Fine Woodworking – Tablesaw Safety

6 Responses to “Fine Woodworking – Tablesaw Safety”

1. Mike Roberts says:

   September 28, 2008 at 6:18 pm

   “The piece moves away from the fence and gets on the back of the saw”…? That must be some weird kind of kickback I have never seen or heard about. To “move away from the fence” during a cutthe wood would somehow have to travel through the blade sideways.

   In my experience kickback tends to happen in one of two situations:

   1. When the wood _closes_ on the saw blade. The splitter’s job is simply to prevent the kerf from closing.

   2. When the saw blade and fence are not perfectly aligned (or the wood flexes during the cut) and the piece is pushed _into_ the fence, causing it to compress and act like a spring. A splitter won’t help you here.

   Reply
   • Sarit says:

     October 13, 2009 at 4:18 am

     The presenter is correct. What happens is as the wood moves away from the fence at the back, it is being angled towards the back side of the spinning blade. Remember that blade is spinning at you so the teeth on the blade are rising up from the table at the back. Eventually the side of the wood catches on one of the spinning teeth at the back. This causes the whole board to be lifted up on the top of the spinning blade. At the top, the teeth that were once rising are now pulling the board right at you. Since the center of gravity is usually to the right of the blade, this catching, lifting, and pulling causes the board to continue to rotate in a counter clockwise motion, which in turn moves more wood over the top of the blade, ensuring that the piece goes flying.

     and since the board is no longer blocked by the blade it is free to spin towards you.

     Reply
   • Jason says:

     February 24, 2010 at 6:21 pm

     Kickback occurs just like it was said, when the board comes away from the fence. This happens typically for one of a few reasons. One could be the board does not have a straight edge, simply fixed by running it across the jointer first. A second possibility if the operator is standing to the left of the fence. This causes the natural body direction to push the board toward the blade. A third possibility is that the persons hand is against the fence on a wide board. This causes a pivoting action rather than just a forward motion. Your thumb should be wrapped over the back of the board at the center of the board, and your fingers on top pushing down and sideways at the same time to help it stay against the fence. I find it helpful to lick or wet your fingertips like you do when turning a page to help grip the wood. Hope this helps. Tooldad & high school shop teacher.

     Reply
2. Oneil Long says:

   March 10, 2010 at 8:14 pm

   I know just what you are talking about. Just about a week ago I was running a fairly long narrow peice of paneling through my table saw, and got in a hurry to get the off cut peice out of the road, when all of a sudden, I let the main peice come away from the fence just a fraction of an inch. The back teeth caught the panel and threw it right into my stomach, hard enough that it left a pretty good red mark. It sure got my attention, and scared the heck out of me, but luckly I didn’t get hurt much worse. I foolshly had the blade guard off of the saw or it would not have happened.

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   • Mpewoodworks says:

     April 24, 2011 at 12:46 pm

     Another thing I see is that many set the blade so it just barely cuts through the material being cut. This makes it easy for the marerial to get on top of the blade!

     Reply
3. Tim Atkins says:

   September 5, 2010 at 6:35 am

   If you want to see a good demonstration of the kick back the FWW editor was taking about take a look here:
   http://www.metacafe.com/watch/.....nstration/

   Reply