It is a lot easier to chop off a finger than to put back on. I think i have told this on the FOG before, but here is a good place to repeat the warning.
I had damaged a planter in a customer's yard while hurrying around it while mowing. I told the lady i would repair it. I had only damaged one leg, but to match the wood turned out to be somewhat difficult. I decided to replace all four legs. The repair required that i produce a couple of sliding DT's in the top of each 4/4 leg. The legs were cedar, so what problem could i have? Before tackling the "real" legs, i planned to make a couple of practice cuts on one of the off cut pieces.
I started with a 1/2" uncut bit in the router table. That was easy. I routed a 3" channel into the piece and just raised the block of wood off of the bit with no problem. I replaced the straight bit with a large DT bit and plowed into the same groove. however, once I had plowed the full length of the original dado, intend of raising the wood off the bit, i had to back out of the cut. There seemed to be a little more resistance than i had expected. I had done sliding DT's on flat boards to set shelves before with no problem. This time, I was making a fairly deep cut with a much larged DT bit and the resistance was much greater than I had expected. To overcome the resistance, as I was holding and pulling the uncut end of the 4x4, I cupped my hand over the cut end to give better pull and to add some control. all of a sudden, I felt a very slight tickle at the end of one of my fingers. I guess i knew what was happening as my reaction was instant. That little tickle did not actually hurt, but my reaction was probably just as quick as if it had been a sharp pain. I had blood all over the table, the scrap piece i was working on and on me. I had quite a gash in the end of my finger.
I just patched the finger with a bandaid and several wraps of self sticking gauze tape and went back to work. A few days later, I was running out of the gauze self sticking tape and went to my druggist for more. she asked about my wound and i explained that i had tried to stop a whirling router bit with my finger. By now, the skin was beginning to peel off of the finger. The lady asked to see what was happening. i pulled off the bndage and he took one look and told me i needed some professional attention, or i might lose the finger. since i thought she was talking about professional halp for the finger, and not my head, I did go to my primary doc whereupon he used my arm for a dart board and gave me a piece of paper telling me of some pills to take and sent me right back to the druggist. Even tho there was never any pain, as I had done the right steps to caring for the wound other than going to the doc in the first place, infection was beginning to set in. All did end well and the infection was nipped before becoming dangerous to the rest of my appendage and even into my hand, i did change my procedure to cutting those DT's. It was proven to be much simpler practice to use a slightly smaller DT bit and cut in on one side of the cut and back ut on the other side of the cut. AND, do not put fingers over the end of the dado for added leverage as I pulled the wood away from the the channel.
So many lessons learned from one tiny mistook. :
Tinker
