar danger of damaging a finger.
The radial arm saw offers a particular set of issues, because the blade is moving toward the user and has a tendency to want to climb over the work if pulled too quickly or allowed to become dull.
But the jointer has special risks since the blade is below the user and in operation one is generally pushing down onto the cutters. If work is grabbed and shot off the table it is easy for the hand to drop into the cutter, resulting in extreme damage.
Keeping hands away from blades with push sticks and work holders is possibly more beneficial than even proper safety guards. Both of these should always be in use and never defeated. How many accidents are down to failure to read and understand the safety portion of the operators manual? Then again, how many are due to rushing to meet a deadline, or working past the point of proper alertness for similar reasons? Or how about failing to invest time in making a jig that might otherwise be used infrequently but would greatly reduce risk in machining stock?
Working in a production shop with a crew offers lots of opportunity for remedial training and outside observation and correction of dangerous practices, but many woodworkers, especially hobbyists are lone workers, left to watch out for and catch mistakes on their own. In a production shop there is more likely to be a post accident incident analysis report, and such reports will often conclude that accidents are down to no single cause, but result in a chain of events with contributions from multiple failures in safe practice. For a lone worker to make such an analysis would be less usual and even when accomplished, less likely to uncover all root causes of an incident.
When I am working alone and using a table saw or jointer, I try to make sure there is someone around, if not in the shop, at least in the area. Wear eye protection and protective clothing. I try to keep blades sharp and safety features in place. I make push sticks and special holders for work moving toward table saw blades and across jointer knives. If possible, I try to lock one or more fingers against a fence to keep my hand from being drawn into a moving blade. I try to stand out of the line where moving blades would throw projectiles like loose knots or hidden metal like fencing or bullets. I try to plan work so that I am not using the same machine all day long, variety of work helps keep me alert. And when I am tired, I try to move to jobs that do not involve power equipment or simply take a break.
I don't have a lathe (yet), but if I did, I would keep my hair short, or wear hair protection, use close-fitting clothing, face/eye shields, and wrap nearby lighting with hardware cloth. I would never turn a bowed stick nor lean over the lathe when a stick is turning, especially during start-up.
Trying to vote on the most dangerous tool in the shop may not be helpful. If you are afraid of a tool you likely do not understand it properly, or do not use it often, and are less likely understand proper safety precautions and have less chance to develop expertise with the tool and its use. It is likely that the tools we use less frequently are the ones we understand least, are least comfortable with and this alone can help get us into trouble.
Ultimately, safety is down to the user. Fear may actually work against us, but curiosity tempered with suspicion and caution are useful traits in a woodshop.
I've injured myself twice on the bandsaw. First one was broken thumb, second was minor laceration. Both clearly operator error. For some reason my "don't screw up that way again" list keeps growing.
A friend who is an orthopedic surgeon told me its the jointer. "The table saw leaves something I might be able to reattach. The jointer leaves hamburger."
A number of years ago one of our labs acquired some woodworking equipment to cut specifically shaped samples of flooring for testing. I was asked to teach a class on shop safety. Every man and several ladies in that department showed up! I demonstrated kickback by having the table saw throw a piece of styrofoam; then repeated it using a piece of plywood - it went about 30 feet (everyone safely behind a chain link fence). Then I showed them photos of my barber's stomach that had absorbed a chunk of wood. The drill press cooperated by spinning a nice size block. Everyone agreed that those demonstrations changed their viewpoints.
If you look closely, FWW contributor Garrett Hack’s left hand finger injury was a jointer bite.
Considering only Gulfstar and maybe a dozen others own radial arm saws those statistics are staggering!!
My father lost a thumb to the RAS, while resawing. I only use it for crosscuting and have a good guard around the blade. I started using a 9 inch DeWalt when I was 10 and did everything in the book with it, I escaped with all 10 fingers and bought a table saw to help me keep all ten fingers (well 9 1/2 fingers, damn router).
How do you line up your cut with a line with that guard??
Nice saw. Is that a GP?
When the saw is retracted I can see the slot in the fence and the kerf on the tabletop. Its a 1958 GE, 24 inches crosscut, 3 hp with a 14 inches Royce 100 tooth blade.
Duhh. If I had paid a bit more attention I would have seen that. Pretty clever guard.
I have a 1946(ish) GP is why I was asking.
The thought of resawing with a RAS is truly scary.
I have a short handled cruiser axe that I keep stowed out of fear some fool might cut their leg open with because they fail to understand it is not for chopping or splitting fire wood. The short handle means the bit of the axe is swinging toward your feet and legs instead of the ground if you miss your swing.
Normally I hate Zombie posts, but this is a good one.
I have had two power tool injuries in 25 years or so of using them. One with a router doing something dumb (rhymes with dime butt) and once when the guard fell off my table saw into the blade and was catapulted into my hip. (a bad piece of design that Felder refuse to accept needs changing) Thankfully neither serious. I needed stitched after hitting my chin with a hammer tho.
In my work in accident and medical care, I don't see many serious injuries (they go elsewhere) but I do see an awful lot of nail gun injuries. Not really shop nailers - more framing nailers. Every few weeks we get a builder with a nail in their hand.
Angle grinders would probably be top of my list though - most days we see several someones with a bit of hot metal stuck in their eye and most claim to have been using eye protection (you need a full face shield or sealing goggles when using these beasties) If dropped, most don't have a dead-man switch either so they can kick and take out tendons.
Box knives are also massive causes of serious injury. They can't cut a finger off, but the damage they do can take almost as long to recover as an amputation and re-attachment. Nasty, dangerous things which need more respect.
I have never once seen a table saw injury in any patient of mine. This is probably just good luck, but it perhaps puts in context the risk of injury - it's not always the big ticket items that get you.
If the worst happens, there is some excellent advice on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0EmfREhgRw
I would not bother with antibiotic powder (an odd US habit of no value), the Israeli bandage is very expensive and really not needed, and a tourniquet will do more harm than good, but the other advice given is sound.
Why no Israeli bandage? Well, if you have somehow managed to cut off a whole hand then you probably meant to do it. Maybe if you are into chain saws....
At what length piece of wood is it considered unsafe on jointer?
For me it's about 1 1/2 X the length of a push pad. That keeps me flat on the infeed until the lead end is well onto the outfeed.the span between my tables is about 1.5"
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