It's not about stopping it in an accident, it's about avoiding those old heavyweight machines (chiefly bandsaws and spindle moulders with iron heads) that carried on turning long after they'd been switched off and gone quiet.
Here's a useful site:
Not to mention how much sawdust they raise, even at a distance, when they wind up. Only thing that scares me worse is the molding cutter I once owned.
there are times when pinning the guard is necessary, generally during things like awkward compound angle cuts where you need one hand to control the wood and one for the saw and the angle of approach won't allow the guard to retract via contact with the edge of the board. the thing is to pin the guard in such a way that it unpins easily and as automatically as possible. on a skil77 (and most others, too) this can be achieved with a pencil wedged between the thumb lever (for manually retracting the guard) and the body of the saw.
there is always a certain amount of pucker factor during such an operation....
My, that looks a bit dangerous. With the throttle at the point of balance of the saw the grip is really just a pivot point. Given the choice I think I'd rather be taking the limbs off by hand.
-j
handle on the left is where your left hand goes and the top red handle is where your right hand goes. One, two.
and
Same thing. In the few web sites I've seen since this discussion started, I've not seen any mention of one handed operation.
Look at this link - there are two saws pictured. A top loader and a standard configuration. Both have the same wrap around handle for the left hand.
I looked at the other links that folks posted today and all of the saws I saw (see saw....) were two handed models. I think you've mistaken the design. The difference is that some have the handle for the right hand on top instead of behind the saw. I can see the advantage of this design for certain applications. For example, bucking up logs at waist height would be easier with a top handle design than with a rear handle design. Both though are two handed saws. Both will give plenty of stability and control. Seems this one handed notion was founded on some mis-information.
Here's where some confusion comes in. If you've never used a chainsaw, I guess it's understandable. All chainsaws do not have a top handle. Conventional design is for a rear handle and a left side handle. Your left hand grabs the top of the handle, but it protrudes out of the left side and gives control over the saw body. What they don't have is a top handle.
Top handle saws move the rear mounted right hand position up to the top center of the saw - BUT, the left hand remains as in the case of the conventional design. No chainsaw is designed to be used one handed.
Your right hand does not control kick back. Your left hand does. It's the hand that exerts force downward. The right hand is not supposed to rock or pivot against the tree dogs as a lot of people do. You certainly can do that, but the saw is designed to cut straight down through a log. Pivoting the saw is an indication of a dull chain or a novice user. Kick back occurs one way and one way only. The very front of the bar has to come in contact with something. The tip of it. Your left hand is what resists that kickback should it occur. Pivoting the right hand can produce kickback if the bar is burried in the tree, which is common with trees that are larger in diameter than the saw bar. Pivot the bar past 90 degrees and you hit the point where the tip of the bar is the contact point. Guaranteed kickback. Not probably - guaranteed.
This is patently untrue.
Equally untrue. That would be the worst time for an ill managed saw. But then again, these are not a design that is inherantly ill managed.
This is pure bull. The saw is always going to kick back in a consistent direction. Unless you're a contortionist and a very strong one at that, you'll not be able to get the saw in a position so that kickback is not going to bring that saw directly back to you. Skill and practice have absolutely nothing to do with it. Nobody learns how to control kickback and put it to some useful purpose. Kickback is something that is avoided at all costs. The only safe way to use a chainsaw is such that you are always in the direct path of kickback, so you make it a practice to avoid kickback.
The right hand is always just a pivot in that you use it to keep the saw level. The saw does not look to be any more dangerous than a conventional design and in fact appears that it could be an advantageous design for some applications.
Here's one education authority's policy document on workshop hazards.
The relevant chunk is on page 16, here's some highlights:
I don't understand Andy. From the picture (I looked at the MS200T) it certainly looks like there is a left hand grip wrapping down the left side of the saw. The chain brake - unless there's something new that is not even mentioned in the product description is not operated by the operator of the saw. It's an automatic function if the chain breaks and starts to fly back toward the operator. Unless you know something that is not highlighted in the product brief on the web site, there are no brake controls. Clue me in?
Sorry - forgot to include in my other response, I didn't see any mention at all of one handed operation. I think you're misinformed as to the one handed intent of these saws.
Cheers Andy,
So that basically means that maybe he can't let us use it @ skl but there's no reason not to use it at home, right?
SB
Andy, I'm a bit confused by this comment. The Freud dado set sold by Machine Mart (p. 296) specifically states "NOT to be used on any machine with electric braking".
Bob Martin
I think it means it's a per-person decision.
I let under 16s use my bandsaw while I'm watching, and I let a few who are familiar with using it use it without me watching them. But I'm in a workshop with maybe two or three people in it, not a busy class. I'd be very reluctant to let anyone use it, in a school class environment, but lunchtime "woodwork clubs" and the like would be a different situation.
Your best way to get bandsaw access is to behave yourself and show that you can be trusted with the tools you are allowed to use.
That's the problem. Most saws (all retail size ?) use a left-handed nut to lock the blade onto the arbor. With a heavy dado set, rapid braking may cause this to unscrew.
Laws require moderately rapid braking.
Some saws use simple electric braking to achieve this, which is very quick indeed.
Rapid braking is definitely unsafe with simple LH nuts.
Therefore you can't use a dado set on a simply made saw consistent with most of the saws complying with PUWER.
You could achieve this safely with an extra arbor lock. If you have a
3 phase saw with a VFD (variable frequency drive) it's possible to brake more gently at a controlled rate, which would be safe with dado heads, rather than simple injection braking. Either of these mechanisms add cost though and I don't know of machines that do it.UK practice for a large production shop would be to use a moulding head on a moulder or planer, rather than a dado head in a table saw.
Brake's the same place, though I also wonder what that extra red toggle up forward might be. Since the chain brake is designed to bring the chain to a halt in the event of a kickback, it's located perpendicular to the kickback vector and in front of the leading part of the operator.
The thing's a close-quarter saw, not a one-hand saw. Imagine the attorney fees if they were to call it such?
You learned someplace else, I guess.
Rocking the saw, actually tilting the nose up or down alternately, is a tactic to cope with large logs so that the chain speed can be kept at or near full. By tilting, less wood is in contact, chips are more easily ejected, and the whole operation's safer.
The reason the handle mounts around left is for felling.
You'd probably have a cow watching a good woodsman plunge a veneer log to prevent heart pull.
So, basically if you are 16 or younger you are allowed to use a sander? Maybe a drill?
I'm not familiar with CDT these days. But there was a time in the early '80s when _everything_ was acrylic sheet, scrollsawn, drilled, heated and bent over a hot-wire line bender, then shaped on big disk sanders with quadrant guards. "Woodworking" as we think of it hereabouts to generally involve a lot of solid timber just wasn't part of it.
I was at school through the '70s. I did a year of woodwork and learned nothing. We didn't touch any machines. I did a full course of metalwork (O level) and learned a reasonable bit, mainly turning. I did far more of either at home, although not much wodworking.
I also heard one of the wisest comments from a teacher I've yet heard. The metalwork teacher pointed out that almost none of us would end up in hands-on engineering. Of those few that did, we'd be working 40 hour weeks as apprentices, doing nothing other than engineering. Compared to an hour or two a week and this "O level" we'd acquired, we'd do more in a few weeks apprenticeship than we'd done in our whole school career. I was never an apprentice, but I did spend a few weeks on a basic industry apprentice's metalworking course (so as to qualify as a chartered engineer, although I was mainly a physicist). My teacher was right.
From loggers.
Yes, like I said rocking is done by people, but with a well sharpened chain there's no need to rock. Watch the real pro's (not a tree service) sometime - they lay the saw on the log and let it do the cutting. When you rock you tend to put more force on the saw - pushing it through the wood instead of letting it cut through. You really need to look at your cuts if you think that by rocking it you're putting less chain in contact with wood. You are not. Anytime you force a tool the whole operation is not safer. That is just a totally bad paragraph.
That's the reason it wraps. It's primary reason is the grip that gives the saw stability. There is no way you could stabilize the saw with just the rear handle.
No, but he knows what chances he's taking. Go ask that "good woodsman" if that is or is not the absolute best way to generate a kickback. Generally when they plunge, they come in at the tip of the bar, but either just over or just under the bar so that they are not plunging in with the tip.
conventional
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