OWCH that was stupid!

[Black wallnut]

'Bout 3 hours ago I was out in the shop working on a quilt rack for the Mrs. Was trying to narrow a tail on a streacher for the sliding dovetail joint and it hit the fan! Piece tipped pulling my left index finger into the cutter and just nicking my waving left finger. Turned everything off, router and lights; god only knows where the workpeice is. Quickly walked to the house with heavy pressure on finger tip and told the OL to get the kids in the Yukon.



6 Stiches later....still have my fingertip, it ain't pretty. Could have been much worse. I think I used poor judgement in my technique this time. Pictures to follow. I will not be doing any shop work for a while and typing, which I have to do all day at work is harder with only 6 fingers and two thumbs!


Please, Please be careful so as to not become another injury statistic like I have. BTW been woodworking with power tools for going on 8 years now; first and prayfully last bite.

[Greg.B]

Wow man that is rough. Hopefully you will be healed pretty fast. Only 2 1/2 weeks ago I got a nice cut on a bandsaw going deep into my right middle finger. Treated it myself and it is healing nice. Best wishes on a sppedy recovery.

[Stormbringer]

Please, Please be careful so as to not become another injury statistic like I have.

Mark,
Glad to hear your gonna make it. Too bad it usually takes an incident to post such an important reminder.

Best,
Greg

[JR]

Yikes, Mark! Hang in there, man.

JR

[Mrs. Wallnut]

HE FORGOT TO TELL YOU ALL THAT THIS DOES HURT!!!!!!!! And he found that out.

When he came into the house, I knew that he had did something. And Mark being in pain and a little panicked, and the daughter freaking out didn't help much. But got him there okay. I was only glad that we were only there for 3 hours as Thomas was just getting ready to go to sleep when Mark came in and said we needed to leave NOW, and the older kids were getting ready for bed. So we had a very exciting night and hopefully tomorrow the kids won't be to cranky.

Oh forgot to mention this. As we were leaving our back steps were slick and as he went down before me while I was shutting the door, he slipped and fell down the steps.

[Popeye]

Well I hope it gets better soon. Must be something about the first week of the new year. I sacrificed a chunk of pinky finger Thursday to a large core box bit. No stitches for me though.
Happens so danged fast that it's hard to figure out what you did wrong so you don't do it again.
BTW....................I thought dispatchers only used two fingers to type anyway. Didn't know that evolution had gotten them up to ten
Get well soon. Pat......... "Driver"

[cabinetman]

Not a nice thing to have to write about. Get better fast. Mishaps like that are very quick. Years ago I had set up a straight edge only for a router table. It was designed to only take off 1/16", from laminates or wood. It was set up like a jointer with an infeed and a 1/16" take up on the outfeed. The bit I used was a 3/4" straight faced cutter raised to just above the material.

I was in a rush (yeah I know), and running through different widths of metallic laminate from 1" wide to 2" wide. Somehow, I ran my right thumb over the top of the bit. It didn't make a wierd noise until it grazed the bone. Sounded like routing Corian. After shutting off the router and looking at my thumb, all the pieces were there but just hanging and kind of twisted around. Sorry 'bout the graphics.

So, I untwisted them and fitted them back in place like a puzzle and wrapped it up tight and thought "It's got to heal". Well I wasn't going to go to the doctor, until my wife said you better, if for no other reason to get a pain pill, because tomorrow it will hurt like heck.

I went, and stitches later and a Rx for pain I was good to go. She was right, and after all these years I remember two things, (1) the sound, and (2) the pain.



A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER - John Keats

[MikeR]

Very sorry to hear this.

From time to time I find myself getting cocky about safety and doing things that I know are unsafe. Thankfully, I've been able to 'pull back' from that attitude and get myself back on the correct path.

Often a problem, however, so it behooves us all to keep kicking ourselves in the butt to remember about safety.

Glad it worked out for you, but I'll bet your backside was sore from the fall?

Cheers,

MikeR

[mater]

Sorry to hear of your accident Mark. I hope you heal quickly.

[SARGE..g-47]

When you think you have machine or questionable techique down-pat and take it for granted... the ugly snake will rear it's head and strike more often than not it seems from my own experience.

Time saved by not doing it in a a safer, alternative manner often turns into lost time in healing with the famous last words uttered at the ER.. "I knew better, but"......... And we have all been guilty at least once if not more often.

The bad news is you got hurt.. the good news is your finger will heal, the quilt rack will get done eventually and you will be a more safety conscious WW with the reality of "it can happen to me".

Get well soon and get back in the shop or you will probably drive Mrs. Wallnut well... nuts! :>) ha.. ha...

Regards...

[Pappy]

I'll say what everyone else wants to....

DUMMY!

Hope it heals quickly. When you find the piece, hang it where you can see it as a reminder.

[Slik Geek]

'Bout 3 hours ago I was out in the shop...

Please, Please be careful so as to not become another injury statistic like I have.

Talk about dedication to the craft. The guy gets hurt and the first thing he does when he gets home in the middle of the night is to caution other craftsmen.

Pappy's admonition to "find the piece" reminds me of a friend who managed to remove about an inch of his finger tip on a jointer. When he returned from the hospital a couple days later (this was some years ago), he looked in the chip pile and found his dried and shriveled finger tip slices. He said the cross-sectional view was really interesting. Yuck!

[Ed62]

Ouch! Sorry to hear about that, Mark. Hope you heal quickly, and the pain is tolerable. I know that's a bad place to get hurt, with all the nerve endings there.

Ed

[Black wallnut]

Thanks Pappy! I knew there was at least one MAN on this board.

I'm a real team player Slik! Either that or besides this and another forum and my shop I don't have a life!

Last night after we got back the spousal unit and myself went out and found the peice, it was on the far end of my saw station, and looked at it's damage. Upon further inspeciton what i had was a kickback which pitched the work peice and pulled my finger into the cutter. later today when I change the dressing I will take a picture and post a link(as opposed to inline posting to save those with sensitive gullets). I'll also be posting picture of the work peice plus slow-mo of what happened. I've since come up with a couple of differnt ways that I could have done what I was trying to do in a safer manner. One requires the making of a fence riding jig, guess what my first project will be when I'm able to get shop time again. The second would have been to just widen the dovetail slot DUH! Hindsight is truely better than corrected vision and hopefully others will learn from my pain. BTW I neglected to mention this reallyhurt like ****! Upon arrival to the ER <25 minutes after injury pain level was 9 on scale of 1 to 10.

[Ed62]

I knew that had to hurt bad. I think you should post the picture, instead of the link. That way, newbies will get the full knowledge of what a kickback can do, whether it's on a TS or other tool. Glad to see you're still posting, but I hope it's not because you can't sleep because of the pain.

Ed