Friday, September 01, 2006
Mr. Nubs
Well I have been dreading this ever since it happened, the day when I would have to confess to the world my shining moment of stupidity. I would like to say I realize that it may seem like I screw up and hurt myself all the time but that just isn’t so. I am quite experienced and familiar with the tools, possibly to familiar. I think I might have adopted this attitude of easy contempt for the tools and their dangers. Thinking back on it I can see a series of mistakes that got me hurt on the jointer. 1. Most of my tools are 2nd hand that I have fixed up. This means some of them are missing parts that while they don’t affect the quality of the cut do greatly effect the safety of the machines. I have never tried to track down these missing parts. 2. I had the jointer fence all the way open (6 inches) even though I was only jointing boards 3/4 of an inch wide. 3. I allowed myself to be lulled by a simple and repetitive task, forgetting that the danger remains the same despite the complexity of the cut. 4. I was tired and had adopted the ‘as soon as I get this done’ mentality. I had only slept 3-4 hours the night before so my senses were extra dull. The result of this is:
Middle finger, left hand.
Their are a lot of “it could have been worse” things that can be said. For instance jointers like to pull when they get a hold of finger sized bits. The usual result is several fingers if not he whole hand. I was extremely lucky because I in a glorious moment of stupidity had the fence all the way back. There is one area where my luck did run out, my wife. You see this happened at about 8:10 in the evening. At 7:55 my wife had come up to the shop to tell me it was too late and it was time to come in before I hurt my self. My response to her was ‘just as soon as I get this done’. Well you know the rest of the story. At this point I am wondering if it would be easier to just divorce her rather than live with that particular “I told you so” for the rest of my life.
Middle finger, left hand.
Their are a lot of “it could have been worse” things that can be said. For instance jointers like to pull when they get a hold of finger sized bits. The usual result is several fingers if not he whole hand. I was extremely lucky because I in a glorious moment of stupidity had the fence all the way back. There is one area where my luck did run out, my wife. You see this happened at about 8:10 in the evening. At 7:55 my wife had come up to the shop to tell me it was too late and it was time to come in before I hurt my self. My response to her was ‘just as soon as I get this done’. Well you know the rest of the story. At this point I am wondering if it would be easier to just divorce her rather than live with that particular “I told you so” for the rest of my life.
