Jointer Safety

The jointer is an excellent tool, for making edges, smooth, straight and square, but there are a couple of things you have to be aware of, with a jointer, to make sure that you stay safe, when you're using one. Let me give you a couple of rules of the road, for jointer use. What I want to talk about first, is your hand position. It's very important that you do this correctly, to keep your fingers away from danger areas. With your left hand, you should hook your thumb over the top of the board, and use your left fingers, to press the board gently against the fence. I want you to consciously hook that thumb, so that it reduces the chance of your hand being able to slip toward the cutter head. So, this is a good hand position for that left hand. Where your fingers are, is important, because if your fingers get up too high on a wide board, they can cause the bottom of the board to tip out, away from the fence. Of course, if your finger get too low, you're getting way too close to that cutter head. In fact, if your fingers brush on this guard, at all, they're too low, they're too close to the cutter. So, in between the top of the guard, and the top of the fence, is a good spot for these fingers, with your thumb engaged over the top of the board. Your right hand is fairly simple. Your right hand is simply going to drape on the back of the board, like this. Now, one thing I try to do is, stop bad habits from happening, and break bad habits if people do have them. Sometimes I see people push the board through the jointer, like this, with there thumb hooked on the back side, like this, and, you know, with this board, you might get away with that. It's a bad habit, because, some day, if you joint a board, that's narrower than your thumb is long, you're going to get way down here by the table, and you're going to have a problem. So, I want to see your thumb up here on top, with the rest of your fingers. Just a little bit of down pressure from both hands, and you'll be ready to make a cut. Now, a couple more obvious standard shop rules. I've got short sleeves, or I'll roll my sleeves, up past my elbows. No jewelry on, and of course, you want hearing protection, and eye protection while we're making the cuts. Now those rules all work great, for a wider board like this. Sometimes though, you have occasion to edge join a board that's a little bit narrower. My line in the sand on the next setup here is, when the board is narrower than the fence is tall, I'm going to do this a little bit differently. In this case, hooking my thumb and pressing with my fingers, will get me too close to that cutter head. So, I want to add some stuff here. I'm going to use a push pad, in the place of my left hand, and a big push stick, in the place of my right hand. The push pad has a neoprene pad on the bottom of it. The neoprene is really sticky, so unless you have some kind of little suction cups, like a fly, on your fingers, this can provide a grip on that board, that your fingers can't. So, we're going to use this in lieu of your left hand. I'm pushing against the fence, and down, and this, because it's got a little heel on it back here, that heel is going to engage, on the back end of the board, and that's going to let me propel this through, in one fluid motion. If you keep those simple safety rules in mind, when you're using your jointer, you'll always be using your machine safely.