Comment by hinkley

7 months ago

I've seen jointer near-miss videos and the adult education woodworking class I took is even more terrifying in retrospect. I knew table saws were dangerous and assumed they were the most dangerous. At least with a table saw the fingers can often be reattached. Jointers and router tables just make hamburger.

I'm becoming a much bigger fan of mounting an uneven piece of wood to plywood and running it through the table saw to get that first edge.

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hinkley

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huytersd  7 months ago

How? Do you have a video of the near miss or can you explain it? If you use a piece of wood to push down the top I don’t see how it’s risky.

  • hinkley  7 months ago

    The common theme is that when the blades catch the wood and the hand is gripping it, the hand tries to follow the wood. If you get very unlucky the wood escapes about the time your hand is nearing the blade and momentum carries you in. For routing tables it’s the curved pieces that’ll get ya. Snag, spin, bzzzt.

    I believe my instructor suggested but didn’t mandate a two pusher technique with the jointer, where the left hand pushes the wood against the back plate and forward while the right helps stabilize. Less pressure on the hand with a vector toward the blade. Seemed safer to me.