# Stupid mistake injury



## wayneh (Nov 15, 2019)

Is there any other kind?

Cause: I passed the wood being routed the wrong direction past the bit, causing the bit to grab and fling the piece across my basement. 

Injury: My left finger was in front of this projectile and got a little buggered. Split nail, bloody finger tip, nothing serious but it certainly got my adrenaline going and shut down my woodworking for the day. I'll spare you any pictures.

Once I calmed down and thought about it, it was a forehead-slap moment. I knew better but had a lapse and forgot basic router safety.

I was using my router table to cut a groove, as in tongue-and-groove, in a piece of ipe decking wood. The goal was to put a 1/4" groove exactly down the middle of the side of a plank. The challenge is that the stock is about 0.79" instead of 3/4" and setting my router fence so that the bit will go right down the precise middle is not easy. For 3/4" stock, I just put a piece of 1/4" in between my fence and the router bit and get a near-perfect setting.

I made a couple passes with the table saw to remove the bulk of the wood. Then I moved to the router table. I had my fence set as close as I could eyeball it to groove right up the middle but after I made the groove (without issue), I was disappointed to see the groove was a little off. I tweaked the fence position and was making another test pass when the accident occurred. It happened because all the cutting was now happening on just one side of the groove and it was the wrong side. Instead of feeding against the cut, I was feeding behind it. It tore the wood away from me and launched it. 

This result was completely predictable but in the moment it just didn't occur to me. I was thinking more about being disappointed by not getting it right on the first pass. Don't work when you're pissed!

It won't happen again, so I guess I learned a lesson the hard way without suffering too badly from it all.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Glad it was no worse than it is and that you're able to write about it. These little things seem to creep up on us from time to time.

David


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

Also glad it didnt turn into a major injury The biggie now is that you REALLY know what can happen. Not the same as reading about someone else

Just a note, I use push sticks on a router table when it appears that my fingers are getting too close to the blade. 

On the positive side, a good scare will last a while and lead to improved safety practices.

Again............glad everything is oK 

BTW, are you going to wash your own drawers?


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## wayneh (Nov 15, 2019)

Lol, yes, as a matter of fact. Dang, it happened fast. Like gunshot fast. 

Now that I’ve had time to examine my finger and reconstruct the crime, I realize that I was not struck by the projectile wood. I was using a feather board but also applying pressure against the piece and the fence with both hands. My left hand would have been just slightly upstream of the bit. When the wood took off like a rocket, there was no longer anything between my fingers and the bit. I think the wood taking off may have helped pull my hand to the left, perhaps pulling it across the bit but also perhaps keeping it from lingering there. 

My injury is very minor considering that. Two 3/4” carbide knives rotating at router speed could have done so much more.

Enjoying a martini now. Purely medicinal of course. Will pick it back up Sunday.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

I was beginning a project and it called for slicing a piece off a Cherry log. So I had video going and that's the only reason I caught what is now a PSA for improper bandsaw use. It happened very, very fast! You can see it on my YouTube channel but I don't want to post it here and hijack your thread.

David


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## mmwood_1 (Oct 24, 2007)

Yeah, the only two times that I have injured myself were on the router table. The first time was because I was preoccupied with something else and not paying attention to what I was doing. The second time, ten years later, I was tired. Each time was the middle finger of my hand, right and left, a decade apart.('81 and '91) If I cannot pay full attention to what I am doing, I do something else. So far, those are my only two.


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## jeff100 (Nov 20, 2019)

Scariest moment Ive had was on the table saw. No digits missing, but i was cutting 2x2 strips of red oak when one jammed and sent it straight into the door of the shop like a spear. luckily ive always had the practice of never standing in the line of the workpiece, definitly got the heart racing a bit. this was back when i was a teenager and it was my dads shop. So a new pictures got hung on the backside of the door to cover the hole. I finally told him a few years later when we were packing up his shop to move. whoops.


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

I was new at woodworking and very new on the table saw I was cutting a short fat block of wood and it kicked back at me. I het me in the heart area. I fell backwards against the wall still standing and couldn't seem to breathe. I was a very scary few seconds. Almost passed out from lack of being able to breathe. 

Also, a very experienced woodworker I knew got hit with a small block of wood that kicked back and hit him in the forehead. He said that he was falling face first into the table saw blade and had just enough energy to turn himself away from the blade as he passed out. 
Anyway, I have learned that if I dont have all of my wits about me - no woodworking that day. 

Most often the only difference between a close call and a tragedy is pure dumb luck.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*Climb cutting and kickbacks .....*

Climb cutting is feeding the work in the "wrong" direction on a router table, where "wrong direction" is with the rotation of the cutter. This article will explain it quite well. It WILL cause a kickback. :vs_OMG:

http://www.waterfront-woods.com/Articles/Climb-Chip-Cutting.html


Kickbacks are more typical on the table saw. This article, Table saw kickback explains how they occur:

http://www.raygirling.com/kickback.htm



I have experienced both types and they happen very quickly. There is no time to react, so better to be pro-active and prevent them to start with! :wink:


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## _Ogre (Feb 1, 2013)

imo... there is no wrong way to feed on a router table, yes one way tends to climb on you
sounds like you had only one hand firmly on the work being fed, that was your error
my use of my router table goes in spurts, either every day for a week or months without


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*When you can "climb cut' .....*

There's a method of climb cutting that will prevent chip out and it's relatively safe:







I wouldn't recommend climb cutting to anyone starting out since we all have different skill and experience levels, it may not be for you? Another operation you don't want to do on the router table, is locate the workpiece between the cutter and the fence like on a table saw. This will guarantee a 100 MPH kickback for sure!


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## MountainGuardian (Nov 18, 2019)

Been there done that... 

My most serious lesson was with my table saw, I was outside in the snow making lincoln logs on my half frozen table saw with gloves on using stobby little 1 1/2 inch diameter pieces of branches. I was forward feeding them the table saw but at the end I would grab the back end of the piece and "pull" it the rest of the way through thinking that was far safer..... It was safer until the blade grabbed that wood and then a stob grabbed my glove....

Luckily between my glove and my thumb it stalled out the saw blade, I had two large cuts in the palm of my glove and the last 1 inch of my thumb was cut in half alongside the bone almost the entire length of the thumbnail was missing a 3/16 inch wide channel. I went inside and tried to get my wife to help me clean it up and bandage it but she just turned green and stayed away from me... lol... It took me about an hour to get that cleaned out and then I packed it with silvadine and bandaged it up with a toilet paper roll over it to keep me from banging it on things. By then I was laughing and cracking jokes and my son Nate comes up and asks me how I can you be joking around when you almost cut your thumb off, I said that is exzactly how... I "almost" cut my thumb off, it could have been a lot worse. lol

It took me about 5 to 6 weeks to get healed back together and my thumb is now a bit narrower than it was and I have little area in the thumb nail that no longer connects to the tissue beneath but overall it healed up just fine and lesson learned... Never wear rubber gloves when operating fast bladed equipment or cut things with knobs or stobs on them to catch a glove or sleeve or finger etc.

Last night I learned not to blow on the fire without eye protection... I got a small red hot spark out of the stove and right smack into the right side of my right eye ball. Initially it didn't hurt all that bad but soon I got a small blister on the eye where it hit me and the tiny piece of carbon started traveling around my eye. I finally manage to get the carbon out with my finger looking in the mirror, but apparently I must have dropped a piece of sanding grit or metal piece or something into my eye from the grinding I did earlier in the day where I "was" wearing eye protection, probably fell out of my eyelashes or something. So I spent the next few hours with some hard something rolling around my eye ball, but I just kept my eye closed and it didn't hurt so bad and slept and now it isn't too bad at all, almost back to normal now. I learned long ago the hard way not to grind metal without eye protection, I got a tiny little piece of metal stuck in the side of my eye, after 5 days of suffering I went in to the doctor and he got it in just a few seconds... I though wow, that was easy and fast.... then he walks over to a drawer and pulls out this thing, as he is walking back towards me he turns it on and tests it a few times, and it sounded suspiciously like a friggin drill... I asked the doc out curiosity what that was for....... He said the metal was in your eye long enough to create a rust ring so I need to remove that so that you don't end up with a scar.... Let me tell you, there is nothing freakier in the world than having someone drill on your eye ball... Lesson wayyy learned on that one...


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## wayneh (Nov 15, 2019)

woodnthings said:


> ...Another operation you don't want to do on the router table, is locate the workpiece between the cutter and the fence like on a table saw. This will guarantee a 100 MPH kickback for sure!


That's basically what I did. I had tweaked the fence very slightly forward, narrowing the gap between the fence and the bit, to move where the groove was. As I said, I was pissed that I had missed the middle of the piece and now had to widen the groove.

Because I was focused on the problems I was having, it simply didn't dawn on me what I had just done. I moved all the cutting to the back of the bit, the side facing the fence. I had built a rocket launcher. 

If I had realized what I had done, there were plenty of solutions but. It was distraction and inadequate fear that caused a lapse. You need to think about safety with _every single cut _you make with a power tool.


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## DrRobert (Apr 27, 2015)

I happens to everyone sooner or later. I look at the "close call" incidents as a divine way of causing us to focus (and stay focused) on safety -- before AND during an operation.


Aside from going braindead for me there are 3 risk factors: 

1. Repetitive tasks
2. Lack of focus
3. Prior aggravation about something not going right
4. Being in a hurry
5. Any combination of these


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*A basic operating principle .....*

The table saw has a fence as does the route table, BUT they are not used in the same manner! We go to a whole lot of trouble to align the blade and the fence parallel to a miter slot, and hence to each other on a table saw. This is because we run the material along the fence into the blade and if they are not parallel, it will wedge up and kickback.



A router table needs no such alignment, in fact it can simply pivot at one end in or away from the cutter. We NEVER run the material between the cutter and the fence because the cutter's rotation will grab it and send it flying across the shop. 



It's NOT a matter of paying enough attention, or being over tired. It is a matter of feeding or using the machine incorrectly. You can't violate the principles of operation and get away with it. :vs_OMG:


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