For those that have had table saw accidents. Were you using your guard>

[dbhost]

After all these polls on table saw guard usage, this is a question I have never seen answered on the forums. But I have seen OSHA stats on the number of injuries.

So for those of you that have had table saw injuries, were you using your guard at the time of the accident? What about a splitter / riving knife?

(I am keeping the answers private, but you are welcome to discuss the subject here).

If you have not had a table saw accident please refrain from voting in this poll...

[pelligrini]

No guard, splitter or riving knife both times.

I've only had one accident with a tablesaw resulting in flesh removal. It may have been the first or second time I ever used a tablesaw. I ended up taking out an 1/8 x 1/8 slot out of my left hand middle finger. We were needing some additional narrow basswood strips for a framing model in architectural school. We had already bought up all the narrow strip stock available. Our school had an ok woodshop. I thought it was pretty cool then, but now I know it was really lacking in a lot of areas, especially safety. I think the student supervisor had us wear safety glasses, other than that nothing involving safety came up. I was ripping 1/4" wide strips out of some 3x24x1/8" thick basswood boards. Set the fence at 1/4" and had at it... I was getting down to the last little rip and 'ting. I immediately pulled my finger back and stuck it in my mouth. Got bandage from the shop guy and finished ripping the rest of the strips. This time I left a generous 1/2" on the left to hold onto. Still can't believe I was that stupid once. You can't really sand blood out of basswood very well either...

The second time I injured myself with the tablesaw was kickback, sort of. I screwed up a set of box joints I was cutting. My Freud box set was on the saw set for 3/8", which makes the teeth stick way out from the blade body. Rather than swap out blades I decided to cut the fingers off with the box joint stack. On the second board all the little fingers started getting tossed right back at me at a high velocity. A couple of them drew blood and bruised my chest.

Luckily, both weren't very serious, especially the first one. I just hope I get to leave my saw injuries at that.

[10sCoachRick]

No guard, splitter or riving knife both times.
.

The second time I injured myself with the tablesaw was kickback, sort of. I screwed up a set of box joints I was cutting. My Freud box set was on the saw set for 3/8", which makes the teeth stick way out from the blade body. Rather than swap out blades I decided to cut the fingers off with the box joint stack. On the second board all the little fingers started getting tossed right back at me at a high velocity. A couple of them drew blood and bruised my chest.

Luckily, both weren't very serious, especially the first one. I just hope I get to leave my saw injuries at that.

Did you say 'cut the fingers off'???

[pelligrini]

Hehe, yea.. That looks scary in bold and out of context.

I crosscut the rest of the pieces with the stack so the cut didn't leave a bunch of individual fingers bouncing around the table. I still stood way over to the left of the blade though.

[Russianwolf]

riving knife was in place, but nothing would have prevented the kickback I got as the piece shattered and pieces went all over (including the nice bit that stuck in my stomach. This happened before the piece would had gotten to the prawls, so.......

[smorris]

Guard and riving knife were in place. Fluke accident were a cutoff was hung under the guard and drifted over into the rear of the blade as I reached to turn off the power. I now have 6 acrylic teeth. Yes, it hurt a lot, I don't smile like this much anymore.

[Stytooner]

I didn't vote in the poll, but I did get a spear in the side while using nothing. This is what I learned with and used for several different cabinet shops and job sites.
It was quite an unusual injury and not the normal thing. My cuttoff was spear shaped, and caught on the front of the spear by the blade and slung it forward into my tool belt. It glanced off and poked me in the hip just a bit. 1/4" deep maybe. The spear dulled when it hit the belt, otherwise it would have been more serious.
It was that particular injury while using the BT, that I realized what was needed to come about for a decent blade guard.
I would like to know about injuries that happened when a guard was in place. What type guard, cut and failure occurred. I am currently working on the next generation, not version, of the Shark Guard.
This kind of input could be of some value to me in the designing of a better system.
Thanks.

[dbhost]

Sounds like I should have included additional options in the poll... I am not voting in my own poll mostly because I don't want to skew the results, but I have had an incident, not an injury, on the table saw, the BT actually, with my older SG in place and it was totally operator error... I had a major kickback. I think if you look at my shop pics close enough you can see where the workpiece stuck in the sheet rock...

I was standing off to the side, using a push stick, and somehow I managed to twist my wrist, and the workpiece, causing it to jam and kick back on the blade, next thing I knew I had a piece of 3/4" ply shooting across the room at high velocity...

So far I have been pretty fortunate in that my safety procedures are paying off. Unfortunately I tend to get slack around hand tools. Within the last month I have skewered my hand with a screwdriver not once, but twice...

[LCHIEN]

i wasn't injured but I recorded on the poll an accident w/RK & w/o Guard bcause I answered the poll before I read Dave's post saying it had to be an injury-accident.
I somehow placed a 1x6 x 6' board on top of the blade. When I started the saw (and this was accidental because I thought I had a router plugged into the BT3000 outlet)
the board was thrown across the room like a spear and left some damage on the wall I look at today as a reminder.

[Stytooner]

I shot a pencil off the router table just a few weeks ago thinking the BT was plugged in when the router actually was. Best to actually look at the connection I think or drop the router when done.

[dbhost]

Are you guys using the BT's switch as a router table switch?

[10sCoachRick]

All guards were in place...trying to hurry the rip of three thin panels of cedar shelf liner, I slid all three pieces through the TS and just as they cleared the blade, the bottom two pieces shot backwards at warp speed. For about 10 feet, those projectiles could have done some damage; but, I was standing to the side and they floated harmlessly to the floor after hitting the garage door.

Bottom line...accident - yes, injury - no . Got my attention, though .

[dbhost]

So far yes injuries, but only one running a hand or finger or what not into a blade, and that was with the guard off, do I have this right?

I do see a trend toward kickback here as well... Mostly averted by proper stance, which is good. But not all... Those that hit the kickback thing, and had a guard on, did having the guard there help keep the incident from being worse?

[Bill in Buena Park]

I shot a pencil off the router table just a few weeks ago thinking the BT was plugged in when the router actually was. Best to actually look at the connection I think or drop the router when done.

Lee - similarly, the reason why I fastened a separate switch to my auxiliary table, as shown in the picture below. Besides being too far away for comfort (read: safety), I didn't want to confuse which tool was actually plugged into the switch.

On topic to the thread - no vote, because the few close calls were caught by the pawls. I always use the RK on my 21829 (self fashioned), and always use the guard when ripping.

[10sCoachRick]

So far yes injuries, but only one running a hand or finger or what not into a blade, and that was with the guard off, do I have this right?

I do see a trend toward kickback here as well... Mostly averted by proper stance, which is good. But not all... Those that hit the kickback thing, and had a guard on, did having the guard there help keep the incident from being worse?

The guard itself did not come into play in my case; but, the pawl kept the top piece of cedar from flying backwards. The two pieces under the top piece were the offending projectiles, thrown straight back by the blade.