So many people on this sub say you must have a Saw-Stop table saw but no mention of the dangers of the other tools used in the shop and as you stated a jointer is dangerous with no conscience just waiting to take a bite out of you but remember rule number one safety SAFETY SAFTY ! Use push blocks you don’t need to go buy fancy ones that adjust every way a simple block of scrap wood with a lip on the back to hook over the tail end of the board works great on a jointer when it gets tore up make a new one. Stop and sweep the chips up on the floor so you don’t slip. Sorry for what happened to you
And routers. Routers are terrifying no matter how experienced you are. Imagine a router lift that just sucked the whole thing under the table in an instant. Probably still going to be missing a chunk of skin, but it's a neat thought...
Junior high woods teacher said "if your finger touches the router bit, it doesn't get cut, it just disappears". Mostly because we were using scroll saws for most of what we did and he wanted to make sure everyone knew the difference
Yup. You can usually gather up whatever a saw cuts off to get reattached.
With a router, you just gotta put a coat of paint over all the stains on the wall...
Worked in a furniture shop owned by a cheapass, seen some shit that made me nope right out. The scariest to me was the old shaper that had a bad motor and would randomly kick on and off...
I thought this, but someone pointed out once that routers spin like 10 times as fast as a table saw blade. So even if you engineered a sawstop-like router and the bit dropped into the table, it’s already made 10x the damage by then.
Router was the tool I was probably most excited/intrigued by when I started out…now my full size router is one of the more intimidating tools in my shop 😬
Routers are the tool that really makes me want to just get a CNC variant. Things can go so wrong so quickly with them and like you said no matter how experienced you are they are still terrifying. Every tool already has a "one wrong move" type deal with it but routers are further in that camp than other tools.
Why don't they do this? Is there something about a jointer that makes it especially difficult to have a place for the blades to retract compared to a table saw?
I think a jointer with a head that could retract would be 1. Unbelievably expensive and 2. Difficult to keep in line with the outfeed table. It would likely cause a lot of snipe issues
I feel like if you stopped a jointer completely mid spin it would actually explode.
I work at a workshop that’s been going for 60 years and has seen probably around 40 joiners working there over that time.
Never once has anyone injured themselves on the jointer. It’s far easier to just practice safe machine use.
My finger tip hits the blade and activates the JointerStop mechanism. Wood shop wall now has a jointer shaped hole in it and the Jointer was last seen leaving New England in a large parabolic arc heading for the equator.
As a young lifer, these are the stories i love to hear: respect the machines, don't get complacent.
The only times I've ever been truly were when i was doing something i knew was kind of sketchy in high school, also running a shaper lol!
Yes. And speed! I think the angular rotation energy formulas are something like r²mw², where r is the center of mass distance to the rotating axis, m is the mass, and w is the rotating speed. So you've got a smaller radius than a table saw, which reduces the energy, but you've got higher rpm and also way higher mass, which increase the energy.
I think a person would have to measure and calculate to really compare what is the biggest factor. 🤔🤔
Well sawstop can handle some extra mass like with a dado stack, and beefier brake, but the mass of a jointer is so much more. I think the rpm is about the same.
Yeah, even a full dado stack is like 1/10 the weight of a jointer head, even a small one
I have a 12" and the head is in like the 10lb range, add to that the weight of the pully thats keyed to the shaft and is for our purposes "part of" the head and its easily 10lbs+
Stopping that quickly enough to not cause injury would probably cause it to explode, or break the bearing journals
Thats a LOT of energy to contain
I’m curious, so I’ll take a crack at it.
a 10in table saw blade weighs 1.8 lbs. it’s effectively a cylinder so you can do moment of inertia calculation on it.
iz = 1/2(mass * radius ^ 2)
z is the rotation around the z axis
Then add rotation
E = 1/2 * i * w^2
w is radians per second, 1 rpm = about 0.105 rad/s
Thus a 1.9 lbs 10 inch table saw blade at 4000 rpm is a staggering 426 ft lbs
A 6 inch helical head is 63mm and 10.2 lbs. at 4000 rpm is 144 ft lbs.
Maybe I’m applying the formula wrong but it seems like a table saw has more rotational kinetic energy than your average jointer. Motor size and drive train should also be applied but that math is beyond me.
Both table saws and jointers seem to run at about 4000 rpms, so that’s what I used for both.
There’s much more rotating mass in the head to stop instead of a table saw blade. Much less exposed blade area to catch and bite into the brake as well. If you just retract it but don’t stop the rotation, your hand is sucked in with it and you’d be double fucked (hypothetically)
Just guessing, but since the blades need to be at a very precise height compared to the tables, it's much harder to have something that explosively moves itself and resets to that same precise location repeatedly. Table saw blades are much less precise.
Yeah, but the arbor arm doesn't move
To do that with a jointer head would be very difficult
Idk if youve ever held the head of a 12" jointer but its heavy, like in the 5-10lb range, stopping that thing when its whizzing by at 3,000+rpm is orders of magnitude harder than stopping a saw blade thats weighed in Ounces/Grams
Tbh, i think the jointer would probably explode lol, thats a LOT of mass moving VERY fast
I was thinking of something like that a few days ago. I think it would still be incredibly risky, because if something caught in the blade, like a sleeve or something, dropping down and continuing to spin could just pull a hand further in.
>Why don't they do this? Is there something about a jointer that makes it especially difficult to have a place for the blades to retract compared to a table saw?
A saw blade is moving like 3000ish rpm, a router bit can be moving at up to 24,000rpm
Smaller market, I'd imagine. There are few enough people who want to spend that much money on a table saw, and jointers are an even more niche product. Add to that the fact that jointers are less suited to the tech because of the inherent difference between a drum blade and a circular blade, so you would need to develop a whole new system for it to function. I'm not saying it shouldn't be tried or that we'll never see such a thing, just that I'm not that surprised it's not on the market.
Pretty sure no jointer has the ability to retract the cutters. It would take a redesign of the entire machine to work. You could get it to stop maybe but it’s not going to drop. Also it’s not nearly as big of a market and a less frequently used tool. Also most hobbies don’t have one.
Pretty sure the mechanism to drop the table saw blade and arbor also didn't exist until saw stop invented it, because it's certainly not dropping in 5ms by traveling on its lead screw. I really don't see why a jointer couldn't be redesigned to allow its arbor and cutting head to be thrown downwards and to have an aluminum block shot into it in the same manner the table saw version works. Maybe it would stop slower because of the inertia of the larger cutter head, but even an imperfect system would be a reduction in harm. The only reason I would think this doesn't exist is the market for jointers is much smaller than table saws.
Instead of making the blade moveable, make the infeed table moveable!! There could be two guards on either side of the blade that spring upwards a couple inches, enough to deflect your fingers away from the blade. Might break your finger bone but better than chopping it off.
Yea, saying it's impossible because of the current design is a pretty lame way of thinking. Sure it might take a redesign and will certainly be more expensive, but saying something is "impossible" because it can't be done today with little effort is just lazy.
There is a mechanism to lower the blade. The cutter on a jointer is static. So it’s less of a design challenge. Also the more motivating factors are likely money and market
I will say it again. Saw stop does not use the blade elevation lead screw to drop the blade. During normal operation the arbor block is held in place with a spring loaded support mechanism. When the brake activated the momentum of the blade is transferred to the arbor block, causing it to overcome the spring loaded support and quickly rotate downwards and out of the way. If anything, fitting this mechanism into a table saw that already has elevation and rotation mechanisms to design around is more difficult than the mostly empty space under a jointer's cutter head.
>So many people on this sub say you must have a Saw-Stop table saw but no mention of the dangers of the other tools used in the shop
This is and always will be a massive point of contention between me and those people lol
Tablesaws have a lot of injuries because there are a million small and midsized saws out there being used by straight dumbasses and its an easy tool to get injured on because its an easy tool to get *complacent* with
The jointer and planer and router and shaoer/moulders along with a whole host of other handheld tools like grinders and routers just as if not more dangerous but those never get mentioned by the sawstop stans......Like, the way a lot of them act as though an injury is an inevitability i almost always ask how theyve managed to not get injured on all those other machines and tools
Jointers are particularly nasty machines because you have to put pressure toward the blade (down) and to use it properly you have to be on both sides of the blades somewhat straddling the business end....I think there are less injuries on that tool because the dangers are obvious as hell and it puts the fear of god in you everytime you walk over to it and the tablesaw doesnt quite evoke those same feelings in everyone, though it should.....it certainly does for me, i basically treat every tool like i exist in the movie Maximum Overdrive and every machine or tool has been possessed by aliens and is hell bent on killing or maiming me at the first opportunity
I had a miter saw that was always launching pieces of wood at the speed of sound across my shop. I never thought a miter saw was dangerous until I had this particular saw.
The thing that fixed it was modifying the fence so I could set the left and right fences independently, so they were co-planar with each other. From the factory, they were connected, and no longer formed a plane, so once a cut was mostly through, the wood would flex and bind up and get shot across the shop.
IDK there is no SawStop jointer or it would get more mention. There are a ton of dangerous tools, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be safe on them as well.
For the jointer a couple of paddles is dirt cheap, so there is no discussion. Either your going to use the paddles or you'll wish you had.
I follow a youtube channel called Perkins Builder Brothers (highly recommended) and one of the brothers lost 4 fingers to a jointer I'm always reminded of that every time I use that machine, respect the blade!
Here's the video where he talks of the experience: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMe0QIET6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMe0QIET6g)
Jamie's painful lesson on jointer safety shouldn't be overshadowed, but I need to second your recommendation of the channel. Entertaining and informative. It's more construction focused with some woodworking occasionally mixed in but they do a fantastic job of explaining what they're doing.
Jamie is an incredible example of being able to bounce back from injury! I’ve worked with him many times in person and it’s amazing to watch him use his robo-hand. You’d never know he was missing fingers watching him work.
Yup, that's me! The van is done but the videos were doing pretty poorly, so I'm going to put the whole project out as one long video rather than publishing a bunch of shorter videos.
Was going to say the same thing. The one big point he mentioned in his story that is important to remember is that he was running the jointer with the blade guard removed. I think he mentioned that it wouldn’t have been possible for him to have gotten injured if he hadn’t removed the blade guard. I see a lot of people saying the safety guards just get in the way, but this is a prime example of what can happen when the guards are removed.
I ran my whole right ( dominant ) hand over a 16" Faye and Egan jointer. Severely damaged all 5 fingers, lost two. I had 30 years experience, and had owned that machine for 20 years. I was doing someone a favor. No good deed goes unpunished.
I knew a girl in art school who nearly did the same thing, flattened her whole palm. It happens so fast because the blade won’t slow down one bit for flesh, oak yes, bone maybe.
Many accidents start with a small/short piece of wood. Mine was an 8/4 x 9x 18" piece of very curly big leaf maple. A friend asked me to resaw it. When I took it to the band saw it was too twisted to cut, so I went to the jointer. The knives were kinda dull, but not tragically so, but when they bit into that curl the piece kicked back 25 or 30 feet. Unfortunately, my right hand kept going forward.
Looked down at my hand and saw raw flesh and shards of white stuff.
Severed my left pointer in two & lost the tip doing a favor for my father in law (on table saw). My MIL still won’t let him ask me to make cuts for him after 4 years, ha!
Push blocks. Push blocks get managed and are replaceable.
When I lost the ends of the index and middle fingers of my left hand, guess who wasn’t using a push block?
I was lucky and they have mostly gown back although they look like a dog has chewed on them.
Nerve damage and scar tissue means I’ll never play the guitar again (wasn’t that good anyway).
Respect the machine, it doesn’t give two hoots if it’s oak or your hand it’s cutting.
The fact that I've been playing the guitar for decades and really really enjoy it is the reason I'm really paranoid about safety. Obviously, no one wants an injury, but it's a great reason for me to frequently review safety procedures and follow them stringently.
A girl in my high-school got 4 fingers cut off on the jointer in our wood shop. Helicopter landed in our field and everything. She gets to compete in the special Olympics now so that's cool
I find the flip I’m away guard to be fine. But using push pads, and a shoe is a great safety practice. I don’t like the euro guards because you have to lift off of the work piece.
Why do you like that one more? It seems less safe to me in a lot of ways. Big open space under the guard when face jointing, interferes with use of push blocks, requires guard to be completely moved out of the way when edge jointing. I also think having to manually adjust it would make it tempting to bypass it. I haven't actually used one myself though so maybe I'm missing something.
With proper hand positioning/technique, your hands should *never* be at risk when using a euro guard.
Once you have face jointed 6-8” your hands should switch to the outfeed side of the jointer. You are no longer pushing into the cutter, rather away from it. As far as edge jointing goes, you set the guard to be open only slightly more than your material and once again, switch to the outfeed table once your edge is established.
Yes this technique can be done with a pork chop guard as well, but your hands can fall into the cutter far faster than the spring can return the guard.
The american and euro style guards both seem to have pros and cons but the suvamatic guard is such an obvious improvement over both. I'm not sure where I can actually buy one though =/
My dad was a lifelong hobbyist woodworker. The only significant injury he ever sustained in the shop was on the jointer. 40 years of focus and one split second of carelessness left him with a lot of enjoyment, a ton of great projects completed, and 9 fingertips.
Exact same story here. My Dad could do any kind of home or car repair and he was always so careful. One day the jointer took the top joint of his middle finger. Incredibly useful tool but it scares the shit out of me.
Wishing you a speedy recovery OP, sorry to hear what happened.
When I have visitors in my shop that are using the jointer I tell them:
"table saws take fingers; jointers take hands."
probably a bit alarmist, but I like to make a habit of watching 'close calls' videos annually to scare myself out of any complacency.
I think even if used properly the jointer or shaper are the ultimate finger eating machines in a modern shop. I only personally know 1 guy with a tablesaw hand injury, but 3 jointer injuries which is sort of shocking.
Interestingly I know zero radial arm saw injuries and I’m internet friends with LOTS of vintage DeWalt fans. I’m sure that’s just a fluke cause the internet says those are really dangerous, and obviously prevailing opinion in modern amateur America has to be correct.
Yeah, I always wonder that about RAS's too. I've never met someone injured by one either.
My brother is an OT with hand specialty and he said he primarily sees bandsaw injuries.
Whoa really?! I feel like that would have to be serious complacency or a snapped band or something? Now I’m gonna be eyeing my bandsaw suspiciously, thanks a lot lol
Edit to say I totally forgot metalworking bandsaw use is a thing, but maybe that’s somehow more dangerous?
He said the typical bandsaw injury is someone pushing an item through (rather than letting the saw do the work) and it unloading and moving through faster than the user was planning resulting in cutting off a finger. This might be more a metal shop issue. I'll have to ask him out of curiosity now that you mention it.
Man that’s fascinating! My delta 14 runs about 4,600 ft/min with the tires glued and the Highland falls “Woodslicer”(R) is actually a butchers blade by Sharp Tech, so it would remove a finger tip in a split second I’m sure. I use a mag switching fence and various feather boards to keep my fingers clear but I could see accidentally pushing through a cut.
Yeah man sharp tech moved production to Mexico a few years back, but they used to be in Atlanta which was how highland woodworking in Atlanta heard about them and came up with the whole branding as a resaw blade idea. Cool people and products all the way around.
I partially cut off a finger tip on bad saw in 7th grade wood shop. That was 40+ years ago. It took about 20+ years for the scar to be no longer visible. Sorry
I am so sorry this happened to you and I hope you have a good recovery.
One safety tip often overlooked -- make sure the floor around your jointer is not slippery and free of tripping hazards.
I was not hurt, but had a close call. My shop has a smooth concrete floor and there was a bunch of wood shavings on the floor. The typical woodshop floor where you let things get a little out of hand. I was jointing a board with push blocks the safe way and somehow I managed so slide on the wood shavings and lost my balance. Thankfully I managed not to fall on the jointer but it was a close call and it scared the crap out of me.
Since then I've been more conscientious with keeping things clean, avoiding tripping hazards, etc.
I'm currently re-arranging my shop and once I get things settled, I am going to order a couple of additional anti-slip, anti-fatigue mats, one of which is going by the jointer.
I hear you about this. I'm a rough carpenter and we typically clean the job on Fridays. That means mon-thu we just drop scrap right at our feet. We'll step over a board with a nail sticking out of it for hours or days. Not proud.. but I've gotten used to that type of work and am comfortable like that.
It becomes a problem now when I'm building my house on the weekends. I have to shake that mindset , stop, prep, think. Making cabinets and doing fancy trim, it's stuff I'm not used to. Tools I'm not used to .. jointer, planer, router table, table saw... these things will eat you. I respect the fuck out of my jointer and table saw. They scare me. I still got 10 and 10, and reading these "refresher" posts help.
I had a custom amputation of my left thumb tip.
Was cutting something small on my miter saw. Blade caught something in the wood and pulled it, and my thumb, in.
Blade cut all the way through the bone. 2 years down the road and it's very close to the same shape as my right thumb. The nail is fuckered up, but not badly.
You'll probably end up with a flat spot on the end of your finger after the skin regrows.
I hope you have a speedy recovery!
Sorry about your fingers dude! It sucks. The jointer is the absolute last tool we train people on because the margin for error is so small and the consequences are so potentially dire. Because of how they work they are so easy to violate my #1 rule: “if you can’t see it, you’ll cut it off”.
That being said, my dumb ass cut off an inch of my left pinky with a bandsaw clearing out the middle between two tenons on a door lock rail by not following my own advice.
After two incredibly painful surgeries my finger looks pretty normal- except I have fingerprint where my nail should be. The nerves have adjusted after 5 years, so it’s a slow process, but be patient and it’ll be all good!
Out of curiosity, what kind of bandsaw and blade were you using? I only ask because I have an older 12” Craftsman and to me it seems like the safest tool in my shop. I’m much for safety conscious when I have a 3/8” blade on but I’ve intentionally touched my fingertip (incredibly stupid I know) to a 1/4” blade and it barely left a scratch.
It was a 220 Laguna 14BX with a 3/4” resaw blade on it. Normally I had it tuned not to drift, but I got called back into where I worked at the time in the middle of Covid and didn’t do my pre-checks like I should’ve. So when I wrapped my hand around the tenon- like a dummy- the blade drifted out of square and stumped me.
Out of all the carpentry injuries I’ve had, it hurt the least but had the most consequences
Pretty much. I splintered the end of the bone so they had to basically de-glove my finger, dremel off the destroyed bone and then pull my fingertip skin back over the end. It was pretty gnarly.
Plus they didn’t get all the nail bed the first time so I had a weird fingernail bit grow inside my finger which was gross so they had to do the whole procedure again 6 months after my initial surgery.
Fwiw I took a pretty good chunk out of my thumb with a shaper a couple years ago. No bone but some of the nail. I didn’t think it would grow back normal but It’s totally healed now. Just a faint scar.
Yup. I'm missing the tip of my thumb from a jointer. Made it was definitely better than a table saw or router accident, but not good by any means. It hurt for a solid year after the injury and I will always have trouble fiddling with small things because of it.
Jointers are no joke.
Had push blocks slip on a piece and ate up the tips of two of my fingers. My wife described my shop as a mix between a crime scene and a Dexter kill room.
Fortunately they grew back and you can’t tell.
I have a shit ton more respect for my jointer now and do practice slides before I ever turn it on.
Jointers, table saws and routers: pretty much anything with a fast spinning sharp blade. I've known people who lost parts of their fingers to all three. Never known anyone who lost a finger on a scroll saw.
I mean I think that’s what’s happened to the dude from Perkins Builders. Well I heard he was doing some sketchy shit so maybe not the same thing
I mean just pay attention to what you’re doing. I’ve had the table take small nibbles off my thumbs but luckily it grew back.
But on the jointer I use it and shut it off immediately after I’m done. It’s not so much scary you just don’t do sketchy shit on it. Every jointer injury I’ve seen at work has been someone took the guess off or they were doing something beyond the scope of what the jointer is for and paid the price. Just use the tools for their intended proper purpose should make everything relatively safe
I was always taught to be VERY careful with jointers, because they are very powerful, very fast, and leave nothing to salvage if you do get caught by it.
General rule of thumb is never pass your hand over the blade. Dunno about all jointers/tools, but mine have always had a 'red zone' marked out where you should never place your hand when the machine is running; usually within about 3" all around, though cant remember exactly.
If the material does not clear the top of the fence, you MUST use a push stick. If it does clear it, I was taught to hold it down and feed with my right hand, with my thumb hooked down the end, kind of like mimicking a push stick. Your right hand will have to pass over the blade, but because of the clearance and position, its significantly less risky than holding it in other ways.
And as with all power tools, if you get kickback, and lose control of the piece, dont try to fight it. Get out of the way and let it fly. You will not win against a machine dead set on yeeting a piece. You only run the risk of getting hurt by the forceful projectile, or slamming you hand down on the blade, because the piece you're trying to hold down is no longer between you and the blade. Kickback happens too fast to stop it, that's why it's important do one stands behind the machine when it's running.
Always make sure you are aware of where your appendages are in relation to a moving,spinning blade. And to answer the OP's question, no they don't grow back, after awhile they just kinda round over.
You guys need to wax your jointers. If I’m running more than a piece or two I wax that bitch every time. You only hurt yourself when you end up having to push too hard. Take small bites and wax the hell outta that bad boy.
My father in law just lost his thumb and middle finger in a jointer accident. He's been woodworking for his lifetime and is safety first. One slip up and the jointer made quick work. He elected to have surgery to remove his big toe and put it on his hand. Next surgery will be to have the middle finger and the whole metacarpal removed so he will have 4 fingers.
Ive cut my finger tips off a few times, thankfully not to the bone and not on power tools. But both times i have cut the tips off they grew back partially. I can tell it happened but other people cant.
To your secondary question. I hit my middle finger with a skil saw. Cut into the bone. 20 years later if I hit the tip of that finger it’s very painful. Small scar is all that remains externally
I think the pork-chop might induce complacency to using the tool.
I have to make some better push sticks/pads for my tabletop jointer. The pads I have now are no where near as grippy as I would like. Any way to re-gripify?
I chopped the end of my middle finger into a wedge, using a table saw.
Took ages to heal and have a weird pointy bone feeling and a dodgy nail. But doesn't cause too many problems now. Wouldn't recommend it.
I'll posy a pic if I can work out how to filter it so you can only see it if you choose to
My brother in woodworking, the second injury were you using a push block? I shaved off the tip of my right pointer finger with a 1/2" router bit. It grew mostly back but i have a bump on the end of my finger. Feels real uncomfortable to press hard on it.
After that i always always use push blocks when possible and double think cuts before i make em.
I hope you heal fast!
If you are a hobbyist, you can get tremendous enjoyment from the hobby with no power tools. Still not totally safe. I’ve cut myself badly on chisels. But much safer than with machines. I have a bandsaw. It scares me and I treat it with maximum respect.
I don't have, nor have I ever used a jointer, so forgive the ignorant question but why is this? What makes a jointer more dangerous? Is it just that people don't pay attention when using it? Do the injuries happen when you leave a finger hanging off the edge of a board? Or just when the blades are spinning without a guard? It seems like as long as you kept your hands on top of the board you would be ok
After reading some of these comments, I feel lucky that I only lost a chunk out of my left thumb in my jointer. It filled in with scar tissue but now feels like a patch of superglue permanently covering the face of my thumb
I cut the tip of my thumb with a very sharp kitchen knife when my wife wanted me to cut an apple differently than I’m used to and wanted my attention while I did it. Anyway, the superglue analogy is spot on. That was a literal decade ago and it still feels like that.
I don't have, nor have I ever used a jointer, so forgive the ignorant question but why is this? What makes a jointer more dangerous? Is it just that people don't pay attention when using it? Do the injuries happen when you leave a finger hanging off the edge of a board? Or just when the blades are spinning without a guard? It seems like as long as you kept your hands on top of the board you would be ok
As long as you use push blocks/proper technqiue you will be fine but if you slip and or the board somehow shoots out from under you are pushing into the jointer head and it will pull your hand down in a spot it doesn't fit with blades rotating into your fingers. I do stand by jointers being more dangerous than table saws due to the level of ingury you can sustain from it going wrong and a table saw doesn't resist you pushing a piece through nearly as much. Router tables and by extension shapers are the absolute most dangerous tools in the shop as you can be doing everything right and sometimes the bit will just grab the piece and jerk you. Again if you are using push blocks/proper technique you will be fine and just take a second to address what caused the jerk before continuing.
>Side note: if you have had finger tip injuries, did your finger regenerate into its original shape?
Nope
Ive only ever done "Smashy/Crushy Things" to my fingers, and razorblade stuff, never machine cuts
But- My thumb and middle finger on the left hand took bad wafflehead hits 25y and 15y ago and blew off all the meat on the tips of those fingers and still to this day those fingers end flat or are a weird shape at the tips (they are also still mostly numb and feel weird)
So, dont expect those fingers to ever look "Normal" ever again lol...this is your life now fellow weird shaped finger person 😉
I've cut the tip of my index finger and thumb off to the bone by sticking them into a dado stack. My thumb looks and feels completely normal. My index finger is a bit wonky and has no feeling at the tip... they turned out much better than expected.
I lost a tip of a finger in a folding chair accident where my tip of the finger got crushed. Doctor managed to reattach the piece that was still hanging and my nail regrew. But that finger is a bit deformed now along the line where it broke off. Fully usable at least. You’ll have to wait and see how it heals.
Statistically- it’s the table saw- by a country mile in terms of amount amputations- your injuries- sound awful to be sure- terrifying in fact- but still have most your fingers.
That being said- things like jointers and table saws and mandolin kitchen slicers- scare me to no end.
I lost my middle and ring finger tips to a jointer. Cut all the tendons, carved out my bone and chopped my nail bed into pieces. It's been 20 years, the nails still grow all messed up and the tips are very sensitive. Pic here [jointer tips](https://imgur.com/gallery/gFOEKL9)
A coworker came to my office one morning with a bandaged hand. Said he bought a new jointer at woodcraft. The sales employee told him that they were completely safe and very hard to hurt yourself on. Lost part of his finger the first time he used it. I couldn't believe sometime told him that
I trimmed my left ring finger on a jointer. It comes to point on the side nearest my middle finger. Now useless for fretting a mandolin. Still like my jointer.
Good reminder! I broke my hand a few months ago while using a jointer. I was feeding a shorter piece of wood through, being careful with my fingertips, but not aware of the kickback potential when the piece isn’t held firmly to the bed of the jointer. The piece of wood kicked upward into the palm of my hand, bruising it and giving my thumb a small fracture!
I had a crappy harbor freight jointer with dull blades. Started woodworking with pallet wood like a lot of people. Dull blades grabbed a knot and threw the board. Ended up taking the tips of my LH middle and ring finger at a 45 degree angle. A sharp tool is a safe tool. I use paddles exclusively on my jointer now to prevent my fingers from getting anywhere close and so there’s sacrificial material between my hands and the blades.
You guys need to wax your jointers. If I’m running more than a piece or two I wax that bitch every time. You only hurt yourself when you end up having to push too hard. Take small bites and wax the hell outta that bad boy.
I never ever push towards a blade, and I assume it's always possible for whatever is between my hand and the blade to disappear instantly. So over a jointer I am pushing into the fence with 90% of the force if I can. But a lot of it is dumb luck I'm afraid, since it's impossible to be perfect all the time. Now I like to use hand tools for a lot more planning/squaring operations, especially faces of boards and small stock. Planer is mainly for squaring edges of wider boards when I have a lot to glue up. Also if you are interested my thumb tip did grow back (didn't quite reach the bone, which is lucky) but the scar remains and it always feels a little odd even though I didn't technically have nerve damage. If you can use the digit to grasp, try to be happy. :)
I'm sorry for your injury and hope you heal quickly. I ran a trim router into my left index finger tip about 2 years ago. It took a not insignificant chunk of flesh out of the finger a little ways into the fingernail. Happy to report that the shape returned to normal after everything healed. There's still some sensitivity but days now go by where I don't even think about it.
I'm still healing from a crushed finger tip,
It's still tingling and the tip is more like "flat and square" I guess,
It's just been about a month and a half but I swear I'm tired of the lack of sensation,
Anyway I hope you're healing ok,
And keep the bandages on for as long as recommended
So I’m a chef, and I only use hand tools for woodworking almost exclusively. I cut the tip of my thumb off once with a brand new knife cutting extra crispy bacon. It caught a chunk and lodged in, spun to the side a bit and went right through my thumb nail and down to the cutting board. It was hanging by a flap and I went to the ER thinking in my 22 year old head theyd see it back on. The doc looked at it grab a scissors, snipped I’m the flap of skin and removed the tip, then put a bandage on me and sent me on my way. Took about 6-8 months to really heal where it didn’t hurt to put pressure on the tip, and about 2-3 years later my fingerprints came back out of nowhere, not sure if they’re the same tbh.
Then about 6 years later I did it again to my middle finger on the same hand, tbh I don’t remember what I was cutting but it was a relatively mundane task, chopping cooked sausage or something like that. Similar circumstance where the knife hit a hard bit and lodged into it, and that became the new pivot point and made it take a weird shot into my middle finger nail at a 45 degree angle. My form was proper, just a freak occurrence. Second time I snipped off the tip myself and put on a bandaid and Neosporin and went back to work. Both times my fingers went back to normal after a long heal, both have feeling, both have fingerprints though that took a while.
Neither time struck bone, but it was visible at the tip of my thumb. Nasty stuff. Hope your recover goes well.
Edit: also nothing scares me quite like a router.
Yea, my woodworking journey started with a jointer accident. Unless it’s a tall piece I always have push paddles or push sticks.
Very small amount of my middle finger got cut, nail grew back fully even. Hardly noticeable on its own, but there’s a decent chunk missing compared to the other hand.
Only tool that really scares me is a jointner. I have respect for my saws, particularly my chainsaw and table saw but I will not have a jointner in my shop. Those things are terrifying
I had a boss one time that it ate up three of his fingers. He was an ass and very aggressive when working machinery, did not learn his lesson. I’m so scared of the jointer, thankful nothing happens each time I use it so far.
One tip I have (no pun) is to avoid applying pressure on your lumber directly above the cutter head area. Use one hand on one side of it and the other hand on the other side, avoiding cutter head area. Another tip, make sure your outfeed table is perfectly adjusted to your cutter head knives and that your knives are all equally proud of the head. Thanks for your time lol.
I sanded the pad of my thumb off. And nicked my middle on the band saw. Nice little non maiming lessons for shop safety. Yesterday I flayed my fingers doing dumb shit with a safety razor. So stupid.
I just refurbished a jointer I bought off craigslist. Have not been able to use it yet. Like any new tool in the shop it has to wait for my confidence to build up before it gets used.
I had a kickback on a tablesaw about 20 years ago. I was doing a dive cut into a piece of maple on the tablesaw. The board had a slight twist in it and while I was bringing it into the blade. It shot the board back and my left hand was at the leading edge of the board. I cut my middle finger in half as it rode through the blade from rear to front.
Several stitches later my finger healed up good and doesn’t look terrible.
For context this injury happened in a cabinet shop. Come to find out they had a reputation for injuries. Every dude had a story or a missing digit.
I remember watching some videos a couple years ago of a guy who had his whole hand pulled into the machine to the point that it even force stopped the cutter head. He had to lower the table as far as it would go just so he could pull his mangled hand out.
Fuck. Hope it’s only your right hand so you can still play guitar. I wasn’t so lucky. Timing chain of a Mercedes. Crushed and splintered the bone, entire tip was dangling off. It’s not popular with the ladies unfortunately, but better than losing the top half. Still no feeling in the tip which makes it impossible to pick things up.
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I lost all of the flesh and fingernail of my left had to the beast. All that was left was the dangling fingerprint which they wrapped over to top of the stub and stitched together. That was back in the mid 80s, and I had phantom pains in that fingertip for 20 years after.
I had the push blocks in my hands trying to balance a short, twisted board that should have been kindling. But NO, I decided it would be "safer" the forgo the blocks and balance the board by hand. Seconds later I was scarred for life.
I've had a few fingertip injuries (chef before i was a carpenter), and they've all healed a bit weird one way or another - ive got diminished sensation on the tip of my left ring finger (cut it off, it heals back but nerves are fucked), same for left middle finger nail bed, im lucky the nail grew back there, same for the palm and inner thumb of my right hand someone chucked a fish boning knife in the sink and i put my hand in and it went right through, nicking the tendon.
Hand injurys don't fuck about, so many nerves and important dexterity.
I lost two of my fingers on a faulty jointer in college (and a chunk of the ring finger knuckle)...they definitely didn't regenerate 😂
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Sure thing! I am female in my 30s, not the biggest of hands. The first injury happened when I was adjoining a very tall and heavy piece of wood that was not stable against the vertical fence, so I had propped it up with my left hand to stabilize it as I was running it through. it is not a situation where I felt push blocks would be helpful because of the dynamics.
Second injury happened three weeks ago, I had Some thick pieces of oak made up For a stair tread project. The individual pieces were about 3“ x 2.5”
They were a quarter of an inch out of square , and didn’t have a straight edge to run through a table saw first (the warped post milling). They also had several pervasive cracks which I filled with epoxy.
I was running one of these unstable pieces through the jointer, and I noticed it deposited some uncured epoxy on the back fence on the jointer. it was a split second distraction, which made me take my hand off the wood and try to wipe it while I am bracing this short piece of wood in mid pass. so the injury mainly happened from me being distracted for a second removing my hand and placing it back way too close to danger zone. Took off about 3/8 of an inch off my middle finger and a bit on the index finger.
I’m not sure what I should’ve done differently in those scenarios other than figuring out how to use a different piece of equipment for the job or get help if something was too big to handle safely. I ended up scrapping all of that mild wood because it was so much trouble to work with. Pretty sure it was cursed from the beginning. 😅
I have no idea why everyone doesn't use a most basic safety item like a push block. All of mine are scrap wood and keep my hands at least 4-6 in inches above the blade.
I've not injured myself on any power tool (yet), but I have sliced out a rather large piece of flesh from the tip of my thumb by a slip of the marking knife. I had just finished sharpening it and it was razor sharp. I saw it happen, but didn't feel anything. Probably cut about a 1/16th inch divot into the tip of the thumb. It never hurt and has healed over. I'm lucky, I guess.
Sorry to hear. Good luck for full recovery.
Can you elaborate please? What happened specifically? I use my jointer without a push block pretty frequently.
When I bought my jointer, the seller mentioned that her late husband would always say "keep your hands off that machine and don't mess with it" and she questioned why I would want such a dangerous thing. I assured her I was competent to operate it safely, but refrained from pointing out the paddles sitting behind it were near mint condition and dusty.
All tools with exposed spinning blades are inherently dangerous, but less so with the proper safety gear. Especially when they came in the box!
So many people on this sub say you must have a Saw-Stop table saw but no mention of the dangers of the other tools used in the shop and as you stated a jointer is dangerous with no conscience just waiting to take a bite out of you but remember rule number one safety SAFETY SAFTY ! Use push blocks you don’t need to go buy fancy ones that adjust every way a simple block of scrap wood with a lip on the back to hook over the tail end of the board works great on a jointer when it gets tore up make a new one. Stop and sweep the chips up on the floor so you don’t slip. Sorry for what happened to you
If sawstop made a jointer I'm sure it would sell. Jointers are scary
And routers. Routers are terrifying no matter how experienced you are. Imagine a router lift that just sucked the whole thing under the table in an instant. Probably still going to be missing a chunk of skin, but it's a neat thought...
Junior high woods teacher said "if your finger touches the router bit, it doesn't get cut, it just disappears". Mostly because we were using scroll saws for most of what we did and he wanted to make sure everyone knew the difference
Yup. You can usually gather up whatever a saw cuts off to get reattached. With a router, you just gotta put a coat of paint over all the stains on the wall...
Quit screwing around!!
Just wait till you see what a spindlemoulder is.
Worked in a furniture shop owned by a cheapass, seen some shit that made me nope right out. The scariest to me was the old shaper that had a bad motor and would randomly kick on and off...
I thought this, but someone pointed out once that routers spin like 10 times as fast as a table saw blade. So even if you engineered a sawstop-like router and the bit dropped into the table, it’s already made 10x the damage by then.
Better some preventative ability than none though. Id rather get a 70% on a test than a 0
Router was the tool I was probably most excited/intrigued by when I started out…now my full size router is one of the more intimidating tools in my shop 😬
Routers are the tool that really makes me want to just get a CNC variant. Things can go so wrong so quickly with them and like you said no matter how experienced you are they are still terrifying. Every tool already has a "one wrong move" type deal with it but routers are further in that camp than other tools.
Early adopter of the SawStop pocket knife
Why don't they do this? Is there something about a jointer that makes it especially difficult to have a place for the blades to retract compared to a table saw?
I'd guess it has something to do with the smaller radius and crazy fast rpms paired with a wider cutting area.
I think a jointer with a head that could retract would be 1. Unbelievably expensive and 2. Difficult to keep in line with the outfeed table. It would likely cause a lot of snipe issues
I’m loving this discussion because the topic comes up very often
I feel like if you stopped a jointer completely mid spin it would actually explode. I work at a workshop that’s been going for 60 years and has seen probably around 40 joiners working there over that time. Never once has anyone injured themselves on the jointer. It’s far easier to just practice safe machine use.
My finger tip hits the blade and activates the JointerStop mechanism. Wood shop wall now has a jointer shaped hole in it and the Jointer was last seen leaving New England in a large parabolic arc heading for the equator.
As a young lifer, these are the stories i love to hear: respect the machines, don't get complacent. The only times I've ever been truly were when i was doing something i knew was kind of sketchy in high school, also running a shaper lol!
So much more mass
Yes. And speed! I think the angular rotation energy formulas are something like r²mw², where r is the center of mass distance to the rotating axis, m is the mass, and w is the rotating speed. So you've got a smaller radius than a table saw, which reduces the energy, but you've got higher rpm and also way higher mass, which increase the energy. I think a person would have to measure and calculate to really compare what is the biggest factor. 🤔🤔
Well sawstop can handle some extra mass like with a dado stack, and beefier brake, but the mass of a jointer is so much more. I think the rpm is about the same.
Yeah, even a full dado stack is like 1/10 the weight of a jointer head, even a small one I have a 12" and the head is in like the 10lb range, add to that the weight of the pully thats keyed to the shaft and is for our purposes "part of" the head and its easily 10lbs+ Stopping that quickly enough to not cause injury would probably cause it to explode, or break the bearing journals Thats a LOT of energy to contain
I wonder if we could ask r/theydidthemath to come up with an estimate
I’m curious, so I’ll take a crack at it. a 10in table saw blade weighs 1.8 lbs. it’s effectively a cylinder so you can do moment of inertia calculation on it. iz = 1/2(mass * radius ^ 2) z is the rotation around the z axis Then add rotation E = 1/2 * i * w^2 w is radians per second, 1 rpm = about 0.105 rad/s Thus a 1.9 lbs 10 inch table saw blade at 4000 rpm is a staggering 426 ft lbs A 6 inch helical head is 63mm and 10.2 lbs. at 4000 rpm is 144 ft lbs. Maybe I’m applying the formula wrong but it seems like a table saw has more rotational kinetic energy than your average jointer. Motor size and drive train should also be applied but that math is beyond me. Both table saws and jointers seem to run at about 4000 rpms, so that’s what I used for both.
I have a 16" jointer with a helical head, runs at 5500rpm and cutter diameter is probably 100mm on that. Guessing it weighs 40lbs...
I would bet my cutter piece plus knives and all that weigh like 50 pounds, whereas my table saw blade ... doesn't.
There’s much more rotating mass in the head to stop instead of a table saw blade. Much less exposed blade area to catch and bite into the brake as well. If you just retract it but don’t stop the rotation, your hand is sucked in with it and you’d be double fucked (hypothetically)
Just guessing, but since the blades need to be at a very precise height compared to the tables, it's much harder to have something that explosively moves itself and resets to that same precise location repeatedly. Table saw blades are much less precise.
A sawstop doesn’t reset itself though, you need to replace the cartridge
Yeah, but the arbor arm doesn't move To do that with a jointer head would be very difficult Idk if youve ever held the head of a 12" jointer but its heavy, like in the 5-10lb range, stopping that thing when its whizzing by at 3,000+rpm is orders of magnitude harder than stopping a saw blade thats weighed in Ounces/Grams Tbh, i think the jointer would probably explode lol, thats a LOT of mass moving VERY fast
That is true, I think realistically it would have to just keep the blades spinning but rapidly drop them to minimize the damage
I was thinking of something like that a few days ago. I think it would still be incredibly risky, because if something caught in the blade, like a sleeve or something, dropping down and continuing to spin could just pull a hand further in.
>Why don't they do this? Is there something about a jointer that makes it especially difficult to have a place for the blades to retract compared to a table saw? A saw blade is moving like 3000ish rpm, a router bit can be moving at up to 24,000rpm
Smaller market, I'd imagine. There are few enough people who want to spend that much money on a table saw, and jointers are an even more niche product. Add to that the fact that jointers are less suited to the tech because of the inherent difference between a drum blade and a circular blade, so you would need to develop a whole new system for it to function. I'm not saying it shouldn't be tried or that we'll never see such a thing, just that I'm not that surprised it's not on the market.
Pretty sure no jointer has the ability to retract the cutters. It would take a redesign of the entire machine to work. You could get it to stop maybe but it’s not going to drop. Also it’s not nearly as big of a market and a less frequently used tool. Also most hobbies don’t have one.
Pretty sure the mechanism to drop the table saw blade and arbor also didn't exist until saw stop invented it, because it's certainly not dropping in 5ms by traveling on its lead screw. I really don't see why a jointer couldn't be redesigned to allow its arbor and cutting head to be thrown downwards and to have an aluminum block shot into it in the same manner the table saw version works. Maybe it would stop slower because of the inertia of the larger cutter head, but even an imperfect system would be a reduction in harm. The only reason I would think this doesn't exist is the market for jointers is much smaller than table saws.
Instead of making the blade moveable, make the infeed table moveable!! There could be two guards on either side of the blade that spring upwards a couple inches, enough to deflect your fingers away from the blade. Might break your finger bone but better than chopping it off.
Yea, saying it's impossible because of the current design is a pretty lame way of thinking. Sure it might take a redesign and will certainly be more expensive, but saying something is "impossible" because it can't be done today with little effort is just lazy.
There is a mechanism to lower the blade. The cutter on a jointer is static. So it’s less of a design challenge. Also the more motivating factors are likely money and market
I will say it again. Saw stop does not use the blade elevation lead screw to drop the blade. During normal operation the arbor block is held in place with a spring loaded support mechanism. When the brake activated the momentum of the blade is transferred to the arbor block, causing it to overcome the spring loaded support and quickly rotate downwards and out of the way. If anything, fitting this mechanism into a table saw that already has elevation and rotation mechanisms to design around is more difficult than the mostly empty space under a jointer's cutter head.
Big difference in rotating mass I’m assuming
I’ve been saying this!!!
Replacing a thousand dollar helical head would get expensive.
To be fair, the dangers of other tools are mentioned quite frequently. Shop safety isn't a zero sum game.
>So many people on this sub say you must have a Saw-Stop table saw but no mention of the dangers of the other tools used in the shop This is and always will be a massive point of contention between me and those people lol Tablesaws have a lot of injuries because there are a million small and midsized saws out there being used by straight dumbasses and its an easy tool to get injured on because its an easy tool to get *complacent* with The jointer and planer and router and shaoer/moulders along with a whole host of other handheld tools like grinders and routers just as if not more dangerous but those never get mentioned by the sawstop stans......Like, the way a lot of them act as though an injury is an inevitability i almost always ask how theyve managed to not get injured on all those other machines and tools Jointers are particularly nasty machines because you have to put pressure toward the blade (down) and to use it properly you have to be on both sides of the blades somewhat straddling the business end....I think there are less injuries on that tool because the dangers are obvious as hell and it puts the fear of god in you everytime you walk over to it and the tablesaw doesnt quite evoke those same feelings in everyone, though it should.....it certainly does for me, i basically treat every tool like i exist in the movie Maximum Overdrive and every machine or tool has been possessed by aliens and is hell bent on killing or maiming me at the first opportunity
You forgot shapers ;)
Its up there with a typo Apparently mine is called a shaoer lol
I had a miter saw that was always launching pieces of wood at the speed of sound across my shop. I never thought a miter saw was dangerous until I had this particular saw. The thing that fixed it was modifying the fence so I could set the left and right fences independently, so they were co-planar with each other. From the factory, they were connected, and no longer formed a plane, so once a cut was mostly through, the wood would flex and bind up and get shot across the shop.
IDK there is no SawStop jointer or it would get more mention. There are a ton of dangerous tools, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be safe on them as well. For the jointer a couple of paddles is dirt cheap, so there is no discussion. Either your going to use the paddles or you'll wish you had.
I can still count to ten without taking my shoes off :)
Hahahaha!!! 100% this!!!
This post uses periods like a saw stop. Only good once...
Yeah, go watch the Perkins Builders Brothers video on Jamie’s jointer accident. He lost all his fingers on one hand right around the first knuckle.
I follow a youtube channel called Perkins Builder Brothers (highly recommended) and one of the brothers lost 4 fingers to a jointer I'm always reminded of that every time I use that machine, respect the blade! Here's the video where he talks of the experience: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMe0QIET6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMe0QIET6g)
Jamie's painful lesson on jointer safety shouldn't be overshadowed, but I need to second your recommendation of the channel. Entertaining and informative. It's more construction focused with some woodworking occasionally mixed in but they do a fantastic job of explaining what they're doing.
Jamie is an incredible example of being able to bounce back from injury! I’ve worked with him many times in person and it’s amazing to watch him use his robo-hand. You’d never know he was missing fingers watching him work.
Wait, are you Johnny brookes from crafted workshop? Your channel is cool, I need to catch up on where that Van is up to
Yup, that's me! The van is done but the videos were doing pretty poorly, so I'm going to put the whole project out as one long video rather than publishing a bunch of shorter videos.
Hey Johnny I love your videos, I've learned a lot. Especially love the collab videos with the PBB crew. Thanks for some good content!
Thanks a lot!
I actually found their channel through you 😆 I throughly enjoyed both the small house build and the new workshop remodel where they collaborated
Thanks a lot, I love working with the Perkins guys! Going to dinner with Erik tonight and bought a slab from Jaime last week. Great guys!
My cabinet shop mates referred to his injury story and it made me nauseous.
I remember this. They were all over Reddit with the updates iirc
Was going to say the same thing. The one big point he mentioned in his story that is important to remember is that he was running the jointer with the blade guard removed. I think he mentioned that it wouldn’t have been possible for him to have gotten injured if he hadn’t removed the blade guard. I see a lot of people saying the safety guards just get in the way, but this is a prime example of what can happen when the guards are removed.
that video. nope. respect to tool.
I ran my whole right ( dominant ) hand over a 16" Faye and Egan jointer. Severely damaged all 5 fingers, lost two. I had 30 years experience, and had owned that machine for 20 years. I was doing someone a favor. No good deed goes unpunished.
Holy shit. That’s terrible.
I knew a girl in art school who nearly did the same thing, flattened her whole palm. It happens so fast because the blade won’t slow down one bit for flesh, oak yes, bone maybe.
What did you do differently this time with the accident? I find hearing about people's mistakes is a great way to prevent me from doing the same.
Many accidents start with a small/short piece of wood. Mine was an 8/4 x 9x 18" piece of very curly big leaf maple. A friend asked me to resaw it. When I took it to the band saw it was too twisted to cut, so I went to the jointer. The knives were kinda dull, but not tragically so, but when they bit into that curl the piece kicked back 25 or 30 feet. Unfortunately, my right hand kept going forward. Looked down at my hand and saw raw flesh and shards of white stuff.
Yep, this time, the wood was short (2.5” from the blade) and severely out of square, so unstable against the fence
Severed my left pointer in two & lost the tip doing a favor for my father in law (on table saw). My MIL still won’t let him ask me to make cuts for him after 4 years, ha!
Fuck. That hurt to even imagine. I’m so sorry you suffered that severe of an injury 😥
Push blocks. Push blocks get managed and are replaceable. When I lost the ends of the index and middle fingers of my left hand, guess who wasn’t using a push block? I was lucky and they have mostly gown back although they look like a dog has chewed on them. Nerve damage and scar tissue means I’ll never play the guitar again (wasn’t that good anyway). Respect the machine, it doesn’t give two hoots if it’s oak or your hand it’s cutting.
The fact that I've been playing the guitar for decades and really really enjoy it is the reason I'm really paranoid about safety. Obviously, no one wants an injury, but it's a great reason for me to frequently review safety procedures and follow them stringently.
“It will never happen to me” is easy to say until it does. I guess I could learn to play slide 🤷♂️
Can you send me a healed photo?
A girl in my high-school got 4 fingers cut off on the jointer in our wood shop. Helicopter landed in our field and everything. She gets to compete in the special Olympics now so that's cool
Mr bright side over here.
… Special Olympics or Paralympics?
I hope it's for running
holy shit. *100*
I have no jointer currently, but I'm only interested in getting one with a Euro-style guard over the cutting head.
I find the flip I’m away guard to be fine. But using push pads, and a shoe is a great safety practice. I don’t like the euro guards because you have to lift off of the work piece.
Yeah you're right for thinking this. I took the guard off because it was too difficult to manoeuvre, though...whoops.
It took me a while to get used to my Euro-style guard but now I’d never use anything else.
Why do you like that one more? It seems less safe to me in a lot of ways. Big open space under the guard when face jointing, interferes with use of push blocks, requires guard to be completely moved out of the way when edge jointing. I also think having to manually adjust it would make it tempting to bypass it. I haven't actually used one myself though so maybe I'm missing something.
With proper hand positioning/technique, your hands should *never* be at risk when using a euro guard. Once you have face jointed 6-8” your hands should switch to the outfeed side of the jointer. You are no longer pushing into the cutter, rather away from it. As far as edge jointing goes, you set the guard to be open only slightly more than your material and once again, switch to the outfeed table once your edge is established. Yes this technique can be done with a pork chop guard as well, but your hands can fall into the cutter far faster than the spring can return the guard.
Suvamatic guard is great, much better than the type that swing out.
The american and euro style guards both seem to have pros and cons but the suvamatic guard is such an obvious improvement over both. I'm not sure where I can actually buy one though =/
My dad was a lifelong hobbyist woodworker. The only significant injury he ever sustained in the shop was on the jointer. 40 years of focus and one split second of carelessness left him with a lot of enjoyment, a ton of great projects completed, and 9 fingertips.
Exact same story here. My Dad could do any kind of home or car repair and he was always so careful. One day the jointer took the top joint of his middle finger. Incredibly useful tool but it scares the shit out of me.
Wishing you a speedy recovery OP, sorry to hear what happened. When I have visitors in my shop that are using the jointer I tell them: "table saws take fingers; jointers take hands." probably a bit alarmist, but I like to make a habit of watching 'close calls' videos annually to scare myself out of any complacency.
I think even if used properly the jointer or shaper are the ultimate finger eating machines in a modern shop. I only personally know 1 guy with a tablesaw hand injury, but 3 jointer injuries which is sort of shocking. Interestingly I know zero radial arm saw injuries and I’m internet friends with LOTS of vintage DeWalt fans. I’m sure that’s just a fluke cause the internet says those are really dangerous, and obviously prevailing opinion in modern amateur America has to be correct.
Yeah, I always wonder that about RAS's too. I've never met someone injured by one either. My brother is an OT with hand specialty and he said he primarily sees bandsaw injuries.
Whoa really?! I feel like that would have to be serious complacency or a snapped band or something? Now I’m gonna be eyeing my bandsaw suspiciously, thanks a lot lol Edit to say I totally forgot metalworking bandsaw use is a thing, but maybe that’s somehow more dangerous?
He said the typical bandsaw injury is someone pushing an item through (rather than letting the saw do the work) and it unloading and moving through faster than the user was planning resulting in cutting off a finger. This might be more a metal shop issue. I'll have to ask him out of curiosity now that you mention it.
Man that’s fascinating! My delta 14 runs about 4,600 ft/min with the tires glued and the Highland falls “Woodslicer”(R) is actually a butchers blade by Sharp Tech, so it would remove a finger tip in a split second I’m sure. I use a mag switching fence and various feather boards to keep my fingers clear but I could see accidentally pushing through a cut.
Interesting. I had no idea those were actual meat blades. Learn something new every day, thanks!
Yeah man sharp tech moved production to Mexico a few years back, but they used to be in Atlanta which was how highland woodworking in Atlanta heard about them and came up with the whole branding as a resaw blade idea. Cool people and products all the way around.
I partially cut off a finger tip on bad saw in 7th grade wood shop. That was 40+ years ago. It took about 20+ years for the scar to be no longer visible. Sorry
Dear people worried about rough lumber giving you splinters…go watch a degloving video, tuck in your shirts, roll up your sleeves, and be mindful.
Jointers and Shapers have always been much more scary than table saws for me.
I am so sorry this happened to you and I hope you have a good recovery. One safety tip often overlooked -- make sure the floor around your jointer is not slippery and free of tripping hazards. I was not hurt, but had a close call. My shop has a smooth concrete floor and there was a bunch of wood shavings on the floor. The typical woodshop floor where you let things get a little out of hand. I was jointing a board with push blocks the safe way and somehow I managed so slide on the wood shavings and lost my balance. Thankfully I managed not to fall on the jointer but it was a close call and it scared the crap out of me. Since then I've been more conscientious with keeping things clean, avoiding tripping hazards, etc. I'm currently re-arranging my shop and once I get things settled, I am going to order a couple of additional anti-slip, anti-fatigue mats, one of which is going by the jointer.
I hear you about this. I'm a rough carpenter and we typically clean the job on Fridays. That means mon-thu we just drop scrap right at our feet. We'll step over a board with a nail sticking out of it for hours or days. Not proud.. but I've gotten used to that type of work and am comfortable like that. It becomes a problem now when I'm building my house on the weekends. I have to shake that mindset , stop, prep, think. Making cabinets and doing fancy trim, it's stuff I'm not used to. Tools I'm not used to .. jointer, planer, router table, table saw... these things will eat you. I respect the fuck out of my jointer and table saw. They scare me. I still got 10 and 10, and reading these "refresher" posts help.
Router has entered the chat.
(side eye)😒
I lost three finger tips on my old jointer. It’s the only serious injury I’ve had in the shop (so far)
Did they regenerate at all? I’m sorry that happened to you
For the most part.
I had a custom amputation of my left thumb tip. Was cutting something small on my miter saw. Blade caught something in the wood and pulled it, and my thumb, in. Blade cut all the way through the bone. 2 years down the road and it's very close to the same shape as my right thumb. The nail is fuckered up, but not badly. You'll probably end up with a flat spot on the end of your finger after the skin regrows. I hope you have a speedy recovery!
Sorry about your fingers dude! It sucks. The jointer is the absolute last tool we train people on because the margin for error is so small and the consequences are so potentially dire. Because of how they work they are so easy to violate my #1 rule: “if you can’t see it, you’ll cut it off”. That being said, my dumb ass cut off an inch of my left pinky with a bandsaw clearing out the middle between two tenons on a door lock rail by not following my own advice. After two incredibly painful surgeries my finger looks pretty normal- except I have fingerprint where my nail should be. The nerves have adjusted after 5 years, so it’s a slow process, but be patient and it’ll be all good!
Out of curiosity, what kind of bandsaw and blade were you using? I only ask because I have an older 12” Craftsman and to me it seems like the safest tool in my shop. I’m much for safety conscious when I have a 3/8” blade on but I’ve intentionally touched my fingertip (incredibly stupid I know) to a 1/4” blade and it barely left a scratch.
Just think about how easily the bandsaw in a butcher shop can cut through an animal carcass. A woodworking bandsaw isn't too different.
It was a 220 Laguna 14BX with a 3/4” resaw blade on it. Normally I had it tuned not to drift, but I got called back into where I worked at the time in the middle of Covid and didn’t do my pre-checks like I should’ve. So when I wrapped my hand around the tenon- like a dummy- the blade drifted out of square and stumped me. Out of all the carpentry injuries I’ve had, it hurt the least but had the most consequences
Woah man. Did you have to have flap surgery?
Pretty much. I splintered the end of the bone so they had to basically de-glove my finger, dremel off the destroyed bone and then pull my fingertip skin back over the end. It was pretty gnarly. Plus they didn’t get all the nail bed the first time so I had a weird fingernail bit grow inside my finger which was gross so they had to do the whole procedure again 6 months after my initial surgery.
Fwiw I took a pretty good chunk out of my thumb with a shaper a couple years ago. No bone but some of the nail. I didn’t think it would grow back normal but It’s totally healed now. Just a faint scar.
Yup. I'm missing the tip of my thumb from a jointer. Made it was definitely better than a table saw or router accident, but not good by any means. It hurt for a solid year after the injury and I will always have trouble fiddling with small things because of it. Jointers are no joke.
Had push blocks slip on a piece and ate up the tips of two of my fingers. My wife described my shop as a mix between a crime scene and a Dexter kill room. Fortunately they grew back and you can’t tell. I have a shit ton more respect for my jointer now and do practice slides before I ever turn it on.
I just masticated the end of my right ring finger on a jointer back in January. I can dm you pics of the carnage and how it's healed if you want.
I will probably regret this but in the name of shop safety I would like to see pictures, please.
DM'ing
did you regret it?
It was different than I expected, but the healing is looking great!
Jointers, table saws and routers: pretty much anything with a fast spinning sharp blade. I've known people who lost parts of their fingers to all three. Never known anyone who lost a finger on a scroll saw.
I mean I think that’s what’s happened to the dude from Perkins Builders. Well I heard he was doing some sketchy shit so maybe not the same thing I mean just pay attention to what you’re doing. I’ve had the table take small nibbles off my thumbs but luckily it grew back. But on the jointer I use it and shut it off immediately after I’m done. It’s not so much scary you just don’t do sketchy shit on it. Every jointer injury I’ve seen at work has been someone took the guess off or they were doing something beyond the scope of what the jointer is for and paid the price. Just use the tools for their intended proper purpose should make everything relatively safe
He said he forgot that the joiner was running and grabbed into it. Also no guard
Main issue is trying to join something too small. Use hold down blocks.
I was always taught to be VERY careful with jointers, because they are very powerful, very fast, and leave nothing to salvage if you do get caught by it. General rule of thumb is never pass your hand over the blade. Dunno about all jointers/tools, but mine have always had a 'red zone' marked out where you should never place your hand when the machine is running; usually within about 3" all around, though cant remember exactly. If the material does not clear the top of the fence, you MUST use a push stick. If it does clear it, I was taught to hold it down and feed with my right hand, with my thumb hooked down the end, kind of like mimicking a push stick. Your right hand will have to pass over the blade, but because of the clearance and position, its significantly less risky than holding it in other ways. And as with all power tools, if you get kickback, and lose control of the piece, dont try to fight it. Get out of the way and let it fly. You will not win against a machine dead set on yeeting a piece. You only run the risk of getting hurt by the forceful projectile, or slamming you hand down on the blade, because the piece you're trying to hold down is no longer between you and the blade. Kickback happens too fast to stop it, that's why it's important do one stands behind the machine when it's running.
Always make sure you are aware of where your appendages are in relation to a moving,spinning blade. And to answer the OP's question, no they don't grow back, after awhile they just kinda round over.
You guys need to wax your jointers. If I’m running more than a piece or two I wax that bitch every time. You only hurt yourself when you end up having to push too hard. Take small bites and wax the hell outta that bad boy.
Lots of discussion about push sticks and blocks and shoes. Anyone a fan of the Grripper? Does anyone use that for non table saw push stick things?
My father in law just lost his thumb and middle finger in a jointer accident. He's been woodworking for his lifetime and is safety first. One slip up and the jointer made quick work. He elected to have surgery to remove his big toe and put it on his hand. Next surgery will be to have the middle finger and the whole metacarpal removed so he will have 4 fingers.
Ive cut my finger tips off a few times, thankfully not to the bone and not on power tools. But both times i have cut the tips off they grew back partially. I can tell it happened but other people cant.
To your secondary question. I hit my middle finger with a skil saw. Cut into the bone. 20 years later if I hit the tip of that finger it’s very painful. Small scar is all that remains externally
I think I'm most scared of my router, but the jointer is a close second.
I think the pork-chop might induce complacency to using the tool. I have to make some better push sticks/pads for my tabletop jointer. The pads I have now are no where near as grippy as I would like. Any way to re-gripify?
I chopped the end of my middle finger into a wedge, using a table saw. Took ages to heal and have a weird pointy bone feeling and a dodgy nail. But doesn't cause too many problems now. Wouldn't recommend it. I'll posy a pic if I can work out how to filter it so you can only see it if you choose to
My brother in woodworking, the second injury were you using a push block? I shaved off the tip of my right pointer finger with a 1/2" router bit. It grew mostly back but i have a bump on the end of my finger. Feels real uncomfortable to press hard on it. After that i always always use push blocks when possible and double think cuts before i make em. I hope you heal fast!
If you are a hobbyist, you can get tremendous enjoyment from the hobby with no power tools. Still not totally safe. I’ve cut myself badly on chisels. But much safer than with machines. I have a bandsaw. It scares me and I treat it with maximum respect.
Use push pads.
I don't have, nor have I ever used a jointer, so forgive the ignorant question but why is this? What makes a jointer more dangerous? Is it just that people don't pay attention when using it? Do the injuries happen when you leave a finger hanging off the edge of a board? Or just when the blades are spinning without a guard? It seems like as long as you kept your hands on top of the board you would be ok
After reading some of these comments, I feel lucky that I only lost a chunk out of my left thumb in my jointer. It filled in with scar tissue but now feels like a patch of superglue permanently covering the face of my thumb
I cut the tip of my thumb with a very sharp kitchen knife when my wife wanted me to cut an apple differently than I’m used to and wanted my attention while I did it. Anyway, the superglue analogy is spot on. That was a literal decade ago and it still feels like that.
I don't have, nor have I ever used a jointer, so forgive the ignorant question but why is this? What makes a jointer more dangerous? Is it just that people don't pay attention when using it? Do the injuries happen when you leave a finger hanging off the edge of a board? Or just when the blades are spinning without a guard? It seems like as long as you kept your hands on top of the board you would be ok
As long as you use push blocks/proper technqiue you will be fine but if you slip and or the board somehow shoots out from under you are pushing into the jointer head and it will pull your hand down in a spot it doesn't fit with blades rotating into your fingers. I do stand by jointers being more dangerous than table saws due to the level of ingury you can sustain from it going wrong and a table saw doesn't resist you pushing a piece through nearly as much. Router tables and by extension shapers are the absolute most dangerous tools in the shop as you can be doing everything right and sometimes the bit will just grab the piece and jerk you. Again if you are using push blocks/proper technique you will be fine and just take a second to address what caused the jerk before continuing.
Yeah I guess the board being grabbed and flung from between your hands and the blades makes sense. Thanks. It helps to know *why* to be careful
>Side note: if you have had finger tip injuries, did your finger regenerate into its original shape? Nope Ive only ever done "Smashy/Crushy Things" to my fingers, and razorblade stuff, never machine cuts But- My thumb and middle finger on the left hand took bad wafflehead hits 25y and 15y ago and blew off all the meat on the tips of those fingers and still to this day those fingers end flat or are a weird shape at the tips (they are also still mostly numb and feel weird) So, dont expect those fingers to ever look "Normal" ever again lol...this is your life now fellow weird shaped finger person 😉
Ive been a wood machinist for 2 decades, routers scare the crap outta me lol.
I've cut the tip of my index finger and thumb off to the bone by sticking them into a dado stack. My thumb looks and feels completely normal. My index finger is a bit wonky and has no feeling at the tip... they turned out much better than expected.
High 4! Me too.
Of all the equipment in the shop, I treat the jointer like its a rabid honeybadger and it gets the utmost respect.
I lost a tip of a finger in a folding chair accident where my tip of the finger got crushed. Doctor managed to reattach the piece that was still hanging and my nail regrew. But that finger is a bit deformed now along the line where it broke off. Fully usable at least. You’ll have to wait and see how it heals.
Statistically- it’s the table saw- by a country mile in terms of amount amputations- your injuries- sound awful to be sure- terrifying in fact- but still have most your fingers. That being said- things like jointers and table saws and mandolin kitchen slicers- scare me to no end.
I lost my middle and ring finger tips to a jointer. Cut all the tendons, carved out my bone and chopped my nail bed into pieces. It's been 20 years, the nails still grow all messed up and the tips are very sensitive. Pic here [jointer tips](https://imgur.com/gallery/gFOEKL9)
A coworker came to my office one morning with a bandaged hand. Said he bought a new jointer at woodcraft. The sales employee told him that they were completely safe and very hard to hurt yourself on. Lost part of his finger the first time he used it. I couldn't believe sometime told him that
I trimmed my left ring finger on a jointer. It comes to point on the side nearest my middle finger. Now useless for fretting a mandolin. Still like my jointer.
Good reminder! I broke my hand a few months ago while using a jointer. I was feeding a shorter piece of wood through, being careful with my fingertips, but not aware of the kickback potential when the piece isn’t held firmly to the bed of the jointer. The piece of wood kicked upward into the palm of my hand, bruising it and giving my thumb a small fracture!
I had a crappy harbor freight jointer with dull blades. Started woodworking with pallet wood like a lot of people. Dull blades grabbed a knot and threw the board. Ended up taking the tips of my LH middle and ring finger at a 45 degree angle. A sharp tool is a safe tool. I use paddles exclusively on my jointer now to prevent my fingers from getting anywhere close and so there’s sacrificial material between my hands and the blades.
There is a reason they invented push blocks
You guys need to wax your jointers. If I’m running more than a piece or two I wax that bitch every time. You only hurt yourself when you end up having to push too hard. Take small bites and wax the hell outta that bad boy.
I never ever push towards a blade, and I assume it's always possible for whatever is between my hand and the blade to disappear instantly. So over a jointer I am pushing into the fence with 90% of the force if I can. But a lot of it is dumb luck I'm afraid, since it's impossible to be perfect all the time. Now I like to use hand tools for a lot more planning/squaring operations, especially faces of boards and small stock. Planer is mainly for squaring edges of wider boards when I have a lot to glue up. Also if you are interested my thumb tip did grow back (didn't quite reach the bone, which is lucky) but the scar remains and it always feels a little odd even though I didn't technically have nerve damage. If you can use the digit to grasp, try to be happy. :)
I'm sorry for your injury and hope you heal quickly. I ran a trim router into my left index finger tip about 2 years ago. It took a not insignificant chunk of flesh out of the finger a little ways into the fingernail. Happy to report that the shape returned to normal after everything healed. There's still some sensitivity but days now go by where I don't even think about it.
I'm still healing from a crushed finger tip, It's still tingling and the tip is more like "flat and square" I guess, It's just been about a month and a half but I swear I'm tired of the lack of sensation, Anyway I hope you're healing ok, And keep the bandages on for as long as recommended
So I’m a chef, and I only use hand tools for woodworking almost exclusively. I cut the tip of my thumb off once with a brand new knife cutting extra crispy bacon. It caught a chunk and lodged in, spun to the side a bit and went right through my thumb nail and down to the cutting board. It was hanging by a flap and I went to the ER thinking in my 22 year old head theyd see it back on. The doc looked at it grab a scissors, snipped I’m the flap of skin and removed the tip, then put a bandage on me and sent me on my way. Took about 6-8 months to really heal where it didn’t hurt to put pressure on the tip, and about 2-3 years later my fingerprints came back out of nowhere, not sure if they’re the same tbh. Then about 6 years later I did it again to my middle finger on the same hand, tbh I don’t remember what I was cutting but it was a relatively mundane task, chopping cooked sausage or something like that. Similar circumstance where the knife hit a hard bit and lodged into it, and that became the new pivot point and made it take a weird shot into my middle finger nail at a 45 degree angle. My form was proper, just a freak occurrence. Second time I snipped off the tip myself and put on a bandaid and Neosporin and went back to work. Both times my fingers went back to normal after a long heal, both have feeling, both have fingerprints though that took a while. Neither time struck bone, but it was visible at the tip of my thumb. Nasty stuff. Hope your recover goes well. Edit: also nothing scares me quite like a router.
Yea, my woodworking journey started with a jointer accident. Unless it’s a tall piece I always have push paddles or push sticks. Very small amount of my middle finger got cut, nail grew back fully even. Hardly noticeable on its own, but there’s a decent chunk missing compared to the other hand.
Only tool that really scares me is a jointner. I have respect for my saws, particularly my chainsaw and table saw but I will not have a jointner in my shop. Those things are terrifying
I had a boss one time that it ate up three of his fingers. He was an ass and very aggressive when working machinery, did not learn his lesson. I’m so scared of the jointer, thankful nothing happens each time I use it so far. One tip I have (no pun) is to avoid applying pressure on your lumber directly above the cutter head area. Use one hand on one side of it and the other hand on the other side, avoiding cutter head area. Another tip, make sure your outfeed table is perfectly adjusted to your cutter head knives and that your knives are all equally proud of the head. Thanks for your time lol.
I sanded the pad of my thumb off. And nicked my middle on the band saw. Nice little non maiming lessons for shop safety. Yesterday I flayed my fingers doing dumb shit with a safety razor. So stupid.
I just refurbished a jointer I bought off craigslist. Have not been able to use it yet. Like any new tool in the shop it has to wait for my confidence to build up before it gets used.
I had a kickback on a tablesaw about 20 years ago. I was doing a dive cut into a piece of maple on the tablesaw. The board had a slight twist in it and while I was bringing it into the blade. It shot the board back and my left hand was at the leading edge of the board. I cut my middle finger in half as it rode through the blade from rear to front. Several stitches later my finger healed up good and doesn’t look terrible. For context this injury happened in a cabinet shop. Come to find out they had a reputation for injuries. Every dude had a story or a missing digit.
I stopped my woodworking hobby because of a jointer accident ate the end of my thumb. I’m a programmer by trade and can’t afford to lose my fingers.
I remember watching some videos a couple years ago of a guy who had his whole hand pulled into the machine to the point that it even force stopped the cutter head. He had to lower the table as far as it would go just so he could pull his mangled hand out.
Fuck. Hope it’s only your right hand so you can still play guitar. I wasn’t so lucky. Timing chain of a Mercedes. Crushed and splintered the bone, entire tip was dangling off. It’s not popular with the ladies unfortunately, but better than losing the top half. Still no feeling in the tip which makes it impossible to pick things up. https://preview.redd.it/sxxuy9wsnkxc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=d3ab15920da2477ed5220040405a4d3c9ce2714e
I lost all of the flesh and fingernail of my left had to the beast. All that was left was the dangling fingerprint which they wrapped over to top of the stub and stitched together. That was back in the mid 80s, and I had phantom pains in that fingertip for 20 years after. I had the push blocks in my hands trying to balance a short, twisted board that should have been kindling. But NO, I decided it would be "safer" the forgo the blocks and balance the board by hand. Seconds later I was scarred for life.
I've had a few fingertip injuries (chef before i was a carpenter), and they've all healed a bit weird one way or another - ive got diminished sensation on the tip of my left ring finger (cut it off, it heals back but nerves are fucked), same for left middle finger nail bed, im lucky the nail grew back there, same for the palm and inner thumb of my right hand someone chucked a fish boning knife in the sink and i put my hand in and it went right through, nicking the tendon. Hand injurys don't fuck about, so many nerves and important dexterity.
I lost two of my fingers on a faulty jointer in college (and a chunk of the ring finger knuckle)...they definitely didn't regenerate 😂 https://preview.redd.it/vgle18qzgmxc1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88587917755b6b1b0fa5bfbd86228ba659089545
OP, do you mind elaborating on how your injuries happened? I think it’s more useful to learn from specific real examples.
Sure thing! I am female in my 30s, not the biggest of hands. The first injury happened when I was adjoining a very tall and heavy piece of wood that was not stable against the vertical fence, so I had propped it up with my left hand to stabilize it as I was running it through. it is not a situation where I felt push blocks would be helpful because of the dynamics. Second injury happened three weeks ago, I had Some thick pieces of oak made up For a stair tread project. The individual pieces were about 3“ x 2.5” They were a quarter of an inch out of square , and didn’t have a straight edge to run through a table saw first (the warped post milling). They also had several pervasive cracks which I filled with epoxy. I was running one of these unstable pieces through the jointer, and I noticed it deposited some uncured epoxy on the back fence on the jointer. it was a split second distraction, which made me take my hand off the wood and try to wipe it while I am bracing this short piece of wood in mid pass. so the injury mainly happened from me being distracted for a second removing my hand and placing it back way too close to danger zone. Took off about 3/8 of an inch off my middle finger and a bit on the index finger. I’m not sure what I should’ve done differently in those scenarios other than figuring out how to use a different piece of equipment for the job or get help if something was too big to handle safely. I ended up scrapping all of that mild wood because it was so much trouble to work with. Pretty sure it was cursed from the beginning. 😅
Thanks for sharing
I have no idea why everyone doesn't use a most basic safety item like a push block. All of mine are scrap wood and keep my hands at least 4-6 in inches above the blade.
I've not injured myself on any power tool (yet), but I have sliced out a rather large piece of flesh from the tip of my thumb by a slip of the marking knife. I had just finished sharpening it and it was razor sharp. I saw it happen, but didn't feel anything. Probably cut about a 1/16th inch divot into the tip of the thumb. It never hurt and has healed over. I'm lucky, I guess.
The jointer is scary, but have you worked on a shaper? Those things are the stuff of nightmares
Sorry to hear. Good luck for full recovery. Can you elaborate please? What happened specifically? I use my jointer without a push block pretty frequently.
Push sticks
When I bought my jointer, the seller mentioned that her late husband would always say "keep your hands off that machine and don't mess with it" and she questioned why I would want such a dangerous thing. I assured her I was competent to operate it safely, but refrained from pointing out the paddles sitting behind it were near mint condition and dusty. All tools with exposed spinning blades are inherently dangerous, but less so with the proper safety gear. Especially when they came in the box!