The Steel Guitar Forum

Since I was a kid, i was warned about table saws.... over and over, by my dad. Dad wasn't a wood shop guy but he had enough experience to realize they could be a very dangerous piece of equipment.

Growing up, I requently enountered gentlemen that had to shake your hand funny or use "the wrong hand" to do so at all...... Others you'd simply note on your own.

Aside from Bobbe Seymour and Kirby Fergerson, of the Forum, I have no idea how many of you have been horribly disfigured from a table saw.

Any of you care to share you tragic experience with us? The purpose, to reinforce a steel guitar players' awareness of what not to do when around one.

As a luthier I've seen some pretty awful scars from the use of power tools. Once guy ran a router up his arm. Another cut his finger off. Yet another had a grinding wheel split at speed and was showered with slivers. I decided years ago that I would rather use hand tools and take a little longer. Circular saws scare the hell out of me. Band saws are even worse.

...but I still have all my fingers.

Hope you are OK...

This could turn into a horror thread. I have 3 close friends who have lost fingers and 1 who lost an arm.. My workmate Sarah had a chain break while riding on the back of a motorbike, it resulted in a finger completly off, this was her wedding ring finger too and she got married just this year.. Ring is on little finger..Trolley jack failed on another mate .. 2 fingers off. A metal sheet took off two fingers of Sarahs father in laws hand (runs in the family now)! The arm was a motorbike accident too..

I had a large very old band saw when I built my pool room 4 years ago. How I never lost a few fingers, I dont know, the saw blade often slipped off. Made a few bird tables and give it up.. I love working with, and sawing wood but large saws have to be treated with more care than we think while following that line on the timber..! Steel guitar builders must use many saws and things. There may be a few stories to hear on this one..

Ray, I downloaded an album from iTunes yesterday of Lloyd green playing a Bigsby.. You must know about it I reckon?

Regards

David Hartley

My wife usually doesn't let me play with the table saw.

I know a guy that lost the pinky finger, ring finger, and half the middle finger from his favorite past time - noodling for turtles!

Those snapping turtles are quick!

He still noodles for turtles, though.

Thanks for the heads-up David.............

NOPE! Hadn't heard about it. I'm completely in the dark.......

Nope, this isn't me! This should scare the hell out of you. WARNING, not for the weak!

My steel guitar career was ruined, though not permanently, by an ex-girlfriend with whom I co-led a band. She made my life so miserable that I quit playing for two years, worked in a newspaper during the week and went bass fishing on weekends.

Thanks to my wife and my close friend Jim Loessberg, I got back into it.

Yeah, those table saws can bite. My own experience was largely my own fault. I had removed the splitter from the saw - don't even ask why, silly thing to do. Anyhow, inevitably the piece I was working on caught and flew back, striking me on the index finger of the left hand. The flesh turned almost to jello and bled like you can't imagine.
At the hospital the work was done by a nurse practitioner. This amazing woman put eleven microscopic stitches inside the flesh of the finger and then closed the skin back over with more of the same. It took weeks to heal, weeks of movement and exercise to keep some strength in it during healing and then to rebuild the strength so I could use the finger once again.
That was a few years back and today, because of that amazing work that the NP did, I have regained full use of the finger, admittedly with some loss of feeling but with normal strength and range of motion.

Don't mess with electric tools if you don't know what you are doing!

Some time ago, I posted an experience with my table saw that, to this day, still stops me cold to think of how close I came to chaos.

Given that effect, I hope you'll let me refer you to the archives for the details.

I was polishing the headlight ring of my 56 Corvette on a large polishing lathe when the cloth wheel grabbed the ring and tore it out my hand. Seventeen
sutures on my middle finger and I didn,t watch what they did to my little finger. The good news is that I can still pick my steel and express myself driving in the Phoenix traffic. Gloves when polishing is not a bad thing

Well it wasn't a table saw but I lost my right middle finger back to the first knuckle. I got it caught in a big carousel style bottle filling machine on an assembly line that fills and labels quart bottles of antifreeze (and other assorted products). I din't play PSG at the time but I did play guitar. After that I quit using a pick and over a short time I developed a thumb, index, ring finger picking style that is odd but somewhat cool. I guess there are some grips for PSG that I wish I had that finger for but I am able to make do, and I don't have much choice so I am happy with what I got. Plus I'm pretty sure Jerry Garcia was missing the same portion of his right middle finger and he did alright.

A friend of mine lost the ends of three fingers to alcohol...
He was an alcoholic and passed out drunk with his hand in an awkward position. The blood supply was cut off and he developed gangrene. They had to remove the ends of his fingers to save his hand.

He gave up drinking after that, by the way.

Amazing how you can injure yourself even in bed.

I messed up my hand in a wreck. This was about 30 years ago. It was my Picking hand too. Took 50 stitches to sew it back up. I can still play, but It was like starting all over. To this day I still can't use my index finger. I play mostly with my thumb and middle finger and I still get real bad cramps in my index finger.
I didn't give up and I can still play. I just learned to adjust.

I have a workshop and every day I use a table saw, band saw, chop saw, jointer, drill press and a bunch of other tools that could really do damage if you let them. I have been using these tools professionally since 1068 and as an amatuer, before that. I have been lucky and have never had an accident, knock on wood. I had a good shop teacher in high school that drilled safety into our heads. Do they even teach stuff like this anymore? Stuff that you might actually use in life? I studied lots of books on each tool and hopefully, it has all paid off. The tools are not dangerious unless they malfunction in some way. It is the person using them that is the problem. You have to really know what you are doing to avoid traps and problems, just like playing the steel. I am still working on that one, though.

George Kimery wrote:I have a workshop and every day I use a table saw, band saw, chop saw, jointer, drill press and a bunch of other tools that could really do damage if you let them. I have been using these tools professionally since 1068 and as an amatuer, before that. I have been lucky and have never had an accident, knock on wood. I had a good shop teacher in high school that drilled safety into our heads. Do they even teach stuff like this anymore? Stuff that you might actually use in life? I studied lots of books on each tool and hopefully, it has all paid off. The tools are not dangerious unless they malfunction in some way. It is the person using them that is the problem. You have to really know what you are doing to avoid traps and problems, just like playing the steel. I am still working on that one, though.

George,

941 years without a lost time accident? That might be a record. You must be doing something right.

You can't get away with any typos. on this Forum, can you ?

The great Pedalmaster builder Roy Thomas of Louisiana lost a finger working in His shop. Built a great instrument too. Don't know if he is still going or not. Jody Sanders plays a Pedalmaster. Larry..... Randy, that's pretty scarry......

I ran a Skil saw up the center of my left forefinger just a few years ago. It didn't affect my steel playing, but it sure ruined my lead guitar playing. I had a garage sale the next week and sold off all of my power tools except a saber saw and electric drill. While the doctor was sewing my finger up in the emergency room, the guy in the next curtained area had cut his thumb off on a table saw. The doctor suggested that the two of us go in business together.

True story: I asked the doctor if I would be able to play piano when my finger healed. He said, "I don't see why not." I said, "That's great. I was never able to play one before."

Herb Steiner wrote:My steel guitar career was ruined, though not permanently, by an ex-girlfriend with whom I co-led a band. She made my life so miserable that I quit playing for two years, worked in a newspaper during the week and went bass fishing on weekends.

Thanks to my wife and my close friend Jim Loessberg, I got back into it.

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SIMILAR STORY


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What Herb and Tommy said. Jody.

I was in the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Hahn Air Base, Germany, and in November 1989 I was working in the base wood hobby shop. I had a part time job there, and I was in the process of cutting a glass groove on a piece of 2 inch thick walnut. A good friend was preparing to retire from the service, and I was commissioned to make his triangular flag display case. Well, I had everything done right, was using the stop blocks on the rip fence, when the saw blade hit a small piece of metal that was embedded inside the piece of walnut. The piece slammed back against the rear stop block, knocking it completely off the rip fence, and I had my left hand sitting on top of the piece of walnut. I also had the tips of my fingers kind of wrapped around the top and front of the piece, and when the piece of walnut went through the stop block and the blade, it dragged my fingers along with it. The tip of my left pinky finger immediately had a 1/4 inch wide by 3/8 inch deep dado cut into it, and that ended my lead guitar playing days. That was when I started getting serious about playing the pedal steel. I still am getting serious about playing the pedal steel, and can now recognize one two times out of three!! Seriously, things can happen that we have no control over, and now when I use woodworking machines, I am even more careful than I was before.

Mike

About twelve years ago I was working for a high-end builder as the shop guy (I'm a cabinet maker), second day on the job. I was cutting cedar balusters for 200 feet of deck railings, just ready to stop for lunch, and somehow I ran my left hand smack into the blade of the Powermatic table saw. I'm still not sure exactly how it happened, these things happen so fast, but the blade went right up the center of my index finger and took off some of the thumb. The index was basically shredded, the bone gone altogether. After the plastic surgeon was done, I was left with a stub, and a shortened-but still somewhat useful-thumb.
I can still hold the bar OK but I can't lift it to use just the tip without losing it altogether
I just thank God it wasn't the right hand.
(I have pictures that you wouldn't want to see)

PS-Our bass player lost all four of the fingers on his left hand--he plays with the stubs. So I cant complain!

Ouch! I've worked with power tools since wood shop in high school. I guess I've been really lucky, of course, having a shop teacher that taught me the proper safety measures was a huge help. We did have one kid who ran his hand 1/2 way into a band saw from the pinky side (perpendicular to the fingers) but, that was when Mr. Cox was out and they had a substitute. Of course, if the kid had properly set the guard on the band saw, that never would have happened. I have suffered a few VERY mildly scuffed fingertips while shaping a bone nut on a grinding wheel but that's about it. Rule #1, keep your hands well away from the blade! I know you're thinking "duh" but, it happens! Know when to use a push stick if there's not enough room for your hands to push the wood through (like when you're using a rip fence). Then USE it. Never set the blade higher than necessary to make the cut.Never remove any safety devices, no matter how much of a pain in the butt they might be! Example, my POS Craftsman table saw has a guard over the blade with an anti-kickback mechanism. The guard does get in the way and the anti kickback thing can gouge the wood, but, it's there for a reason! Good luck to y'all and BE SAFE!

I like hand tools too. I was taught at an early age how to keep them sharp and use them, and I still have a few saws and chisels I inherited from my grandfather, a professional carpenter. If you go on Ebay and search "Warmoth" you'll always find at least a few $300 guitar bodies that some numbnut butchered up with a power router, trying to make a pickup hole you could do in 20 minutes with a sharp chisel... too bad that Stradivarius guy didn't have some ripsaws, he might've amounted to something.