I managed to saw off the end of my right pointy finger

I managed to saw off the end of my right pointy finger AND THE DARN TS WAS NOT EVEN RUNNING.

A few years ago Glenn managed to slice his hand on a TS that was not running. He used his hand to wipe some dust off of the TS top. The blade was not fully retracted below the top; it was up just a micro-bit.

Well I have always (until now) been very careful to not do that. Well I got the right hand pointy finger and its next door neighbor. I got it in the perfect location to get pulled open again every time I remove a tight jar lid, loosen a tight screw, etc. The pointy finger continued to drip blood for three days and nights. I have always been a non-bleeder so this is a new experience for me.

Well I finally got it to stop bleeding by wearing a bandage over the tip of the finger. This has raised absolute heck with my typing. It is amazing how many strange letters a bandage can hit on a keyboard.

Enjoy,
JimB
 
Geesh, Mr. Bradley! We old folks need to take better care of ourselves! That said, I'm sure you'll continue to recover just fine.

Now, the powers that be might cringe at this, but I've used CA glue as a "bandage" a couple of times. Mind you, this had nothing to do with a power tool of any kind! I was using a razor knife to cut veneer, using a straightedge as a guide. There I was, supposedly in control of BOTH of my hands and I use one to slice the other!!! Anyway, long story short I cleaned up the wound, dried the area and dripped a small amount of CA on it. In no time, I had no issue with bleeding. ;)
 
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Jim I am so sorry to hear about your fingers. I just finished giving myself two shots a day in my belly of cumodin and am taking plavix (sp???) so I would bleed like the proverbial pig!! Coflex is better than a bandaid. It only adheres to itself, you can wrap it around and enough layers it can become a cast!
 
That's not good, but be thankful the saw was off. Slices like that are hard to get healed up. CA glue will work, don't know how sterile it is, but I hear that is what some Dr.s use. Not out of a bottle in a woodworking shop though.
 
On the plus side, the injury was not as sever as the headline made it sound. :thumb: Heal quickly Jim!

And this should be a lesson to everyone on why it makes sense to retract the TS blade - fully - when it's not in use. (I often have it already cranked back down below the table before it's done spinning.) Just one or two more full revolutions of the blade lowering wheel would have prevented this accident. ;)
 
On the plus side, the injury was not as sever as the headline made it sound. :thumb: Heal quickly Jim!

And this should be a lesson to everyone on why it makes sense to retract the TS blade - fully - when it's not in use. (I often have it already cranked back down below the table before it's done spinning.) Just one or two more full revolutions of the blade lowering wheel would have prevented this accident. ;)


Vaughn you make an excellent point about lowering the blade. Now there is a feature that I have yet to see discussed as to the ease with which the mechanism moves to lower/raise or tilt etc the blade. Knowing that Jim and I now posses the same saw, I say its a great little saw but totally lacking in the raise lower department with the handles it has to do this work.

When i look at the Benchcraft mechanisms and see the smoothness and heft of those nice metal (presumably cast) wheels for the handles, I keep thinking it would be nice to have a mechanism that moves like that on my table saw. Sure i am not being fair in my comparison given what the mechanism has to raise/lower but therein lies my point. With all the innovation we have seen ie Sawstop etc there has not been much in the low end saws that has changed to make this a feature.
Has me wondering just how common this accident actually is in real world.
 
Sorry to hear about the injury. I consider ones like that just a "warning". After 40 years on a daily basis, I'm fortunate to say I have all my digits, and they are intact. I've had some close calls. One with a running table saw, that nicked pretty deep, but that was easy to sew up. I was almost going to do that myself. The other with a running tool was on a router table. My fault for rushing, but, ran my thumb over the top of a ¾" straight cutter protruding about ¼". It did some mangling but I fit all the parts back in place like new.

But I have to say my worst "accident" was with a tool that wasn't running. I was drilling the hinge holes with a Forstner bit, with one of the pointy centers. The DP was off, and the bit was about 2" above the table. I reached back to do some clearing, and that little gosh darn point dug a groove in the back of my hand. Skin is pretty thin there. Luckily it didn't tear any of the goodies inside, but it hurt like heck and bled quite a bit. So, the moral to all this dribble is to pay more attention, and use a bench brush.


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I did almost the same thing a couple months ago. My wife considers the picture gross, but I shared it privately with Jim to commiserate. (I think I remember Jim is an MD, so he hopefully is prepared for the picture).

Fortunately my cut was on a scoring blade (a couple inches in diameter) below the surface of the table - but not far enough below.
 
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