Pretty gruesome … but a good safety reminder. Thanks for posting!
Somebody asked him how he did it … here’s the text of his response:
How did I do it?
Its a recently new machine for me. I was practicing some sanding.
The machine has two motors and a seperate switch for each. One motor drives the drum and one drives the in-feed table (its now evident to me there are some safety issues with this set-up). I had turned off the in-feed table and this may have put in my mind that everything was off. I then for some unknown reason put my right hand under the drum head, then the next thing I knew my fingers were jamb up in the machine. I quickly reailsed the drum was still going and reached over to turn it off. Then I tried to pull my fingers out and they wouldn’t budge without pain. I thought about calling out to the Missus (but she wouldn’t of heard me) to get the fire brigade but they probably would have wanted to destroy the machine, and I wasn’t going to have that. So I un-did the allen key headed screw that holds the cover shut, thank christ I only had this finger tight. I flipped the cover open to see my fingures caught between the drum and a 15mm dia roller bar that sits about 6mm off the sanding drum. After a couple of goes at getting them back out I decided that I just have to gritt my teeth and go for it… to hell with the pain… and got them out.
Before I started sanding I changed the sandpaper from 80 grit to 40 grit.
The sanding drum spins anti clockwise so it just grabbed my fingers and pulled them in an up in a flash.
As I’m walking inside I’m wriggling the fingers and everthing seems okay. Gets inside says to the missus I need bandage. She comes with a bandade, she sees it and says you need the doctor. So around to the local we go. I says to the doc just needs to be pulled together and stitched. The doc says no no it needs more than that you’re off to the Royal Perth.
My stay and treatment at the Royal Perth was absoultly fantastic.
This one fingure typing sure buggers a person out.
-- Gerry -- "I don't plan to ever really grow up ... I'm just going to learn how to act in public!"
