Let's say you're feeding a longish piece of wood into a machine tool; it could be a table saw, a router table, shaper, jointer or band saw. As the tail end of the board comes near you -- being safety concious -- want to reach back and hook a push stick over the end so you will be able to feed it past the blade safely. But as you look back for just a moment to do this, you leave the other hand completely unsupervised as it continues to feed the wood into the cutter opening the opportunity for it to do something really stupid; like getting intimate with the cutter.

I have met several woodworkers who will proudly display a mutilated hand and proclaim, "You are not a real woodworker until you've lost at least one finger!" I heartily disagree. It is my opinion that a true professional craftsman will protect his assets, and some of his (or her) most valuable business assets are his (or her) fingers.

Oh, sure, folks have learned to function without parts of their body. I've seen a video about a woman who was born without any arms, yet she is capable of driving a car, cooking her meals, cleaning her home, even caring for her infant -- all with just her feet. She does things differently than you and I would, but she gets them done. The question is, would *you* want to have to make those adjustments?

It is far better to keep what you have than to learn to use what you have left.

So, if you MUST take your eyes off of the cut you're making, make absolutely sure your leading hand is out of the way first. Use a push pad or pull the hand far enough away from the cutter to be safe or stop the feed altogether. Worried about having to sand a burn mark off the wood? If your hand contacts the cutter you'll be sanding blood stains out of the wood... which is worse?