Safety-Guard SACRILEGE.

[Swingman]

You proved my point ...

[RicodJour]

Right. Doh!

R

[Larry Jaques]

31.5k/yr is too many, for sure.

Look at how many people unnecessarily go to the hospital when a simple bandage would do the trick. That alone drives up insurance rates.

And look at the number of simple falls people make each year is way above that number. No tools necessary:

Older adults - 2.2 million non-fatal injury falls, 18k of those fatal.

tool necessary: In 1996 there were 18,900,000 US auto accidents. "I probably became a libertarian through exposure to tough-minded professors" James Buchanan, Armen Alchian, Milton Friedman "who encouraged me to think with my brain instead of my heart. I learned that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions." -- Walter E. Williams

[Morgans]

"Jay Pique" wrote

I was about like most people when it comes to TS guards, in that they take them off. When I started teaching high school students, liability concerns dictated that I had to use the guard.

After a while, I came to realize that the guard was really not a problem, for most operations. When there are cuts that need to be made and a guard can not work, I come up with another shop built guard to protect hands and fingers.

[Morgans]

"SonomaProducts.com" wrote

Living in furniture manufacturing country, I would argue the opposite.

A person making the same types of cuts for hours at a time tend to get bored and then sloppy, and forget to be careful. Then the finger leaves the hand.

I think everyone would be surprised how easy you can get used to using guards, for most cuts.

[Jim Weisgram]

[...snip...]

The wood whisperer guy, Marc Spagnolo, said something similar during the podcast "safety week" a year or two ago.

IMO, if all blade guards were well designed and convenient to put on and take off, I'd say you are all wet. But the blade guard on my saw is so flimsy it sometimes scares me.

But I think the proper solution is to have a better guard, not to just remove it.

For myself, I'm thinking Shark Guard or a homebrew guard that hangs from above.

[krw]

The worst "kick back" (really the reverse) I've had was with my RAS. I was sawing into a 1" cedar board when it grabbed the blade and the carriage came at me. I had a few kicks when I was ripping with it, too. More than one board hit the wall. I've had no kicks on my table saw, yet.

[krw]

I think a splitter/riving knife and the plaws are more important than the guard, particularly one hanging down. Yes, I'd use mine more if it wasn't such a PITA.

[godsword]

This is a long 2 cents worth, so feel free to ignore it and do not even read it, It really isn't very important.

I found this subject interesting, maybe because I took the guard off of a saw when I was in high school and because the guard was off, I ran my hand into the saw blade while it was at full spinning speed.

This was not some small table saw, not indeed, our school had taken over a commercial chair factory and all the machines was massive industrial types. The table saw had a 12 in blade,(in the 1940's) the thickness planer would take a four foot wide piece through it.

So what did happen to me? It seems that in my ignorance, I had put on a new saw blade "" Backwards "" and so today, 50 years + later, I still have my thumb with a scar on it. Lucky me, for if the blade had been on there correctly, I would have lost my thumb and part of my hand.

So that taught me to never again remove the safety shield. If the piece cannot be cut with the guard on, then it will be cut by hand, or not cut at all. The same with our huge thickness planer as I spoke of above. We kids, all would feed in a piece and then squat down to watch it go through. But the safety fingers to prevent kickback would not work. So one day another boy put a piece through it and for some reason stepped aside just as the piece was thrown out, and all the way through a wall ten feet behind it. If that boy had been even standing behind it, it would have killed him. We learned to appreciate and respect the killing, and maiming power of the tools that we used.

Yes, so many years later, I had a son who was working at a factory where part of his job was to cut plastic moldings to size on a table saw, well today he has a very short finger because the unthinkable happened.

For may years now I have had a RAS and there is not way that a blade guard can be put on it. You can bet that every time that I use it, that my thumb hurts, and I make sure that my hands never comes even close to that spinning blade. If the piece cannot be held in a safe way far from the spinning blade, it will not be cut by that machine. And when ripping, or using my own thickness planer, that I never ever stand where I can be hit if it kicks back. Experience has taught me well. I had an uncle who lost a thumb because he took the safety off of the machine he ran. And later he lost four fingers on the same hand when he tried moving an industrial fan without first turning it off. I worked in a factory where a man lost both arms because he disregarded the safeties. Thought he could work faster without them.

So those of you who take your blade safety covers off, go right ahead, for you just know that nothing will ever happen to you. You are supermen who can not ever be hurt because you are just too smart, and too careful. But when you visit the hospital, remember to bring the cut off fingers with you for they just might be able to sew them back on again.

Jack

[Lobby Dosser]

And vehicle accidents cause 50,000 Deaths ...

[J. Clarke]

The thing is, if you're making the same cut for hours at a time, it's cost effective to make jigs and fixturing specific to that cut and to incorporate guards and to put up and take down the setup.

-.

0

[Morgans]

I will not rip with a RAS, and will not allow my students to rip with it, either.

In my opinion, there is not enough control of the stock while doing this, and far too many "bad things" can happen. It can pull your hand into the blade, or shoot the stock at you. I shudder when thinking about it.

[Doug Miller]

In article , godsword wrote: [...]

You hear about the guy that cut off all ten fingers in a table saw accident?

ER doc: Why didn't you bring them with you so we could sew them back on? Hapless woodworker: Couldn't pick 'em up...

[Doug Miller]

Not any time recently, they haven't.

[RicodJour]

I see. Pros are more careful so they don't need guards, and pros are the only ones that spend enough time cutting that it is cost effective (again, skew word at work) for them to make guards, hence no one needs guards. Yep. Ironclad reasoning, fer sure.

R

[krw]

That's kinda why my RAS hasn't been used in 15 years[*], and why I bought the Unisaur.

[*] Thinking about it, it was last together before we moved *to* VT, in '93.

[Morgans]

"Father Haskell" wrote

In my 18 years or so of teaching, I have only had one student have a serious accident. One too many, though. (knocking on wood, here)

He was using a table saw to ease the corners of a piece he was going to turn on a lathe. He was one of my best students, so I was not watching him like a hawk. He made a couple very bad decisions that I though that he should know better, the wood kicked back, and he jumped and placed his hands on the table to catch himself. Problem is, he chose the one place on the table that had a two finger remover blade spinning. They put most of one finger back on, but he lost about half of one finger.

Now, the guard is on, if it is possible to use while making a cut. If it is not, an alternate guarding system is set up, or they don't use the saw. Period.

[Morgans]

"WW" wrote

That is a violation of my "table saw rules" number 5.

It goes something like "The measurement of the wood touching the fence must be 1.5 times the distance the fence is from the blade, unless the measurement of the wood against the fence is more than 4 times the length of the saw blade that is above the table."

In the case of a 16 by 16, they would be required to run it with a miter gauge, or sled, or a different saw.

[Bill]

Perhaps you would be willing to post your other table saw rules too (I'd just soon not learn them the hard way)?

Thanks, Bill

[RicodJour]

If you are serious and you really do have a set of rules, post them, please. I'm curious.

I have a set of rules...unfortunately, I can't post them as most of them are dirty. The rest are just obscene. ;)

R