American TS safety?

[Honorary Bloke]

No other way to say it... This guys an idiot. Especially cause he has a fence that can slide so he can use the mitre gauge and or a push stick.

I'm not sure idiot does him justice. But they'll soon be calling him Lefty.

[rrich]

Dunno, maybe I'm just wierd. I have a splitter with anti kick back pawls that I use except for dado cuts. I don't make cuts with out this splitter in place. The splitter is made by Biesemeyer and is unique for each saw design. The splitter can be removed and re-installed in seconds. The cost was about $140US and worth every penny.

[soundman]

HMMM "American table saw safety".....that would have to be an oxymoron

Seriously though the whole WHS thing seems to be on a very different footing over there.

but sorry the old " the guard gets in the way" chestnut doesn't cut any ice with me or more so the regulators in this country ( then the EU is an other thing again)

There are good reasons to remove a guard ( or a riving knife) for certain operations. But there is no good reason for leaving it off all together.

If the guard is a problem it should be repaired or replaced with one that is safe and practical.
If the guard has to be removed for a special operation it should be replaced immediately on completion.

A lot of the time though its the operation that is the problem and not the guard.

As for the " I cant see the blade" excuse.
If you can see the blade & there is no guard between you and the blade...... guess what? the blade can throw stuff straight in your face.

If you are working off the fence you dont need to see the blade at all.
besides how much of the blade do you want to see?
do you recon that you can accurately cut by eyeing up the spinning blade?

My current machine has a overhead guard I can adjust it very easily and very rarely do i need to remove it.
The riving knife almost never comes off.
My previous machine had a splitter mounted guard with the anti kickback dogs.
I never had a problem with it getting in the way. or not being able to see what I wanted to.
I would have to agree the antikickback dogs were a pain, curiously never see them on european machines. anyway if there is a splitter or riving knife in place how do you get kick back? Sorry I don't get this one.

I think there are two main parts to the problem, one is the general attitude to safety issues in the US and the other is the american style cabinet saw its self.
The basic design makes it difficult to make certain things work nicely.

For example Because the blade arbour swings from a pivot at the front any riving knife fitted will rise and fall faster than the blade
because it is a simple relativly small box extending the fence & side table or adding a rolling table means you have to stabalise the unit by adding extra legs & bolting it down.
The basic design has reached its limit and is realy past its useby date it might be Ok for the hobbyist or the small workshop but it is realy tooo crude for serious industry.

I can see why a lot of respected US comentators consider a band saw much safer than a table saw for many operations particularly ripping.

Without a guard and riving knife fitted I would have to agree.
But with the proper (well concieved) safety items in place I would have to say a bench saw can be made a lot safer than a band saw can be.
(Yes I own a bandsaw too, & it is euro compliant)


Some will say that WHS has gone too far here..... well may be a little but not much........look at europe and you will see a much stricter situation.
there dado sets are stricly VERBOTEN.

anyway that should stir things up enough for now

cheers

[RossM]

Thanks for the detailed reply SoundMan.

You say there is an inherent problem with American style cabinet saws. This is interesting as I am looking at buying a new cabinet saw. Does this comment imply that other styles are better in this regard? I have not looked at the mechanisms of cabinet saws as yet, but I would have expected that the rise & fall system would be provided by a parallel (to the table) lifter. I can see how this would add cost, but we are talking about quite expensive machinery, and such a lift would be much more stable. I'll have to start investigating!

Do you have any suggestions about styles or brands? Should I restrict my options to "Euro" style saws?

On another note - some saws are left tilt and some right. Is one safer that the other? If so, why the difference??

[soundman]

the vast majority of the cabinet style table saws offered in AUS are derived from the US style delta unisaw.
And to a certain extent you are stuck with that unless you go well up market to the european derived machines like the fielder, hammer, and so forth.
I have the MBS300 mickyway saw that many of the local importers badge.
the reason I choose it was because it had a proper riving knife.... it is a good machine but it suffers from the limitations of its unisaw heritage.

the unisaw derived mechanism is a good stable design and solid but it has the limitations of a single front pivot point for rise & fall.

check out some saws & you will see what I mean...yopu'll have to stick your head inside take a torch

unless you have a few lasy thou, i think you will probably end up with a US derived design.
the TSC10HB and the MBS300 are good machines to look at.
I looked at one of the new jet machines at the wood show.... it seemed worth looking at.
So you'll probaly have to work arround the limitations & fix/replace the guards.
cheers

[RossM]

I'll take a tourch & spare batteries to the WWW show in Sydney (only a month or so away). Should be able to get a good idea of what is what there I guess.

[Tooljunkieyank]

Lignum, Here in the states no one ever said we were smart. Been around cabinet shops most of my life and I have never seen any knives or guards except on the ground or tucked away on a shelf somewhere.

Was at a local cabinet shop one day and we have a department here called OSHA. Part of the US labor department and they will just pop in on any worksite and infract you for your safety. Well while I was at this shop they came in and shut the shop down for no gaurds on most of the power tools, jointer gaurds not functioning properly, DC containers filled, over head air purifiers with clogged filters and also every outlet needed to be GFI for all machines.

I remember learning with my pops framing homes when I was younger and all the guys removed or stuck a shim under the guard of their CS since it was a problem and getting in the way. Thank God in all the years I have never seen an injury from a saw...

[Ernie47]

While you are all on the subject, I have just started using a TS. (One at the lower end of the price range.)
I have some recycled pine I have been ripping & the TS seems to struggle a bit although it does get through. (With the guard etc in place.)
I have been contemplating removing the guard & knife and lowering the blade to rip the timber in a few passes.
Is this the way to go or should I carry on ripping through with the guard etc in place?
Thanks in advance for your advice.

Ernie.

[journeyman Mick]

Ernie,
you might want to consider a proper ripping blade. Less teeth and will enable faster feed speed.

Mick

[RossM]

Earnie -

What size saw & what dimension timber?

I had simialr problems with a Triton & found that it was the riving knife out of alignment. Triton replaced it as it was slightly scewed. I then had problems with a thin kerf sawblade binding on the knife , so I sanded the riving knife about 0.25mm each dide. Now all works fine.

My first suggestion: Check knife & sawblade alignment. Use a straight edge accross the blade, contacting the teeth - I use a good quality Stabilo level (POWER OFF & UNPLUG THE SAW!!) The straight edge should not touch the knife. Do this on both side of the blade. Align the blade if needed so the knife clears on both sides.

Second suggestion - check the saw blade. Most low end saws come with combination blades (& I have seen low end hobby saws supplied with non carbide crosscut blades in a rip bench!) Best to use a rip blade if you are doing a lot of ripping, particularly on long lengths. If the wrong blade, it will struggle. Pine should rip well with a sharp rip blade. Buy good quality blades & use the right one for the job.

Third - Set the blade height properly. For a rip blade the carbide tip of the top tooth should be just above the top edge of the timber. For a combination blade, raise it so the deepest gullets just clear the top edge when the blade is rotated.

Also, reduce the feed rate a bit & see if this helps.

I have also found that saw power is important for ripping large sections.

I would not remove the knife!

[Wild Dingo]

Then there Incra... cant put the rear fence rail on and still put the blade cover and splitter back on WITHOUT cutting the rear fence rail... which to my mind would stuff the integrity of the damned rear fence rail and the overall of the whole rail... now its cut!... so Im still waiting on a better option than the no cover/spitter that presently resides on the TSB10 in the workshop... I did however make several different sized and torsioned adjustable hold downs that work of the fence I think Nikki made them with a wheel at the outfeed end? I couldnt work out a workaround to fit the wheel so I got a rubber covered bent handle and screwed that sucker to the metal rail thingy that attached to the fence... seems to work alright... well no lifting or grabbing and tossing from a 10ft x 6in x 1in board the other day being ripped into 1in x 1in lengths... with due dilligence and being fully functional and aware while using push sticks and flat handled push sticks it seemed to work with no issues

BUT I dont intend to cut through the damned Incra fence rail that just doesnnt make sence to me... I mean part of the integrity of the fence is that its held to the table at certian points along half its length right? RIGHT so if I then have to cut through the damned fence to fit the sodding cover and riving knive back on wheres the integrity of that fence gone? Down the dunny thats where... so Im presently trying to work a way of cutting the riving knife of the cover and perhaps even the holding spring loaded spikey things as well so that its simply a matter of taking the insert out undoing a couple of screws and whallah gone or vis-a-versa... just gotta do some more figurein and find some time

[soundman]

firsty as to ripping.
yep certainly buy a ripping blade.. they arent expensive because they don't have many teeth
also when ripping...... blade all the way up.... there was a serious discussion about this a while ago

there are many good reasons to have the blade all the way up when ripping
among them
1 reduces blade engagement improving cutting speed and chip clearance
2 the blade enters the wood with a more downward thrust reducing the tendency of the timber to ride up

the only reason you would consider ripping with the blade at a lower height safer is....... if you aren't using a guard.
If you arent using a guard or a splitter/ riving knife.... ripping is one of the most dangerous table saw operations.
With a properly concieved and adjusted guard and splitter in place it is one of the safest operations.

now to the chopping the incra fence..... I dont get it.
whats the problem.

if its those spikey anticick back pawls...... I still don't understand how they are suposed to improve safety.......you could probably remove them without risk.
why is the rest of it getting in the way of the incra?


cheers

[MurrayD99]

...if its those spikey anticick back pawls...... I still don't understand how they are suposed to improve safety.......you could probably remove them without risk.
Yes indeed. They are not useful and in truth are a pain in the neck.....

[RossM]

Beg to differ SoundMan. You have it the wrong way around. The full height blade is safer from kickback as the forces are vertically oriented. (see pics below) However, the blade manufacturers carefully design their blades (and I'm talking about DESIGNED blades from quality manufacturers) to have the tooth geometary set up for a height above work pretty much as I've described. Sure, this will place some additional load on the saw motor if there is a high feed rate, which is why power is important, but the additional teeth engaged in cuttting provide optimum performance as this is how the balde was designed to operate. For ripping, this height can provide a glue line cut (with a good blade) - raise the blade and loose cut quality. As you point out, with a knife, the kickback risk is reduced anyway.

Also, minimising the blade height reduces noise and vibration and increases blade stability - there have been a few university studies on this.

See http://www.bt3central.com/articles/l...p?ArticleId=85 for a great article on kickback

[Wild Dingo]

now to the chopping the incra fence..... I dont get it.
whats the problem.

You paid over 1000 for a friggin fence lately? Last thing you want to have to do is cut the friggin rails!

Trouble is to get the cover with the spikey bits and the riving knife on AND the Incra the TSB 10 is such that you have no choice but to cut it if you want them both... simple fact... the outfeed side has a post horizontal at 90* to the rail but the cover thing does not fit or attach to the horizonal post under the rail with the rail intact... I would have no problems whatever cutting through the fence that came with the saw none whatever but if Im payin over 1000 for a bloody fence I aint cuttin it!

And therein lays the reasoning behind figureing out some way to cut of the riving knife section so its stand alone get the cover gone the pawls can stay I dont mind as the section Id be cutting would be attached through the insert cuttin out the rear section taking the cover with it... but I am not cutting the bloody Incra!