Table Saw Safety for Beginner Woodworking
George VondriskaWhether you’re an experienced woodworker, a beginner or somewhere in between, revisiting basic safety practices in the work shop is always a good idea. George Vondriska takes the time to go over basic table saw safety with a beginning woodworker. From where to stand, when to use a push stick, blade height and other table saw safety practices, this video is a quick reminder of how to stay safe when using the table saw in your work shop.
Josh, how long you been dipping your toe, in the woodworking water now? Uh, less than two years. And, you've come to me a few times, with some questions about woodworking in general, specifically lately you were talking about some questions you have about the table saw. So, we're just gonna, kinda freewheel here, and you're gonna hear him, as I hear him. So, lay it on me, what do you wanna know?
Well, as I've been working more, doing more woodworking, there's some tools that I have become more comfortable with, and the table saw's a tool, I just cannot get comfortable with, probably because I haven't had formal training, but just some of the basic safety procedures, I should be aware of. Where to stand, how high should the blade be, when do you use a push stick? So, let's start there. All right, let's start, a step before that, which would be, if we're gonna mess with the saw, unplug the saw, and no matter how safe you think it is, that it's plugged in, but it's shut off, or whatever, that ain't the deal. So, you always want to make sure it's unplugged, like this one is, right now.
Now, the blade height is a great question. This part of the blade, you know what those are called, those valleys between the teeth? No. All right. It's a goofy name, I wouldn't expect you to know it, 'cause it's bizarre.
These are called the gullets of the saw blade, and anything that's got teeth, has gullets between the teeth, band saw blade, hand saw, whatever it is. So, when you're setting this blade height, what you wanna do, is set the bottom of the gullet, even with the top of your material, and that gets the blade in a position where it's safe to use, it's not too high, not too low. It's a great place, a great thing to keep in mind, for your blade height. Okay. Body position, you are in perfectly the wrong spot, right now.
I'm actually okay. So, the way to look at this, would be, when you stand here, you're directly in the line of kickback, from the table saw blade. So, kickback is when the blade has the opportunity, to grab a chunk of wood, and throw it out, pretty violently. The rim speed, the teeth on a table saw are going, about 150 mph. So, I'm not trying to scare you off, but I'm just trying to give you the reality, that if those teeth grab a chunk of wood, and throw it back, it comes back really fast.
So, what I tell my students is, use these lines on the table, which are your miter gauge slots, as a guide of where you should not be. So, the danger zone, is anyplace in between these two lines. And, you're right handed, left handed? Right-handed. Okay, so for the most part, for you, you're gonna be to the left of the blade, to the left of this slot.
If you're doing a rip cut, with the fence in place, you'll be pushing with your right hand, and just, kinda, like, turning your hips, to keep yourself away from the line that cuts, the kickback line on the saw blade. The other thing, I've seen students do in class is, when they're tentative about a table saw, they tend to stand back, away from it, which is natural, but what happens is, you're making a cut, is you run out of arm, and you don't want to get to where you can't reach far enough, to finish the cut, or you're leaning a lot to finish the cut. So, this way, you can locate yourself, so that you're just, your hip is right up against the beam of that saw, you're as close as you can get, and that way you can push stuff all the way out, onto the outfeed table. The push stick, the famous Russian hockey player, Pushstick. Anytime your cut is, three inches or less on a rip, you have to use a push stick.
If it's over three inches, and you still wanna use a push stick, that's fine, but three inches, or less, you gotta use it, and that happens all the time. Face frame rails and stiles, door rails and stiles, a lot of aprons for tables, a lot a narrow stuff out there. Right. Push pad. This is gonna come into play, so as far as, you know, what you need in your safety kit.
When we do dados, or rabbets on the table saw, and provide a whole down pressure, you wanna do that with a push pad, instead of the push stick, 'cause then you can get more on top of on the surface of the piece, and the big thing here is, you've gotta have a guard in place. You really, I can't say enough about this, if the guard that's with your saw, is a lousy one, if it doesn't work for you, there are after market guards out there that you can look at. The guard brings a lot of things to the table saw table. There's a splitter, here. The splitter infills in what's the kerf of the cut, so, as we start to push a piece of wood through, the blade makes a path, and that's called a kerf, where the wood has come away.
The kerf goes on either side of the splitter. Have you seen it, where wood, like expands or contracts, as it exits the blade? Yep. So, the deal there is, the wood wasn't dried correctly, and this happens, fairly frequently, and if it wasn't dried correctly and it starts to pinch in, behind the saw blade, 'cause the splitter's not there, it can climb up on the back of the blade, it's gonna lift it off the table saw table, and that's a huge cause of kick back. So, the splitter acts as an infill for that.
Then additionally, the splitter also includes these pawls. They're very sharp, here on the bottom, they're anti-kick back pawls. So, what happens is, they're a one way gate, the wood can push through them, but because of the sharp finger on there, it can't come back, and that does a lot to help reduce or prevent kick back. And then, of course, the basket over the top of whole thing, is what's gonna really help keep you out of harms way, with that table saw blade. How did I do?
Good. Anything else, I can ease your mind, a little bit, with table saw? No, I think this is a good start, you know, I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go along. All right, well hopefully with this information, we'll help Josh make the cut, and answer his safety questions about the tale saw.
three inches may be a littles conservative. One key safety issue is to keep fingers over fence. If some issue happens, ledge on fence can keep from pulling hand into blade..
George, your blade appears to be “anti-kickback”, due to the reverse facing non-cutting teeth. I’ve heard that those reduce the effectiveness of the SawStop function. Can you comment?
I bought my table saw a couple weeks ago, and found that in my first project and only 2nd time using it, that I was not able to get close enough to the blade to make the narrow cut that I needed to. I took the guard off, and then realized that I would also need to take the kickback piece off as well due to the bolts holding that on, being in the way. I ultimately decided against making the cut with the table saw, and added the guard and kick-back on for next time. I ended up getting it done by planing with a hand-planer for quite some time, which was a lengthy process, although fun to do. I've noticed that all the woodworkers I follow on youtube do NOT have the guard or kickback in place. How do they navigate these risks for so long without incident? Woodworkers such as.... "April Wilkerson": https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4v2tQ8GqP0RbmAzhp4IFkQ "I Like To Make Stuff": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJPIPOfJqdc&t=51s "Woodworking for Mere Mortals": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91v0Yg1L4ok (Ramsey does talk about kickback and shows a kickback piece in this video, but I don't see him using one?) "Chris Salomone": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf2gaSmNqcg&t=33s ...and many more. I've learned a lot from and have a ton of respect for these woodworkers, but that being said, they do seem to operate their tools safely, without using these safety features. I would go so far as to say that there are many cuts needed for their projects that cannot be made with these guards and devices in place. They all appear to only be using the riving knife and none of the rest. Anyone able to shed light on this?
I can attest to blade height being a safety process to learn. I had my workpiece with the blade about 1/8th inch higher, and put my hand on top of the work piece and it caught my thumb on the tip. If I had had the blade higher, the little bite it took out of my thumb may have been my whole thumb tip. One week later almost totally healed. Please take this tip as gospel and not a suggestion.
This was a good start for any novice woodworker, and a nice refresher for veteran users as to why you don't stand between the miter gauge slots. I think it would be additionally helpful to highlight the differences between safely making a rip cut versus a cross cut, which blades you should use and why.
Thanks George, very informative and affordable video. I feel that whatever your experience level, their is always room to learn. I too will be replacing my guards and kb pawls.
I am also new to using a table saw and have a Porter-Cable table saw. I appreciate your video and after seeing it, I'm going to make some changes. I've only used my saw one time so far, to rip a piece of plywood, but after watching some other videos on using table saws, I saw that they weren't using the riv knife or plastic blade guard. So, I took mine off. Well, after seeing this video, I am going out right now and put them back on. Thanks again for the great safety training, and I look forward to seeing more of your table saw videos.