Hand waving generalizations without specific criticism to the points given below will indicate the poster's lack of knowledge of kickback and danger to fingers.
Forget what you know about RAS and its inherent danger when you pull the blade towards you or when you rip with it.
This saw is NOT a RAS as configured.
1> What is the potential danger for kickback when using a slide table and a screw hold down?
2> What is the potential danger to the operator's fingers if the operator pushes the slide table from the sides of the table and there is a slide stop well short of the blade?
I'd prefer to have another screw on the other side...you can see the hold down warp as he tightens the single screw.
Minimal.
One final suggestion would be to use a negative hook blade. As it stands, the positive hook will tend to want to lift the workpiece from the table, fighting the holddown. A negative hook blade would tend to push the workpiece into the table and fence.
the blade designed to throw things at you instead of away from you. If *anything* goes wrong with the hold-down, it's going to spit the remains at your face at full speed. Buy a miter saw! The jig looks fine, I'd want a screw on both sides of the blade, but you really want the blade turning the other way. Even if all works well, it will be throwing the sawdust right at your mouth - wear a dust mask to protect your lungs. Even with the RAS you should be able to swing the head around so that the blade is pushing away from you.
As for doing that on a table saw, I've done it before. You just need a thin enough push block and a zero clearance insert, and (as usual) don't stand in line with the blade just in case. I could also do it with my incra 5000 and a hold-down. The safest way to do it would be to double-stick tape the small block to a larger one and just use a miter fence. Or use a bandsaw or scroll saw.
Look at the factory installed splitter and anti-kick.
Apparently, you have little or no experience with ripping using a RAS.
Again, this is NOT a RAS as configured.
Thanks for the suggestion about another screw.
The fact is that the single screw holds the workpiece down with a quite a lot of force.
I cant wiggle a piece free.
Any uplift/kickback would have to be on the left side of the hold down and the force would have to be larger than the shear force of the partially sawed plywood piece.
Cutting wood on this saw is like slicing meat on a deli saw.
The saw dust is deflected away from me by the piece of plastic mounted on the blade guard.
BTW I can still count to 21 if I pull my pants down.
BoyntonStu
P.S. I was considering the idea of reversing the motor.
However, the thought of a spinning blade pulling the slide table with me along for the ride, is bothersome.
If the hold down fails it throws the piece directly at the operator.
The blade is trying to lift the piece.
In general you would do better to put a hold down on a regular RAS fence and pull the blade through the way a normal RAS is designed. The rotation of a normal RAS blade pushes the piece down against the table and back against the fence. If your blade is sharp and you approach the piece with reasonable caution there is virtually no risk of the piece flying about, and if it does it will go back, away from the operator. It also directs almost all the chips away from the operator. As configured in that video a carbide tooth coming loose is likely to cause some injury.
I just don't see any benefit and several potential drawbacks. I may have missed something, but what was the original problem you were trying to solve with this setup?
-- "We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"
This whole setup gave me the willies. How did I get by all these years of woodworking without a RAS? I noticed the sliding bed racked a little as it was pushed into the blade. Having both hands on the sled puts his body directly in front of a spinning blade without much of a safety cover. It would be safer on a table saw with a zero-clearance throat plate. A bandsaw, like another already stated, is right tool for small pieces. One technique is to take two pencils with erasers and maneuver a small piece over the bandsaw table into the blade.
All radial arm saws are designed to push the wood *away* from the operator when crosscutting.
Look at the blade rotation. I don't care about everything else, it's pointing towards your face.
You are not ripping. You are crosscutting. At least, you've installed a crosscut-style table. I wouldn't dare rip with a RAS for exactly the reasons I wouldn't crosscut with your setup. Too dangerous.
If I was faced with a situation where I had to use a RAS that way, I'd wear the same protection as I do when turning, for the same reason.
Why not just use the existing crosscut fence, with your hold down behind the blade, and move the saw away from you to cut? You get the same benefits as your setup, but without as much danger. Saw off, pull towards you, install wood behind it, saw on, push to cut, saw off, remove wood.
It holds one side of the workpiece down. The other side is not held down at all, and can come loose after it's cut off.
Or your screw would have to break. Stranger things have happened. Remember, safety is about preventing the unexpected, not just about preventing the expected.
Deli saw blades turn the other way. I own one.
Assuming (1) it catches it all, (2) you have no other drafts in your workshop and (3) it never fails.
That's the way a RAS normally crosscuts. RASs are dangerous, that's why most of the people I know don't own one. There's very little you can do with a RAS that you can't also do - more safely - with other tools.
The fact is that the single screw holds the workpiece down with a quite a lot of force.
I cant wiggle a piece free.
lmao. so your contention is that the hold down is safe because the force you're applying while 'wiggling' the piece is the same or greater force that the saw is able to exert if anything starts to go wrong. That is truly funny.
Don't bother replying, you've got an answer for everything, and I don't really care if you're doing something I consider to be unsafe so long as
I remember this thread from a few weeks back and I was confused then also. What are you trying to get to? I am not being a jerk but I am confused as to what you are doing. In the video you took a 3/4 piece of ply and cut it in half. So if I am correct you created a jig than can produce little pieces of 3/8 plywood. I thought the initial issue was to take a 5" x 5" piece of ply and make it 4" x 4". Could you enlighten me?
Quite true. It looks to me more like an AWTH (accident waiting to happen).
In general, low. In this specific setup, though, I think fairly high. You have several things working against you:
- the single hold-down screw inevitably makes for less than perfectly even clamping pressure
- such a thin narrow workpiece is easily susceptible to twisting, especially when the clamping force is assymmetric...
- ... and even more so when there is no guide or stop that would prevent twisting.
Obviously very little.
Never mind the hands -- look where the operator is standing: directly in the line of fire if *anything* goes wrong. Doesn't look like a wise idea to me.
This cut would be made much more safely with any of the following:
- table saw (with an appropriate guide fixture)
- band saw
- scroll saw
- hack saw
- coping saw
Do you not own any of the above?
And why the devil do you need to make a cut like this on such a small workpiece, anyway?? If you need two tiny pieces, as shown in the video, you don't _start_out_ with a small piece, for heaven's sake. If you need two slices say 1 x 2 x 1/4" thick, you cut two 1/4" slices off the end of a ten-inch 1x2 -- which can be done in perfect safety with a chop saw, radial arm saw, or table saw, without the need for any sort of fixtures at all beyond the standard guides and fences that come with the tools.
Apparently, neither do you, or you'd recognize that that's *not* what you're doing here.
Quite true -- it's much less safe.
It's not a symmetric force, though, which leaves the piece subject to twisting.
And you think therefore the saw can't???
Hint: that saw has at least a 1hp motor. You can't generate that much force with your fingers. Tell me you can't pry the piece out with a crowbar, and then I'll begin to consider that maybe the saw can't pull it out either.
Sure it is. Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that.
How well do you suppose that piece of plastic will do at deflecting a kickback?
That's about the only think I can think of that you could do to this setup to make it less safe.
I don't think it is the wrong tool. I think the application of the tool is wrong.
He should hold the piece to be cut with the tip of his index finger (only) and rapidly move the saw into the wood before it can get away while yelling "JUDO... CHOP!".
(Probably followed by a scream, but hey, no one said learning woodwork wasn't without sacrifice!)
I don't think it is the wrong tool. I think the application of the tool is wrong.
He should hold the piece to be cut with the tip of his index finger (only) and rapidly move the saw into the wood before it can get away while yelling "JUDO... CHOP!".
=========== Is it the saw that cuts? Or is it the saw causing me to move it so the wood becomes cut? It is a circle, the no-saw way to cut. It was so in the beginning. It is so again at the end. The saw does not cut. I cut the wood. We are one. I have heard the sound of one hand clapping.
(My saw came wrapped in a fitted navy blue tog, emblazoned "Samurai!!!" in gold ink. The exclamation points weren't really visible, but I know they're there.)
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