Speaking of saws....................

Al Launier said:

One concern I always had/have when using a carbide blade is the fear of a tooth breaking off & flying who knows where. Never happened on my TS, but I've seen it happen in a machine shop. I usually wear safety glasses, or even a full face shield if I feel the need.

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I've never had one come loose myself out of about 25 blades over the years, but my FIL had one chip off the factory blade that came on his saw. He had been cutting a lot of hard maple, so probably was a bad weld that popped loose. He had a small scratch on his cheek from it, but had glasses on, not that it hit that high.

Vaughn McMillan said:

But I've had more close calls with a push stick than I'd like to count. I hate 'em, because they don't give a firm, solid hold of the wood that's being cut. I do feel comfortable with a push block like the Grr-ripper because I have better control of the wood as it goes through the blade, resulting in a better cut. When I was making fancy cutting boards a few years ago I was ripping a lot of thin (1/8" and 1/4") strips and getting a glue-ready cut. A push stick would have been real dicey for thin strips like that, and if I did use one, the cut wouldn't be nearly as smooth as what I can get with the Grr-ripper.

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Funny how things work different for different people. I have never had any issues with a home made push stick.Kinda prefer them to some thing store bought. easy to use never hurts the blade when you cut them in half and as long as you have scraps you have stock to make a new one out of. But on the flip side I have never been a fan of them push blocks for my jointer.

on my portable I refuse to run a guard. (several years ago I had a long board tip up and actually pop the guard off the saw, albeit it was a cheap saw not the one I have now, and it was shot back at me along with alot of shrapnel from the plastic exploding when the blade hit it.) I never used one again even when I bought a good quality portable. With regards to my cabinet saw I have an overhead guard with dust collection that I use constantly. the only time it gets in the way is on narrow cuts and I just raise it up accordingly. otherwise it is perfect for 99 percent of the operations I perform and I love the dc part it keeps the chips and fines from flying in my face when cutting. I dont always have the lower dc hooked up because on a ts it has so many places of air loss that the suction is far less than necessary to do an adequate job of removal.

Chuck Thoits said:

Funny how things work different for different people. I have never had any issues with a home made push stick.Kinda prefer them to some thing store bought. easy to use never hurts the blade when you cut them in half and as long as you have scraps you have stock to make a new one out of. But on the flip side I have never been a fan of them push blocks for my jointer.

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I just never liked the feeling of getting the push stick into the blade on narrow cuts. Plus, it's only holding the end of the board down on the table...the front of the board can rise. But I used them for years. That's how I was taught...the big cabinet saw in high school shop had no guard, but we used push sticks religiously. I didn't convert to the Grr-ripper until 6 or 7 years ago, after I had a few 1/8" thick strips of maple get away from the push stick and come shooting back at me.

I agree with you on the typical push blocks like the ones that came with my jointer, but the Grr-ripper feels a lot more substantial and "in control" than my other push blocks when using it. (I use it on the jointer and the router table when necessary, too.) I do use a scrap wood push stick for some things on the bandsaw, though.

I should say, though, that if I was cutting a lot of sheet goods or longer, wider lumber, I'd probably be inclined to use a blade guard more. But I'd say 80% to 90% of the wood I've ripped on my table saw was for cutting boards and boxes, so I was typically dealing with 18" to 24" boards at the most, and often cutting strips between 3/8" and 1/16" thick. (Although I've gotta admit for the 1/16" strips, I do those on the offcut side of the blade.)

I was making a narrow cut with a push stick once and after pushing the stock through, on the return the stick caught the back of the saw blade. my hand was a lot softer than the red oak flooring scrap I used for the push stick. the force shot the stick into my hand and tore off the skin over most of my palm spun me around hit the ceiling the wall behind me and shot back under the saw bounced up and hit my father in the leg.. luckily it didnt go through my hand and only tore off the top several layers of flesh.. I rarely use a push stick but I will in a pinch. Many times when I do Its when the cut is making small moldings and I cant flip it part way through, in those cases I actually will use two push sticks one for the part and one for the waste. I got in the habit of that system and it has worked well for me. I dont recommend it though, a guy in the shop I worked in saw me doing it and tried to copy me. it wasnt pretty... fortunately he didnt lose any digits but came close to breaking a couple fingers and needed to change his shorts. he was holding the second push stick at the wrong angle.....

I do like and will happily recommend the overarm guards if only for the dc capabilities. Its nice when ripping alot of maple or cedar or plywoods not to be wearing all those fuzzies and fines that come off the blade and seem to hit you in the face. and having to sneeze in the middle of a cut has presented itself as one of lifes biggest challenges

On the issue of push sticks and over the blade guards: A push stick needs to push AND hold down. That is why the Gripper works so well. I traced a hand saw handle at a good ergonomic angle, attached a small block at the back end to push. The rest of the surface ~6-7 inches long holds teh wood down. See the plan in my book.

For the blade guard, I removed the plastic shroud from the OEM guard, attached a 3/8" thick piece of plastic about 1-1/2" wide and 8-9" long. I rounded the corners and it looks a lot like a hot dog, and so someone named it just that. Then I carefully tweaked things until the back of the OEM guard would act as an accurate splitter. It comes off with one bolt for dado cuts or very narrow rips. It easily flips up when I need to check a blade to fence measurement.

I'd do pictures but I can barely see the saw in the PP.

Al Launier said:

• How many of you remove the safety guard from your table saw?I don't use a guard on my saw. Never liked them and only used them when we had to because some one cut them selves on the saw and we put them on for a couple of days because OSHA might come by. The one for my current saw I sent to someone in Canada that bought a TS3650 and needed a guard.
• How many leave it on? See above.
• How many use a dust collector of any kind on a table saw?99% of the time
• How effective is any dust collection device/system on a table saw? It keeps the cabinet spotless. I still need to do something with the over blade dust collectoin but doubt that I ever will.

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On a side note one shop I worked in a guy cut 2 fingers and his thumb off while using the stock guard on a unisaw.

Alan Bienlein said:

On a side note one shop I worked in a guy cut 2 fingers and his thumb off while using the stock guard on a unisaw.

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Stupid is stupid. There is no piece of equipment, or gadgetry that will prevent somebody from hurting themselves if they have their heads in the up and locked position.

A shop I used to work at, there was a dude who removed, (I think), three fingers on a three head moulder. You couldn't even see the heads. They were gone, buried, inaccesible without opening the hood. Had you asked me that morning how you hurt yourself on that piece of equipment I would've said it required a blindfold, and you running straight at it at top speed. But, he managed to stick his hand in between a door that was being fed into the moulder and the conveyor. (this moulder cut the edge detail and sanded it in one pass) He removed his digits via crushing them. Hope he enjoys buying flip top containers vs. jars the rest of his life. Schmuck....

There was a thread on a the other forum some years ago about the Sawstop, and how having the system armed didn't change the way people ran the saw. They compared it to wearing a seatbelt and how it doesn't effect their driving habits. I call baloney on that. Simply because if you push the topic in the opposite direction it certainly has an affect. When I ride a motorcycle, and I run a few blocks to the post office wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops, I'm mega careful. The opposite of that is when I used to do track days, full leathers, helmet, and an ambulance on standby, I pushed physics as hard as I could. Being stupid, not knowing your limitations, or not knowing the material you are working with can all lead to having your wife open the mayonaise jar the rest of your days when working with sharp rotating anything. Sometimes you need to identify a piece of wood half way through a cut as being nothing more than filler for the landfill and pull it out of the blade part way through. Sometimes you have to know that that little piece of scrap you want to cut just isn't worth the risk. Wood is cheap.

There's two approaches to safety. Either you make it so the lowest common denominator can not hurt themselves, or, you make it require the utmost in attentiveness because screwing up will in any form will result in a failure you may not want to deal with. Ask any pilot what the cost is of not paying attention. You, and however many souls on board end up a grease spot in a field somewhere if he doesn't do it exactly correct.

You might think I'm casual, or dismissive about safety, but I promise you that isn't true. This is really the only job I've ever known and I try my best to be hyper aware, and let muscle memory take care of things. But, those two things that really only come from experience. I might be in the same camp as others if I did woodworking casually or for fun, instead of 50+ every week. Most of the gadgets and safety equipment becomes a hinderance or give people to much confidence in my eyes. I would never, ever, ever trust a brake or anything of that nature to keep me counting to ten without taking off my shoes.

This is a great discussion!

I have some questions though. I see a lot of talk about the GRIPPER. I'm sorry folks, that thing freaks me out! Putting your hand over the blade on through cuts? Not for me. Doesn't applying extra pressure over the blade mess up your non-through dadoes? I just can't wrap my head around the GRIPPPPPER.

No one has mentioned featherboards (or maybe I missed the mention). I use a featherboard for probably 60% of my rips. For narrow rips (2" or less) I also use a vertical featherboard mounted to the fence, behind the blade edge. Probably about 80% of the time for those cuts. For VERY narrow rips, I use my thin rip jig and cut the good wood off the opposite side of the fence.

Personally, I use the OEM blade guard on my TS 3650 100% of the time that I'm not being lazy. I will admit I've taken it off for a non-through cut then didn't put it back on for the next couple through cuts. The only problem with my OEM guard is the anti-kickback pawls are mounted approx 3/8" away from the splitter, so extremely narrow rips can slide between the splitter and the pawl.

I got tired of dealing with the stock blade guard/splitter setups a long time ago, and started replacing them with at least a simple shop made splitter, and skipped the guard altogether. Eventually I stumbled into the BORK riving knife and started using that instead of a shop made splitter. A couple of years ago I added the BORK Blade Guard...its small and transparent, and doesn't interfere as much as most stock guards do, so now I use that almost all the time. I also have always used push sticks, and now mainly use the Gripper as a push stick if the blade guard is in place. I've had DC on my TS for a good long time.