Should Four-sided Planer Moulders be braked?
Four-sided planer moulders fall within the group of woodworking machines that require employers to carry out a risk assessment to find out if they need to fit brakes. However, Woodworking Information Sheet No. 38 PUWER 98: Retrofitting of braking to woodworking machines advises that the only reason for not fitting brakes would be if there was no added benefit. An example of this would be if the machine was in an enclosure with interlocked doors, where the interlocks prevented the doors being opened until the cutters had come to rest, using either a time delay or a stop/motion sensor. Woodworking Information Sheet No.40 Safe use of four sided moulding machines provides good reasons for braking to be fitted: • On older four-sided planer moulders the spindle stopping time can be as high as five minutes. • Most accidents could have been prevented if the cutters had come to rest before operators approached them. • Out of 125 accidents investigated access to the cutters with the machinery ru
