A good article on Table saw Safety

Good article Bob. Thanks

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

It is a very good article and I notice two things that could be improved upon.

Cutting repetitive parts using the miter gauge against an applied stop fastened to the fence. The distance between the cut off applied stop on a fence that cannot be retracted, should be greater then “Z” assuming “X” = the width of the board and “Y”= the length of the board and “Z” the distance from corner to kitty corner…......thus if cut off piece turns it cannot jamb up between fence and blade.

Small tenons cut on a table saw where the rails are pushed through vertically on some elaborate jig…..... way easier to lay them down horizontally and if you use two pieces back to back you avoid “blowout”. Not only do I find it a faster method with the same result, I also find it easier to “tweak” the amount of wood being removed for the “perfect” fit…............just an opinion on that one!

Cheers

-- http://www.furnituremann.ca/

Nice article Bob. We can’t preach enough about safety. Too often we get complacent when using familiar tools and forget about practicing safe sawing.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

Thank you for the link. It is always good to review.

-- Hope Never fails

Thanks fellas. We all need good info to stay productive and safe.
Roman, that’s a good point you make with the minimum space that’s safe for cut offs.
I’ve looked at that a few times and wondered if I was leaving a good enough safety margin.
I wasn’t.
Thanks for the tip.

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

“The reality of using a portable tablesaw is to learn how to work safely with the guard off the saw”.

Frankly, I question the wisdom of the above statement in this article. It is sort of an Oxymoron. In a practical sense, using a table saw without the guard will continue to send guys to the emergency rooms no matter how well meaning this article is. Last summer, one of the workmen that was building my new shop was hand feeding 2’ boards through a portable saw without guards. Both of his hands were going past the spinning blade. I took all the boards away from him and safely cut them on my bandsaw.

My point – if a cut requires taking the guard off the blade, think of some other way to accomplish the task. Even hand tools can be put to use on some occasions. I stop to think every time I’m uncomfortable with how I’m using a tool, and I can tell you that using a table saw without the guard always makes me feel very apprehensive.

To each his own – but after twenty five years of woodworking I still have all ten.

-- "Heaven is North of the Bridge"

great artical bob , thanks for posting that ! and romans x, y, z formula is also an important issue . so thank you as well roman !
after 30 years making my living with a table saw without a guard i still have my favorite six ! lol (just kidding )

Bob,

Great article. Have you noticed, though, that in all the pictures in the article the blade guard is not installed. The saw has a riving knife but the guard is still useful to protect the hand from getting close or from things accidentally dropping on the blade. A guy on the web described how he dropped a 2×4 on a spinning blade and had the piece thrown in his head. This knocked him right off.

Not using all the safety features of the saw in a safety article does not sound good to me.
It only takes me about 30 seconds to install/desinstall the blade guard. And I have a contractor saw not known for ease of installing the guard.

Alin

-- -- Alin Dobra, Gainesville, Florida