How did I missed this post....
Ok, Riving Knife...some history....At the 60th the traditional Splitter (or "Spreader" according to OSHA) was dropped in UK (and later all Europe) and the "Riving Knife" took it place...of course, the makers were given the time to adjust themselves to the new regulation (usually, around 5 years) but at the end of the period, "no entry to EU without riving knife" (and all the old TS's had to be modified)...
First for Stu, the Riving Knife (RK) thickness
European RK and US RK are a little bit different because of the OSHA safety regulations that demands the Anti-Kickback pawl (or fingers) to be attached to the RK and that means that the RK, must be higher than the blade....I think that there are more problems with the US RK but let's leave them aside.
The Euro RK is installed some 1/8" below the blade(but can be adjusted up/down) and 1/8"~5/16" (max) behind the blade...it goes up, down and tilts with the blade but remains all the time at the same reference position to the blade till (like welded together) and it will disappear under the table together with the blade...
The Blade guard is "clicked" into a groove on the RK and tight with wing nut....and must include dust removal port (according to the "dust control" regulation) so, it takes 1 second on...1 second off....it was done that way to encourage the usage of blade guard...
You may ask why the EU regulations do not require the "Anti-kickback pawls"...from what I read around, I understood that, they claim that they are not exactly effective and are more bothering that helping and many tend to remove them...so the EU "invented" new regulation..."The rip fence must be adjustable in length and have two positions; High for thick wood and Low for shallow wood cuts
It's called also "Short Fence" and it comes to prevent any kickback due to "Reaction wood"...
There is another EU safety regulation that is in force since 2005..."The blade must stop rotation within 10 seconds"....and from the end of this year, all the woodworking and metalworking rotating machines without permanent guard...
As I understood from reading around, there are some problems with inertial forces that can damage the motor or lead to arbor nut getting loose (my blade stops within 6 seconds) due to the high deceleration and that's the reason that a dado blade that is very "Massy" cannot be installed on the new designs and if the blade diameter is more than 10", a stop pin should be installed on the arbor and the blade must have mating hole...
That's all what I know...
Regards
niki