the rip snorter push block

[Togalosh]

Hello,

We need to be careful what we 'learn' from American woodworkers. Until very recently, their table saws were not equipped with riving knives and crown guards as we understand them, so all kinds of gizmos have been developed there. If a gizmo causes us to down grade our saws to the American standard, then we should avoid like the plague.

I have to admit, though, I find a table saw invaluable for cutting tenon cheeks, and this is impossible to do with a riving knife which is higher than the top of the saw teeth. In a small workshop having a dedicated tenoner is unlikely, so there is no real alternative for me. I reduced the height of the riving knife on my saw to just below the top of the saw blade and obviously had to lose the crown guard from there. I added a boom with a guard and overhead extraction and would advise anyone who needs to remove the crown guard for a similar situation, to do the same. This set up will not allow silly rip snorter push blocks, either.

Mike.

Did you buy the overhead extraction or DIY one?..any pics??

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

If I were doing it now, in the shed which serves as my home workshop, I would DIY overhead saw guarding/extraction. As it is, I had a small, one man professional shop, so I had equipped my table saw with the Axminster boom thingy. TBH my table saw was not up to commercial use and it was only ever intended as a stop gap until I got the 'forever' saw, but this never happened and I now woodwork as a hobby (home owner necessity!)

The boom was originally fixed to the RH extension table of the saw. When I moved into the shed ( the move is still under going, everything is not set up just yet) I thought it would be better for space saving, if my router table was the RH extension table of the saw. This meant that the leg which supported the boom would be in the way, so I re jigged the thing to hang down from the roof beam. This is where a DIY solution would have sufficed, but I already had the bits, so I used those. It would not have been hard to do from scratch, though, there were enough mods needed to get mine to work, it might as well have been a scratch build.

When I sort the rest of the shed out, I'll post some piccies. I have no storage at the minute, so the tools are stacked everywhere, it is a mess. I'm working on a new bench with storage to solve the problem, but a big job broke out at home, so there is a delay for the mo. I think people will find the bench interesting, I'll post pics of that too when I'm done.

Mike.

 

[Tony Spear]

:? Is it me? I can't see what it's supposed to do?

It's American you f**l - design it first, then find a use for it!

 

[Jacob]

I kind of wonder how robust a crown guard is. I've just purchased a new bench saw from those nice Devon company, and like my old Rexon the crown guard is quite a flimsy plastic type construction bolted onto the riving knife. In day of old, saws had in my recollection battleship type guards.

My thinking is if you deflected a crown guard into the moving saw blade, my guess is that the guard would shatter.

I'm not advocating removing guards (nip that idea in the bud before that thread escalates), but how effective and suitable are the ones on say sub £420 machines.

Be interesting to hear other views on the subject.

Regards

Aden

Mine's steel (Minimax combi). Plastic sounds wrong to me - I've had plastic push sticks shatter and now only use wooden ones. I think a wood crown guard would be better than plastic - and would damage the blade less than a steel one come to think.

Oh no it isn't it's plastic. Don't know why I said that. The riving knife is steel.
2 boring push sticks is the way!