Bandsaw accident

[Dan Karachio]

Jacques,
Give the healing the time it needs with both the hand and the head.
You might want to consider contacting Sawstop and suggest they apply their apparatus to a band saw. I am sure you would make a good advocate.

I swear they had something on their site a while back and they were actually researching this. Yep, on YouTube, look for "SawStop Bandsaw Prototype." Please, I am not trying to debate this - just pass on the information. Back on topic, Jacques also made a great point about having your head in the shop. Sorry he had to suffer, but really appreciate he passed on two very serious lessons.

[Dave Cav]

Jacques,

I'm sorry to hear of your accident on your band saw. I hope you heal well.

I remember reading a post from a school shop teacher. He said his classes had more accidents on band saws than any other tool.

PHM

That might or might not have been me, but yes, in my H.S. school shop setting, bandsaw cuts outnumber all other accidents combined. Fortunately, in three years, only one or two have needed any stitches. After the band saws it's the belt sander and then the router table. Fortunately none of the latter have needed anything other than a clean up and a bandaid.

['Jacques Malan']

bandsaag.jpg

And a picture of what I was doing. Keeping the block up with my left hand and pushing with my right thumbs. When I pushed through the blade hit my hand. It is still very painful and I have to use my mouse left handed.

What makes it much worse is that I am production manager at a woodshop and I'm always talking to everybody for doing stupid things and then I go and do it myself.

Through the last 15 years we've had very few serious injuries, but so far I had to sit in a hospital 3 times not knowing whether the surgeon will amputate fingers or not.

Once was on a spindle where the worker didn't use the push stick as told, and managed to remove the tip of his little finger.

The other two times were both on a rip saw, while pushing the wood something went wrong and they grabbed with their left hands to push the wood down and managed to get their fingers in the blades.

Anyway, everybody be careful and think before you do something. 5 minutes of ensuring safety is better than sitting in hospital for 3 hours

[John Coloccia]

Thanks for posting. There are a lot of us that make "dangerous" cuts like this also. There are people that would cringe at some of the BS cuts I make, and I would never recommend, advocate or even describe a lot of them, but the one thing I always do first is plan out a strategy so that my hands are never pushing into the blade. If something slaps, misses or whatever, I may ruin a piece but the episode ends with "Shoot, I need to make a new piece....glad my hands weren't in the way". It's because of posts like this that come up from time to time that every time I approach a tool I almost have this ritualistic checklist I automatically go down that keeps my hands out of the way, and my body out of the way of flying wood. It's almost like the run up you do just before you take off in an airplane. It's automatic and just takes a few seconds, but you do it so often and so automatically that as soon as the smallest detail is off, red flags go off and I rethink what's about to happen.

Thanks, and I wish you a speedy recovery.

[John Nesmith]

Hope you heal quickly.

FWIW: The bandsaw is the only tool that has drawn serious blood from me. It was certainly my own stupidity. I bought the saw used, and the previous owner had removed the blade guard on the left (ascending) side for some reason. I did not immeidately replace it. I was using the saw when my young daughter screamed in the yard. Before I had time to think I was turning in reaction and trying to slap the kill switch at the same time. I slapped the blade instead.

[Tom Rick]

It's because of posts like this that come up from time to time that every time I approach a tool I almost have this ritualistic checklist I automatically go down that keeps my hands out of the way, and my body out of the way of flying wood. It's almost like the run up you do just before you take off in an airplane. It's automatic and just takes a few seconds, but you do it so often and so automatically that as soon as the smallest detail is off, red flags go off and I rethink what's about to happen.

That's a good ideal.
My checklist is so automatic that it is not even conscious.
I have caught myself in the middle of a cut on occasion realizing that the feed path of hands and blade will meet.
I think in these cases my work speed has exceeded the cut safety assessment checklist.
I find that rapidly changing cuts on the table saw as particularly dangerous as one cut may have the blade captive in wood while the next leaves the blade exposed.
I think I will try to change routines to include a more conscious 'go' 'no-go' for hand position before starting each cut.

The one chip I ever got from a stationary tool was on a BS BTW.
It was one of those cut two hundred parts deals & I was altering technique & daydreaming as I went along. Just a scratch but still....
I try to use a rigid procedure now for all multiple cut runs now- stock held same way, hands/fingers same position etc. This way if I start to balance my check book in the middle of a large parts run I don't run afoul of the blade..

[Ole Anderson]

I would have to say that a number of us are a bit afraid of the bandsaw as we all know what type of saw a butcher uses for cutting meat and bone. Sometimes it is hard to get that picture out of my mind, but that also makes me extra careful when using the BS. I also lower the blade guard as far as I can every time depending on what thickness wood I am cutting.

[John Marshall]

Hope you heal quickly Jacques. That is one thing I remember vividly from my high school shop class. One of the dumb ones showed up high and ran his index finger into the bandsaw up to the first knuckle as he looked away. Someone yelled at him and he did not even feel it from what I could tell.