# Finger injury



## fishin&routin (Dec 8, 2008)

About 3 weeks ago I was running a piece of test wood through my PC table mounted router and a 1/2" box core bit. Suddenly, the router grabbed the piece of wood along w/my finger and pulled both through. Results were gory. Doctor asys about 6 months to heal. Don't know if there is nerve damage yet. Attached are pics of the finger and the wood piece (hope moderator approves posting the pics). Moderator said I would probably upload one at a time because of file size.

The pic of the wood: The right side in the pic is what went through first - very rough cut and barely any wood removed at the end. As the wood progressed through more wood was taken off and in the end the cut profile was perfect. I thought it would have been the opposite as when the wood exited the router it was probably doing 100 mph. Obviously, this occurred in less than 1/2 second and I had no time to react. Stupid I know not using a push stick. I had a featherboard attached above to keep the wood flat to the tabletop but did not against the wood to keep it against the fence.

I'm fairly certain both the infeed and outfeed parts of the fence were tightened to the table top.

My questions are what went wrong and how can I prevent this from happening again?

Thanks in advance for the help and advice I so desperately need.


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## Bob N (Oct 12, 2004)

Hi Larry,

I am so sorry to hear of your accident, but thank you for wanting to share it with us so we can learn to avoid the same mistakes of others.

For some reason your pictures have not come thru. You may want to try to upload them again so you can get better answers to your questions.

If you need help, let us know and we will be happy to give you a hand.


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## kp91 (Sep 10, 2004)

Larry,

I feel for you, buddy! Best wishes on your recovery. I am amazed at how much my hand has healed in the last month. I pray yours heals as quickly and as well.


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## fishin&routin (Dec 8, 2008)

*Finger injury update*

Finger is healing nicely. Still some numbness, that was expected.

A few weeks ago someone (I can't remember who and have misplaced the email notification) posted that the plastic coating that some new bits have on them to protect the cutters might not been cut away. I did cut away the coating before using the bit. Thanks for the post.


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