I've always whittled as a fun side hobby. My desire to do anything bigger is limited by a fear of the table saw. As a lefty, nothing in the shop plays nice with me. I'm too worried about losing a finger which would impact my income stream as well as my other hobby, piano. But, I still spend more time looking at joinery than I do on HN.
Most of the time when someone loses a finger on a table saw, it is because they were doing something that they know better than to do, or because they didn't know that a particular action is high risk. What really helps is to initially work with someone who knows what and what not to do, so they can correct any bad techniques that you have.
Common errors are things like trying to cut a piece that is too large / awkward, resulting in the wood pinching the blade, and also getting your fingers too close to the blade. Get used to using push sticks to push the wood piece through. Typically you'd make up a couple of them with notches in the ends, or with a rubber tip. If you are doing certain types of cross cuts, the table saw has a couple tracks and a jig that runs along them, to move the piece through. Also, most important, is to set the blade height correctly, so not much of the blade is sticking out through your work piece.
Of course, I've always wanted a computerized setup, where you specify where the cut should be, and the work piece gets robotically placed on the table saw and precision cut. (they have this in some of the larger cabinet shops).
First day of my High School wood shop class (do they even have those anymore?), our instructor opened up a couple of packs of hot dogs and ran one through every machine in the shop. We didn't lose any fingers in that class ;-)
That you have an opinion on this and know the circumstances seems to suggest you know multiple people who have lost their fingers, which would suggest the risk is actually quite high.
If a completely untrained person bought an entire shop worth of power tools and just started trying to build stuff, the potential for injury is astronomical. However, there's a right way to go about it. Every shop tool has a simple set of rules to follow. Learn the proper and safe way to use things, wear appropriate attire and safety equipment, pay attention, and the risk is very low.
Powertools are made to cut/grind/drill/etc... wood, metal, and even stone into useful shapes. All of these things are significantly harder than the human body. Of course the tools capable of doing it are dangerous.
A guy I used to work with had cut off 4 fingers on his table saw, 2 were able to be re-attached. He admitted that he was doing something stupid.
Also, when I was a kid, my Dad had almost lost the tip of his finger in a snow blower -- he was cleaning out the chute when his glove caught on the blade. Again, something that you aren't supposed to do. For myself, I've had a number of close calls -- sometimes a piece of wood gets ejected in the direction of the blade spin. I've learned to stand to the side, and now directly in front of the saw. Also learned the hard way that you don't support a board on both ends, and cut in the middle with a circular saw -- blade pinch, and a nasty bruise results. Again, if I had someone standing there that could warn me, I would have corrected my technique before getting hurt.
anybody that does a lot of machine/wood work knows a few friends with missing parts. whole fingers or partials.
i had a roommate for years, was a very skilled machinist... we called him "nine and a half" although he was really only missing about 2mm from his right index finger... state compensated him $10k for those 2mm's though.
SawStop and Bosch both make excellent table saws with a safety retraction system.
Also, you can do a lot of woodworking with other tools, like a circular saw, track saw, miter saw, or even a simple hand saw. I've built a couple of bookcases and a built-in storage bench using only circular and hand saws, though a table saw would have made the work easier and probably straighter.
Yeah, a circular saw + square will get you a long way and provide an inexpensive way to determine whether you like it enough to invest in the more expensive tools. Of course you could end up like me, still using that same circular saw years later while routinely promising yourself that next year you'll invest in a good table saw ...
That's incredible. Theoretically you could even wear gloves and the saw would stop as soon as it reached tissue. Although, some sort of conductive work gloves might serve as an additional safety layer so it doesn't even have to hit tissue.
In general, it's a bad idea to wear gloves when working with spinning tools. If the glove snags the wrong way, it can pull your whole hand into the tool.
For sure, but in this scenario I doubt snags pulling anything would be possible. In the video it was stopping the blade before it could even break the skin on fingertips.
If the safety mechanism failed though, the resulting injury would be far worse as a result of the gloves, so it might not be worth it in that regard.
The rules in my dad's wood shop when I was growing up were pretty simple: any jewelry (necklace, bracelet, watch, rings, etc.) had to be removed, and eye protection had to be on before a tool could be turned on.
That is pretty impressive. Sadly, I'm limited to shared workspaces given that I'm in an urban area. Good to know about for whenever I decide that I'm sick of the city.
The table saw at the maker space / shared woodworking shop near me has a SawStop, which is a pretty good idea given the varied experience levels of users in a community space. If that's really what's keeping you from pursuing an activity of great interest to you, consider checking to see if the workspaces near you are equipped with SawStop. Even if they're not, you might persuade them to get one. Especially if you're willing to chip in.
Consider hand tools. It's a bit more labor, but if you're not building for profit anyway, you may enjoy it more. I have some thoughts on this on my blog, see my profile.
+1 to this! I got into woodworking with the goal of just using hand tools. As mentioned there is quite a bit more labor but you can also do things like setup a bench in your basement and work while your kids sleep upstairs.
I'd highly suggest taking a look at some of the videos from Paul Sellers: https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulSellersWoodwork. My first real project was building his simple (but very functional) workbench. He is pretty opinionated so keep that in mind, but he speaks from experience.
Also keep in mind that there are really two "classes" of popular tools: western and Japanese/eastern. If you do get into woodworking I'd suggest trying out a few tools from each class. I ended up going with Japanese saws because they felt more natural to me but then using western style planes.
What I like about Sellers is that he doesn't try to sell you tools. He pushes the same dozen or so tools for every project and proves that you don't have to buy specialized tools for a job.
Unlike Schwarz who I feel like is always trying to get me to buy something else :/
+1 I got into handtool-only woodworking several years ago. I find it very relaxing building things by hand. I am starting on a 6' tall bookcase this week
As others have mentioned, SawStop can mitigate most of that risk (but not all - it's still possible to get kickback if you're not careful). I'd probably own a SawStop, if not for some of the questionable behavior if it's owner [1]. It's unfortunate, because they're very well made and designed saws.
You may want to check out the Bosch ReaXX, which has a similar tech in a portable job-site saw. SawStop is currently suing Bosch for patent infringement (which I don't fault them for; it was them trying to make it illegal to sell saws without their tech that didn't sit right with me).
Be sure to wear ear protection (the sound is loud enough to damage your hearing) and especially a face shield.
Don't work alone in the house, keep your cell phone in your pocket. I suppose this would be a great use for Amazon's Alexa, just yell for 911 (does that work for Alexa?).
