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Injuries while doing woodworking

Posted on 7/1/20 at 4:28 pm
Posted by lsuson
Metairie
Member since Oct 2013
12116 posts
Posted on 7/1/20 at 4:28 pm
I was just grinding some wood down on my lathe when my thumb got too close to the block and the tip of my thumb just got sliced pretty good. Luckily it’s just a nasty cut. Dermabond it is. Anyone have some stories??
Posted by SSpaniel
Germantown
Member since Feb 2013
29658 posts
Posted on 7/1/20 at 5:05 pm to
quote:

I was just grinding some wood down on my lathe when my thumb got too close to the block and the tip of my thumb just got sliced pretty good. Luckily it’s just a nasty cut. Dermabond it is. Anyone have some stories??


Not me... but I dated this girl in college.... her dad was big time into wood working. On his right hand, he only had a thumb and index finger. He was missing his pinkie and ring fingers from his left hand.

All lost to the band saw or the table saw. At different times.

I came over one Saturday night.. he said "Well, I lost another one today."
Posted by BoogaBear
Member since Jul 2013
5537 posts
Posted on 7/1/20 at 5:14 pm to
None with wood. My dogs got a big arse rawhide bone for Christmas. They weren't going to share, so I tried to cut it in half on the miter saw.

That bastard shot across the garage something fierce I thought I was toast.
Posted by TheBoo
South to Louisiana
Member since Aug 2012
4482 posts
Posted on 7/1/20 at 5:28 pm to
My dad surrendered his right index finger at the last knuckle to his table saw a few years back. Said he heard a loud car passing and looked up to see what it was mid cut. I went in his shed afterwards and found it, and left it on the kitchen counter for him for when he got home from the hospital
Posted by Clames
Member since Oct 2010
16536 posts
Posted on 7/1/20 at 5:41 pm to
Oh yeah, just this year I grazed a few finger on my right hand against a large round-over bit on my table router and put a nice furrow in my left thumb with my table saw. Every healed to nearly invisible scars, thank goodness for quick-clot powder for my thumb though, that was a bleeder...
Posted by Chuckd
Louisiana
Member since May 2013
797 posts
Posted on 7/1/20 at 7:33 pm to
I’ve lost some meat on my fingers to the table saw and miter saw. All avoidable and while I was doing sketchy stuff. Thankfully they all healed and I upgraded to a saw stop since my fingers are worth more than a few thousand dollars.
Posted by fishfighter
RIP
Member since Apr 2008
40026 posts
Posted on 7/1/20 at 7:40 pm to
Had some bad kick backs on the tablesaw, Had one hit me in the chest the knocked the wind out of me.

Hanging some timbers, one that was green oak and 8"x12"x13', was up on a ladder and had the beam on my shoulder putting it in place. At the last second, the ladder called it a day and collapse. Pin my left hand under. Cut the crap out of me. That beams weight was a easy 400lbs and 4 men to handle it. Ladder max weight,300lbs and which I only weigh in at 165.
This post was edited on 7/1/20 at 7:47 pm
Posted by CheEngineer
Louisiana
Member since Aug 2019
4234 posts
Posted on 7/1/20 at 10:32 pm to
Know of a coworker who sliced off the tip of a finger on either a chop saw or table saw but he was a moron so not surprised.
Posted by gumbo2176
Member since May 2018
15003 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 12:10 am to
I've had a few close calls working around power shop tools since the late 70's, but no real bad injuries----knock wood.

However, I do know of a guy I went to high school with that managed to lose a hand to a radial arm saw. From what he told me he was doing monotonous repeat cuts with the saw set up with a stop and the blade set at an angle to the fence.

After a few hours of the same cuts he lost concentration and when he pulled the saw to make a cut, it passed over much of his left hand on an angle. Off to the hospital and they took the hand off at the wrist.
Posted by Loup
Ferriday
Member since Apr 2019
11194 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 6:36 am to
My cousin chopped a few of his fingers off with a table saw. Right through the knuckles. The were reattached and set bent so he could still kind of grab stuff. When he points it's hard to tell what he is pointing at because of all his crooked fingers.

was squirting blood like this

Posted by Sus-Scrofa
Member since Feb 2013
8115 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 6:46 am to
I've got a nice notch in my thumb from a band saw in shop class.

We had a substitute teacher and I was admittedly goofing around.

The shop teacher came back the next day, looked at my stitched up thumb, and called me a dumb-arse. Thankfully that was the end of it.
Posted by PapaPogey
Baton Rouge
Member since Apr 2008
39420 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 7:18 am to
I was cutting a small block with my miter and hit a nail that sent a small chunk of wood directly at my eye. Hit me square in the face so hard that it broke my ANSI certified safety glasses. I was pretty shook up after it happened and am really fortunate that I was wearing proper PPE and didn’t possibly lose an eye. I’ve brought it up I’m safety meetings with my guys as a reminder. WEAR YOUR PPE PEOPLE!
Posted by TU Rob
Birmingham
Member since Nov 2008
12726 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 8:33 am to
Nothing major while wood working. Caught the tip of my thumb on a chop saw a few weeks back. It didn't bleed as much as I thought it would. I was making repetitive cuts to make a framed area on a pedestal table, and I'm still not sure if it was the blade that cut me, or the wood pinching my thumb between the wood and the blade. It sort of jumped as I was making the cut and all happened pretty quick.

Worst I ever got doing jobs around the house was with an old lockback pocketknife. I was trying to put a new faucet at the kitchen sink, and couldn't get the old one loose, even after taking the garbage disposal off. Just a tight fit at the back of the sink. So I popped it off, and was scraping the old plumbers putty off of the bottom. Hand slipped, and the index and middle finger of my left hand stopped the blade. A half dozen stitches later, and some odd looking scars, and I still didn't have the sink back in. Got someone to finish the job for me, and the next time I was working with that I bought the right wrench for tightening faucets into place.
Posted by Cracker
in a box
Member since Nov 2009
17667 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 8:59 am to
not yet I don't have a lathe yet but I do have a radial arm saw I have not used yet
Posted by bbvdd
Memphis, TN
Member since Jun 2009
24932 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 9:34 am to
where do I start.

Was building my wife a swing bed for our back patio and it was all mortise and tenon joints. Was working on mortise and my chisel slipped and caught me in the base of my finger knuckle. It was extremely sharp chisel and went in as deep as it could since it hit bone. Took a couple of stitches on it.

Got a new lathe and had it all set up and was cutting a piece of wood to mount on the lathe and got careless. Pushed the wood through and got my index finger and middle finger into the blade. got it from my 1st knuckle on my index finger through my finger nail and into the finger nail on my middle finger.

Have on a couple of occasions put a brad nail in my finger.

Worse I guess was playing with my lathe. I had just gotten a new bowl chuck. There is a bit of a science to getting the shoulder right that fits the chuck. I did not know this.

Have the chunk of wood on there and was working on hollowing out the inside when the block came loose and hit me in the mouth above my lip. It hit me hard enough that it went all the way through my upper lip. This was Christmas Eve night so I wasn't going the hospital to have one of those hacks to screw it up. Have a nice little scare there now.
Posted by Azazello
Member since Sep 2011
3182 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 9:39 am to
quote:

I was just grinding some wood down on my lathe when my thumb got too close to the block and the tip of my thumb just got sliced pretty good. Luckily it’s just a nasty cut. Dermabond it is. Anyone have some stories??


Kickback from a 2x4 almost took out my eye. It was one of the only times I was using my miter saw without my safety glasses. I got lucky.
Posted by BottomlandBrew
Member since Aug 2010
27058 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 10:29 am to
Not woodworking. I run a glass fabrication facility and also a glazing subcontractor. I grew up around it. I've seen some blood. Everyone in the glass business has scars. We all know we work with a life-threatening material in combination with life-threatening machines in sometimes life-threatening environments, so we're always conscious of safety, but sometimes glass just wants to cut you. As any safety guys knows, it's always the routine shite that gets you.

Only one injury was ever life threatening and it happened doing your everyday task. A guy was stacking some glass vertically on a rack and didn't notice the piece he was about to stack had a run in it. He put it on the rack and it broke along the run and came down like a guillotine. They wear cut gloves and kevlar arm guards, but the way his hand was positioned it managed to hit him right between the two on his wrist and sever an artery. There was blood everywhere. We do cut response training a couple times a year, so his partner quickly grabbed the closest tourniquet and got him stable until the paramedics could get here.
Posted by BiggerBear
Redbone Country
Member since Sep 2011
2917 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 2:44 pm to
In shop class in high school, cutting with a jig saw, I was using my right hand on the handle and trigger with my left hand on the side of the front portion of the saw. I paused cutting to reposition and when I started again, I had let my left pinkie get between the collet and the body of the saw and with one stroke, the end of my pinkie was compressed into a space of about 2mm deep. The nail immediately developed a collection of blood underneath and the end of my finger was throbbing.
Posted by TDsngumbo
Alpha Silverfox
Member since Oct 2011
41509 posts
Posted on 7/2/20 at 11:41 pm to
I shot a nail through my hand while building cabinets once. It actually didn’t hurt nearly as badly as I would have expected but it sure produced a ton of blood.
Posted by bakersman
Grant parish
Member since Apr 2011
5704 posts
Posted on 7/3/20 at 6:42 am to
I used to cut meat at Winn Dixie years ago and I shaved the left side of my left thumb off.
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