Table saw safety

[BorisTheBlade]

I find that amusing. You've maybe noticed that I seldom get into discussions about using wood machinery safely, and it's because I don't have the patience to get into what can develop into a long and frustrating discussion. Nowadays, I tend to leave the protagonists in such debates to it; they're not my fingers or other fleshy bits, nor are they fleshy bits of people I do have responsibility for in a workshop.

I will, however, throw this old article I co-wrote about ripping on the table saw twenty or more years ago and leave it at that. People can make of it whatever they will. Slainte.

Thanks for the link, making my way through it - have to say the epic moustache is both glorious and very distracting.

 

[LJM]

Oh dear, I've been clumsy in my approach, wording and inadvertently caused offence. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Can you elaborate why you use two sticks and never touch the table? I mean if you do as your grandfather did, you presumably wouldn't have a riving knife, dust extraction, crown guard etc... I'm trying to make a distinction between 'because I said so' and a logical explanation. Thanks in advance for your time if you get a chance to reply.

I wrote of my father, not my grandfather (neither was a woodworker); I, like my father, use both a riving knife and crown guard.

I don’t touch the table, because there is no need to do so, and to do so would brink my hands unnecessarily close to the blade.

Using 2 push sticks means I have no need to bring my hands close to the blade, and that should should something unplanned occur, the sticks are vulnerable, not my digits.

 

[RobinBHM]

Gents, I'm a very inexperienced table saw user and feel I have had a lot of good advice from people on this forum. Can I ask about where a fence should end. I have had people say in line with the motor spindle so that no part of the rising side of the blade is next to the fence (this on a small cheep saw like mine makes for a very small fence) or at the rear edge of the blade which I don't understand. All the saws in my price range seem to have a fence that goes all the way across the table. At present I have attached a secondary fence to the original that ends just past the blade center. I take it off if cutting very long items which need more support and have been known (this will probably horrify you to stand the other side of the table and pull rather than push on the last part of long cuts.

Tell me what I should be doing, I have no objection to being criticized by those who know what they are talking about.

On that point it would be a great shame if people with knowledge stopped offering it due to seeing poor advice.

When ripping solid timber, I recommend this:

set fence (or add on) so it finishes anywhere between the back of the saw tooth gullet and the middle of the spindle - but using such a set up - use a push stick tight against the fence to push through the end of the cut.

By the way if you are cross cutting with a mitre fence and are using the rip fence as a stop - the wood MUST leave the stop before cutting starts.


And one useful point: blade height; sometimes it’s safer to have the blade quite a bit higher than the stock - it creates downward force and avoids the rather scary moment when the work starts to ride over the blade.

 

[Doug71]

@Ozi there is nothing wrong with going around the back of the table saw and pulling through longer lengths, it's the safest place to be!

It can take a bit of practise getting used to keeping the wood tight against the fence when you are pulling though.

 

[Kayen]

Haha - that's my wife's favourite quote when using my expensive pliers as a hammer and cutlery as a screwdriver when there are 20 of them in the garage and four in the next room

Yeah I think I got it from my wife when she uses my 1" Marples chisel to open a paint can

 

[Bingy man]

Very interesting discussion and informative but I’m a little confused, I have a dewalt 745 lx portable table saw as my workshop is quite small and also the saw travels to some jobs with me . I’ve been using it for about 2 years now with no accidents but a couple of brown trouser moments . No1 moment was attempting to cut a 8-4 sheet of 18 mm ply on my own-no 2 was attempting to a taper cut freehand , no 3 was ripping a badly twisted piece of timber which then jammed against the fence /blade. No 1 solution was to build an extended frame/ table to support large sheets and get a 2nd person to assist. No 2 was to abandon taper cuts and use circular saw . No 3 ignore twisted/ warped timber . My query is the fence on my saw runs the entire length of the table as designed,,is this ok ? I use a single push stick toward the end of the cut and I also use 3D pushblocks for some cuts . I’ve also on a few occasions removed the riving knife ( to cut larger timber than my saw can cope with by cutting halfway then turning it over for the remainder of the cut . I’m very safety conscious and welcome criticism if anything I’ve said is concerning or outright dangerous. Also are there now circular saws on sale that don’t have the riving knife?? Many thanks

 

[BorisTheBlade]

I wrote of my father, not my grandfather (neither was a woodworker); I, like my father, use both a riving knife and crown guard.

I don’t touch the table, because there is no need to do so, and to do so would brink my hands unnecessarily close to the blade.

Using 2 push sticks means I have no need to bring my hands close to the blade, and that should should something unplanned occur, the sticks are vulnerable, not my digits.

But that's my point, in my mind you're ranking your digits in higher regard than your head/life when you're trying to manoeuvre a piece through a machine like Mr Bean drives a car using the brushes and paint tins

Very interesting discussion and informative but I’m a little confused, I have a dewalt 745 lx portable table saw as my workshop is quite small and also the saw travels to some jobs with me . I’ve been using it for about 2 years now with no accidents but a couple of brown trouser moments . No1 moment was attempting to cut a 8-4 sheet of 18 mm ply on my own-no 2 was attempting to a taper cut freehand , no 3 was ripping a badly twisted piece of timber which then jammed against the fence /blade. No 1 solution was to build an extended frame/ table to support large sheets and get a 2nd person to assist. No 2 was to abandon taper cuts and use circular saw . No 3 ignore twisted/ warped timber . My query is the fence on my saw runs the entire length of the table as designed,,is this ok ? I use a single push stick toward the end of the cut and I also use 3D pushblocks for some cuts . I’ve also on a few occasions removed the riving knife ( to cut larger timber than my saw can cope with by cutting halfway then turning it over for the remainder of the cut . I’m very safety conscious and welcome criticism if anything I’ve said is concerning or outright dangerous. Also are there now circular saws on sale that don’t have the riving knife?? Many thanks

'Brown trouser moments LOL. I bought a track saw after cutting a sheet of ply on the table saw. Never again. I think that's what panel saws and track saws were created for, all the push sticks in the world won't get me doing that again!

 

[Bingy man]

But that's my point, in my mind you're ranking your digits in higher regard than your head/life when you're trying to manoeuvre a piece through a machine like Mr Bean drives a car using the brushes and paint tins


'Brown trouser moments LOL. I bought a track saw after cutting a sheet of ply on the table saw. Never again. I think that's what panel saws and track saws were created for, all the push sticks in the world won't get me doing that again!

So very true , ended up wrecking the plywood and nearly giving myself a heart attack-never again

 

[Bingy man]

My answer to cutting larger timber and sheet wood ( not 8-4) lol

 

[LJM]

But that's my point, in my mind you're ranking your digits in higher regard than your head/life when you're trying to manoeuvre a piece through a machine like Mr Bean drives a car using the brushes and paint tins

What a bizarre conclusion

 

[TRITON]

Anyway - on this page you can download the proper video instructions for safe use of the ripsaw.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/woodworking/ripsaw.htm
On this page of the HSE safe use of saw bench, the left hand is on the table at the start f the cut, applying side pressure, the right uses a push stick to put the timber right through.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/wis16.pdf
If of course you are uncomfortable with having your hand on the table, but remember you are only guiding it so far, and not to the point it is close to the blade, OR the timbers giving a propensity to move away from the fence, then you could use a second push stick to apply side pressure and keep it tight to the fence. I see no harm in that.
Using a single push stick, especially when the timber wants to move away from the fence, you are not only trying to apply forward pressure to push it through but also trying to apply side pressure and keep it tight to the fence. I would say trying to do two things with the one push stick is not the way you should look at it.

If you've got a lot of identical rip cuts to do, you could fit a featherboard to the table to apply the side pressure and then its only the right hand you need use to control the push stick.

ALTERNATIVELY
Buy a sawstop saw.
Problem solved.

 

[jetsetwilly]

Here's another (recently converted!) proponent of both Sawstop and two pushsticks - Reg Kreuger, who got a pretty good chunk taken out of his left thumb when he lost concentration while making repeated rips and recovering the offcut with his left hand for the next rip. .

 

[Bingy man]

Here's another (recently converted!) proponent of both Sawstop and two pushsticks - Reg Kreuger, who got a pretty good chunk taken out of his left thumb when he lost concentration while making repeated rips and recovering the offcut with his left hand for the next rip. .

Says it all really

 

[TRITON]

Another thing to notice about that vid is the blade looks to be fully up. The saw he has is 80mm depth of cut, and it looks like its up to max. The timber he's cutting looks to be about 1",maybe 30mm.
Personally I have it so just about the gullets clear. Say about 8mm through the workpiece.

 

[Inspector]

One other thing that may have added to the severity of his thumb injury is that if it was the same kind of blade as the one in the saw for the video the chip limiting teeth slow down the braking action. Those blades should not be used in a SawStop table saw. I have a set of dado blades with them on and had the saw sharpening place in town grind them off. Then of course got a real good deal on a better set without the limiting teeth.

Pete

 

[Ozi]

@Ozi there is nothing wrong with going around the back of the table saw and pulling through longer lengths, it's the safest place to be!

It can take a bit of practise getting used to keeping the wood tight against the fence when you are pulling though.

Thanks Doug. That's what I thought but I new I didn't know if you take my meaning, half expected to find a video here this morning with a mans head rolling out of a workshop door.

 

[Fergie 307]

There are primarily 2 dangers:

1) getting cut by the saw blade

2) getting injured by a piece being thrown back

both can cause catastrophic injuries

violent kick backs are operator error and are mitigated by a number of elements:

riving knife
crown guard / overhead guard
position of rip fence
type of material
size of material
lack of consideration for offcuts
poor technique

Its not really push stick versus no push stick -its all of the above together

I would add a very important item. A sharp blade. You are far more likely to have problems with any saw if the blade is blunt.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Thanks for the link, making my way through it - have to say the epic moustache is both glorious and very distracting.

The moustache hasn't gone away, but it's twenty years greyer, so maybe not quite so, hmm[?], epic and distracting. I did try going moustache-less for a while about fifteen years ago; hated the look and resurrected the hairy top lip pretty quickly, and I've never had to put any effort into Movember, which I studiously ignore anyway. Slainte.

 

[BorisTheBlade]

The moustache hasn't gone away, but it's twenty years greyer, so maybe not quite so, hmm[?], epic and distracting. I did try going moustache-less for a while about fifteen years ago; hated the look and resurrected the hairy top lip pretty quickly, and I've never had to put any effort into Movember, which I studiously ignore anyway. Slainte.

I have had a beard for the past 8-10 years and had it since I first met my wife. I had to shave it off due to an altercation with some asbestos tiles and I looked like a P.O.W as the sun hadn't touched my face for so long! You need to post a picture of the grey beast.

 

[BorisTheBlade]

What a bizarre conclusion

I have to confess to being a teacher by trade and go from school to school teaching loads of kids who I only see for 45 mins a week. If they're laughing, they're learning. I feel that in the same vein, if we can have fun whilst having conflicting ideas we can keep a positive energy that's conducive to constructive debate. I feel it was more hilarious than bizzare but I may be slightly biassed. It does conjure up an image...