I never said I would do it! And Ive never known anyone to attempt it.Yeah so I mean I figured it wasn't safe. But I've seen it done and as Chris attests above, some people are happy to do it. I guess my question was: what is the way in which using a jointer without a fence will cause an injury? Does it increase the kickback risk? It's an easy problem to fix... I'll just put a straight 2x4 where the fence mount screws are for jointing wide boards.
I just picked up a nice little 10" shortbed jointer, like this one (gloat over). While the cutterhead is 10", with the fence installed it has a max capacity of 8". Is it dangerous to face joint a wide board without a fence? Like if one edge wandered off the cutterhead and then wandered back on?