Warning.....Graphic Pics

[Shelley Bolster]

After much consideration I have decided to go with the suggestion from a couple of friends and post pictures of the result of a run in I had last Monday with my router......Oh yeah - the router won.

Although I have played it over in my mind probably 100 times the last 5 days, I still don't know exactly how my fingers and the router bit became dancing partners. But simply, a combination of fatigue, haste and inattentiveness were all contributing factors. And..........I had a bad feeling about the bit and the procedure the moment I first started using it the day before.

OK...the bit is a Window Sash bit set from CMT. It contains a coping bit (for the ends of the rails and muntins/sash bars) and a stick profile/rabbit combinations bit. (now named killer) Killer is pictured below.......





Doing the profiles on the rail and stiles - 1 3/8" thick is not an issue, due to both the width and thickness however, doing the much smaller muntins left the rabbit part of the bit exposed. Yes....I almost always use push sticks but I was not able to keep the pieces from rocking when using a push stick. I tried to remove the rabbit part of the bit without any luck.....dawned on me later I could have had success if I had tried to remove it while in the router......I am going to try it tomorrow. Below is a pic of the window I was routing the muntins for. (they are only 10" long by 7/8" thick and 1" wide)



OK......below is are some pics some of you may not wish to look at......they not pretty and perhaps disturbing. They could be so much worse.....I consider myself quite lucky actually - I could have easily lost them! Oh yeah..there is a lot of swelling - my hand/fingers are not fat although they are quite swollen in the pics!








You know, I spend a great deal of time with power tools and this is my first accident........my family is completely dumbfounded that I, who is actually quite anal about safety, would put myself in a position to get hurt.......but I did. It was strictly human error, a stupid accident and it CAN happen to anyone!! I had the "feeling", the little voice that told me something was not right but I chose to not listen to it......I only had 4 little pieces to cut!!!

EDIT..........
I am half way through all the replies (thanks for the well wishes) and I thought I better stop and add something to the original post. I was not preforming a cope cut.....those were done with both a miter gage and a sacrificial block. I will take a couple of more pics later to try to illustrate what I did (wrong)!

[Andy Hoyt]

Ouch! You're lucky that it just grabbed flesh and not the bone.

Shelley - I hate to ask what might be dumb or insulting, but would it have been possible to use some featherboards? I acknowledge that sometimes the set up precludes their use, but...

[Roger Bell]

Thanks for posting this Shelley....I appreciate the reminder of the potential for accident. Hoping you can get back in your shop soon.

[Jerry Clark]

Sorry Shelly, I feel for you! You are lucky you still have all the digits-- they will heal! Thanks for reminding us we always have to be careful.

[Shiraz Balolia]

Shelley - sorry to hear about your accident. That sure looks painful!
Sometimes we take our equipment for granted and let our guards down. Hope you have a speedy recovery.

[Joe Mioux]

Shelly: Glad to see the accident was not more serious and thank you for posting the injury.

Joe

[lou sansone]

wow .... the shaper / router is one tool that I really don't let my student use, just because of what you have shown us here.. that looks painfull. thanks for the reminder. I pray that you make a full recovery

lou

[Bob Johnson2]

If the pics didn't look so darn nasty I'd hang one by my router. Thanks for the graphic reminder.

[Mark Singer]

It could have been a lot worse...end grain routing is best done with a sled...Sorry it happened

[Dev Emch]

Shelly, you are one very lucky girl indeed!

As I have said before, shaper cutters are often referred to by a saltier sea dog expression..... MEAT CUTTERS. And sadly, it appears that you have born the role of poster child for this. We all hope that you recover and are glad that it was not worse.

This is an example of why I dont really like router tables. This type of head has different hook, shear and relief angles than those found on the same profile shaper head. As such, this bit spins at about 10,000 or so revs and often takes tiny bird cuts and quite a few of them to get the job done. It also has the tendency to grab your work item and yank it and then propel it across the shop. The worst thing to consider is this. Because your spinning two knives with a complex profile at 10K, there is little opportunity to produce a nice clean cut. Instead, the body part gets turned into apple sauce making the resultant medical work even harder.

But I am confused here. Are you saying that you attempted a coping cut with this rig using no mitre gage or coping sled? That you simply tried to hold the work item as you would a work item during say, a moulding cut? I wonder because I see no sign of a mitre gage or coping sled or sliding table in the photos.

There has been quite a bit of safety talk on this forum. But as router bit vendors continously release more complex profiles for router tables that were once the stomping grounds of the shaper, I fear that we are going to see more injuries of this type in the future. In the old days, these cuts were done on tenoners. Some of these were actually bench mounted tenoners weighing no more than a couple hundred pounds. Today, we are now using router tables to perform these cuts. This really worries me.

Shelly, hope your digits get better soon.

[Jim DeLaney]

I feel your pain! I have two fingers that looke just like that - from a very similar mishap. I did mine while attempring to rout a sliding dovetail, and having the workpiece 'blow out' suddenly.

It's been about ten years since mine, and I still have both hyper-sensitive spots and a couple completely 'nerve-dead' spots on those fingers.

Not fun! I went through a lot of Vicodan on that one. Amazing how much pain a finger injury can cause. I've gotten shot (twice)(USMC, 22 years), and this one hurt worse than both of those...

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Shelley, All I can say is I am so sorry this happened to you and I hope you heal quickly. I know that had to be very painful both mentally and physically and you are to be commended for sharing this with all of us. It shows that it isn't just the table saw that can cause a serious injury. But remember we are all human and do make mistakes no matter how careful we think we are. So don't beat yourself up over this. I have typed this before reading all of your post because I was so moved by your pictures. I hope you heal fast and the pain goes away faster. Alan

[Fred Voorhees]

Shelley, yes, it could have been worse and thankfully, it wasn't. Your post will certainly not be in vain. There is not a one of us in this forum that couldn't use an occasional "wake up" and be reminded of what could happen. Lots of us will be in our shops this weekend and lord knows that a reminder such as yours, with such an impact, will just maybe save someone from something such as what you have gone through. Thanks for posting and heal quickly.

[Jerry Olexa]

Thanks for the "wake up" call. Good reminder of safety importance. Hope you heal quickly. Be careful...

[Russ Massery]

Thanks for the wake up call. I think sometimes we take some of things we do for granted. Then we do them unsafety. I hope you heal quickly. I found this the easy and safest way to cope cut. http://www.deltamachinery.com/index.asp?e=139&p=1806