Thread: Ouch, I need a bandsaw.

Dissing hand stropping in the wake of fellow SRPer's work related injury

Heal up, brother Hart.

Originally Posted by Siguy

Dissing hand stropping in the wake of fellow SRPer's work related injury

Heal up, brother Hart.

In a sense, I deserved what I got for being foolish and look at it with some humor. It's been sitting open to the air for about 5 hours now and is mostly dry to the touch. It's going to take a while to heal.

Make yourself a tapered splitter from a piece of hard wood and attach to a zero clearance hardboard or plywood insert. Make the splitter the exact size or a hair wider than your saw blade. It will keep the wood from pinching the blade and shooting it back at you.

When you get that feeling that this might not be a good idea, listen and think of a safer way to do the task.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Make yourself a tapered splitter from a piece of hard wood and attach to a zero clearance hardboard or plywood insert. Make the splitter the exact size or a hair wider than your saw blade. It will keep the wood from pinching the blade and shooting it back at you.

When you get that feeling that this might not be a good idea, listen and think of a safer way to do the task.

Marty do you have a picture of what you're talking about? Sounds interesting but I'm not sure I follow...

I have made splitter that fit different thickness of blades for my saw, as well as zero clearance inserts that keep small pieces falling between the blade and the cut piece or fence. The splitter is glued to the insert in the saw kerf, near the back side of the blade.

Here is video of a company that sells readymade splitters but you can make the splitter from hard wood, maple and glue to a plywood zero clearance insert.

I also adjust my fence so the outgoing end, the back side of the blade is away from the blade edge by a 32nd to a 1/16 of an inch. It does not affect the cut as only the front of the blade does the cutting.

If you are cutting a lot of figured wood a half fence also works well for table saw and band saws. Make a fence that is long enough to reach the front of the blade. Once the wood is cut from the front of the blade the fence does not push the wood back into the blade because there is no fence past the cut and the cut piece is free to find its own path without tension. You can do this with a straight board and a couple of clamps or clamp a board to form an L at the saw cut end so you can clamp from the side.

This is especially needed when cutting figured woods as we are attracted to for scales. Figured / burled wood have built in tension that is released when cut and often will try to pinch the blade on the back side. The Splitter prevents this from happening keeping the kerf as wide as the blade.

Factory made splitters are often not the exact size of the blade, custom made for each blade is safer. Make several blanks when making an insert and then make splitters to fit each blade.

As bad as that cut is, you are way lucky and im glad you have your thumb... hope it heals well

Healing up.

Originally Posted by Iceni

Skin grows back fortunately

My grandfather had to have 3 fingers re attached from pushing wood on a bandsaw... All his life a cabinet maker as well!

make one of these

Attachment 158488

Lifelong cabinet maker (my colleague knew him) pushed too hard and the pushstick slipped. Lost all fingers and part of his thumb on his left hand.
And a friend of mine had a teacher who was explaining the use of a bandsaw in class, and said that if someone asks you something, you don't look around but keep focus on the saw. A student asked 'yeah but what does this things do', the teacher turned to look and promptly cut of 3 fingers.