Table Saw Safety Tips

Now here's the deal, I know that nobody wants to hear about safety, people have a tendency to glaze over with that but, the table saw is at the heart of most woodworking shops you're going to use it the most out of any tool you have. So it's worth taking a few minutes to be aware of how you can protect yourself when you're using the table saw in your shop. Let me give you some simple rules. An important safety feature of a saw, I believe, is having an out feed table here behind the saw. As I feed my material through, it lands on the out feed table, which then stops me from reaching behind the saw in order to grab that material and try to prevent it from falling to the floor. When you prevent yourself from reaching over you're going to prevent having one of the accidents I had on a table saw it's exactly how it happened. I reached over the top of the saw and in doing so contacted the blade and luckily had an injury that wasn't too severe but it was plenty to wake me up. Now let's talk about some other table saw rules. It's very important where you stand behind the saw. Remember that there's an opportunity for a blade to kick the material back. So what I want you to do, is not position yourself between these two parts of the table. We've got two miter gauge slots here consider this the danger zone of the table saw. So you should always position your body. so that you're a little bit to the left of this one or a little bit to the right of this one that keeps you out of the line of fire or the saw blade. Now I've got here on the saw some other helpers, push stick and a push pad. Here's my rule of thumb and thumb keeping. When I'm making a rip on the table saw that's three inches or less in width, I use that push stick in order to propel the material through. So anytime I'm doing a cut three inches or less wide the push that comes into play, that happens all the time with face frames and door frame material. That's typically narrower stock. Now, another advantage I like of the push stick is that it makes my arm a foot longer. So it goes back to that rule I talked about earlier of using the out feed table. It's easier to get my material onto the out feed table when I've got the push stick in my hand, I've seen this a lot with students in classes who are a little bit shorter and it it can be difficult for them to reach all the way across the saw. So let's get one of those cut going, three inches or less is the rule. Now on a long board, I'll start by feeding it by hand, as the board catches up with the edge of the saw table here I'll reach for the push stick in order to finish the cut. Before we start this cut, couple other basic shop safety rules, either short sleeves or sleeves rolled up past your elbows so nothing can get caught. No jewelry. Of course, I've got hearing and eye protection on when I'm running the tools And don't forget the most important rule, always keep the guard in place on your table side Now I know how tempting it is to reach in for those pieces. Be sure you let the blade come to a complete stop before you get any of those pieces off of your saw table. In this case, we were making through cuts. We were cutting all the way through that piece of wood. Sometimes what you need to do is simply cut a curve in a piece. For instance, I might be using a saw blade to curve a drawer side in order to receive a bottom. When we do that, we're making a blind cut. that changes things just a little bit, causes me to change my setup here on the table saw I'm going to take the guard off and I'm going to change the guard to a riving knife with the riving knife in place. I can make that curving cut very, very safely. Anytime you're changing a setup on the saw here's another rule, you want the main power disconnected on this machine. the main power is controlled by a main switch right here on the side of the saw. So it's very convenient. I don't have to unplug it all I have to do is turn off the main power switch. With the power off, now I can access this part of the saw safely, and swap my guard for the riving knife. Now, I'll reduce my cut As though I were just making a groove, for a drawer bottom Now we can get some new rules out of this. We've got the riving knife installed behind the blade. That's going to help keep this safe as we make this curfew and cut. I also in this application, want to use the push pad push pad has got that sticky neoprene on the bottom of it. So that gives me a good grip on this board. You shouldn't ever press down on the board. as it's passing over a cutter head if something goes wrong, your hand could be the next in line. So now I can turn my main power back on then power up the saw and make this cut. These are a set of very very simple rules for using your table saw safely. Like I said, I had a table saw I accident it's about 30 years ago since I had mine, but I talk to woodworkers all the time who have had accidents or near misses on their table saw. And it's up to you to do everything that you can to protect yourself when you're using the table saw so that you stay a member of the 10 finger club. You want to start with 10, quit with 10.