Ripping narrow pieces from wide stock

[RayV]

I agree with Leuf but would go a little wider, say 9" until you get a little more practice.

[todd]

I saw Kelly Mehler demonstrate this once at a woodworking show. Since he didn't want to shoot a piece of plywood to the other side of the room, he used an acoustical tile. As he pushed it through the blade, he let it bind. The rear of the blade picked it up and shot it backwards. It made an approximately 45 degree angle relative to the fence in the plane of the saw top at maybe a 30 degree elevation. The fix for kickback is to have a saw with a riving knife. Unfortunately, almost no saws sold in the US are equipped with riving knives, so Kelly shows how to approximate one in his book by mounting a thin piece of wood directly behind the saw blade. No access to the rear of the blade, no kickback.

todd

[Stephen M]

I agree with almost all other the above. Good support is absolutely necessary. Lack of support is essentially the same as trying to saw twisted stock (see below).

I am not, however, a big fan of roller stands. I prefer a saw horse with a waxed top. Roller stands tend to pull you work to one side or the other if they are not perfectly aligned with your fence.... that can actually lead to kickback. I used to have two rollers permanently attached to the back of my saw. That worked pretty well; the alignment was fixed.

Now I have a dedicated outfeed table and one saw horse that I can position for infeed or side support as necessary. I also use it to support the extension table on my band saw. I just find it to be a more flexible shop accessory.

As for kickback, I'll probably get flamed for my technique:

I stand in front of the blade.... yup that's right. From that position I can best place positive pressure both down and to the right (against the fence) in a position to the right of the blade. This puts my hand's "follow through" away from the blade.

IF the TS is set up correctly, AND the reference faces (both table and fence) of the stock are jointed true AND modest pressure is applied both down and toward the fence, kickback is just nearly impossible.

Twisted stock and sloppy feed pressure both recipes for kickback.

-Steve

[bent]

haven't read all yet, however. when pushing forward through fence, when narrow & wide piece are about to seperate when they fully pass the blade, make sure you are pushing only on the side that has support - the fence side. Otherwise, if you're pushing on the left, or both, when the wood separates, by pushing forward, you will be pushing the cut waste side directly into the back of the blade.

A cross cut sled is something everyone has to make, can't buy 'em. Easy, and can buy and construct for penauts, w/ no tools, in minutes. The cuts are perfect. Clamp on a stop and without a caliper you would never find any difference on any corner.

Some rules are easy to remember. Never use the fence and the mitre at the same time. Others, like this, through trial and error. Actually, there should be a table. Think each cut through first.

[Swingman]

That'll work.

Sorry, I should have been more explicit. They don't have to be "rollers" ... the ball bearing type "roller stands" move in any axis (particularly the commercial ones with multiple rows of ball bearings) making it easy to guide in any direction with no pull ... a much better choice for a table saw if you have the room and the need.

[Upscale]

When I first experienced some bias with the single roller stand I bought, I looked at a bias free roller stand on Lee Valley Tools' website. I then went out and bought some cheap wheeled casters, screwed them down to a piece of

2x4 and mounted that onto the roller stand. It's a little top heavy, but it works fine without any bias whatsoever.

I have considered the ball bearing type, but I do have a question about them. I saw mention once that the relatively small surface contact they use can cause indentations in stuff like veneered plywood. Have you ever experience anything like this?

[Tex]

I have roller stands but I've had problems from time-to-time using them on the outfeed side as the board or panel would hit the roller top and push the roller over rather than go over the top and be supported. I do, however, use them for infeed support on big panels.

I know this is not a solution for everyone, but I recently installed one of the HTC outfeed roller units on my PM66. Man, do I ever love it!

[Leon]

I have been using the Jet, HTC built version of the out feed roller setup for about 6 years. It works perfectly and has never had to be realigned. I especially appreciate the fact that it is totally supported by the saw. Moving the saw for different sized material cuts is like moving a saw with out an out feed setup.

[Swingman]

Never noticed that being a problem, but now that my shop if full to the max, I seldom use them for lack of room and solved the need in other ways.

[Chris Friesen]

I do this, and get decent results. However, unless you have a decent circular saw and blade, the results aren't as good as the table saw.

I recently upgraded to a cabinet saw, and cutting plywood gives me much smoother edges than the circular saw.

Maybe it just means I need a new circular saw and blade...

Chris

[damian penney]

I just upgraded from a $30 Skill saw to an Hitachi C7BD2 as the Skill would flex left to right leaving saw marks in my cuts (and burning on occassion) and it's made a big difference, with a nice sharp plywood blade I can get glassy cuts with no tearout. I think if I had a better infeed/outfeed setup and a splitter I'd be more comfortable with doing the cuts on the tablesaw. My two incidents both happened before I fashioned a splitter for the saw but the straight edge works well enough for me not to look for an alternative at the moment.

[CW]

[Upscale]

Actually, you're completely wrong. The density of plywood is many times that of balsa wood and correspondingly heavier. And you're also wrong about the possibility of denting. I was curious about what I heard so this evening so I went over to a friend's house to test it out. Many veneers over plywood are quite a bit softer than the plywood core itself. Using an oak veneer over plywood and a 4'x8'x3/5" sheet with roller ball spacing of more than

12" (I removed two rows of rollers as a test), it does leave a mark on the veneer.

Got any more uninformed smart ass comments?

[Swingman]

Ahh, but you see ... mine post was so elegant in its composition, and so piercing in its logic, that, had it not ended up in the OE bit bucket, the thread, and possibly the entire wRec, would have dried up immediately ... words would have even escaped Tom Watson.

The world's loss, without doubt ... but TW's, and Shakespeare's, reputations remain intact.

[Lew Hodgett]

Ah yes, from deep in the heart of Texas.

Lew

[Leon]

Sometimes fate humbles us. LOL. I am sure its eloquence would have the been the end to the wRec as we all know it. :~)

[Leon]

Yeah, no inflated ego's down here.. LOL

[Locutus]

I was always taught to have the blade 1" above the wood you are cutting, if your blade is just clearing the wood, then the blade is pushing back on the piece, when the blade is higher, it is pushing down on the piece, much less likely to result in a kickback.

Of course I am relatively new to this, so please correct me if this is wrong.

[CW]

Sitting on it while it goes over the rollers doesn't qualify. You're full of it.

>

[Upscale]

You really are an asshole aren't you? As to lying, I don't lie and I don't cheat. So far, John Clark is the only liar I've seen here.

Perhaps I should post some pictures. But then, you'd say that I purposefully caused the effect wouldn't you?

Quite the shallow little world you live in.