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Table Saw Safety 101
Jan 24, 2024
Table saws pose safety hazards. But you CAN get around it if you're smart. In this table saw 101 video, I'll give you 7 must know safety tips to make sure you don't hurt yourself or send a plank flying into your garage door. Enjoy! 🔔 Subscribe and never miss an upload: ► http://bit.ly/BLRchannel ✅ *_Step-by-step_* plans to build your life of *_true freedom:_* ► https://baileylineroadlearning.com/ 🏡 Free, expert advice to *_build and customize_* your dwelling: ► https://baileylineroad.com/ 📌 Full *Table Saw* Playlist: ► https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8KslM65UwghD2gilGGpZ1CrAOA7wcVsQ 🌎 I’m on your favorite platform: ► https://linktr.ee/baileylineroad
View Video Transcript
0:00
In this video I want to talk to you about table saw safety and that's a really important thing
0:05
Because table saws as useful as they are They can be pretty dangerous, too
0:10
So I want to cover this right away before we get into the details of adjusting and using and all that other stuff
0:15
I'm going to talk about First of all, you should never operate a table saw without proper safety glasses and some kind of hearing protection
0:25
Safety glasses these days are very inexpensive. These are great ones that I have from 3M
0:31
They're almost always plastic so they get kind of scratched and dirty and things
0:35
So don't hang on to an old cloudy pair when you can get you know
0:40
20 safety glasses for $30 or something like that. Just consider it a throwaway
0:44
item Very important because things can fly off the saw blade. As for hearing protection, there are different options
0:53
Earplugs, foam earplugs are one kind. I much prefer ear muffs though. They work really well
1:00
But most importantly you can put them on and take them off because I don't really like to keep earplugs in
1:06
For any length of time and it takes a while to put them in so I only wear the earmuffs when I'm actually cutting when there's noise to
1:14
to be protected from and If you get high quality ones like these 3M ones they can be rebuilt because eventually the
1:24
Liner here starts to crack the foam gets a little stiff so you can just buy a rebuild kit
1:29
I've probably rebuilt these ones a few times already So that's the extent of
1:34
Personal protection that you need for the table saw, but there's other dangers you need to
1:41
Be aware of and I guess the first and most obvious one is
1:46
Having yourself cut by the blade and that's where push sticks come in
1:51
So push sticks are not used all the time It's actually safer not to use a push stick when the fence is a sufficient distance away from the blade
2:02
Now, what is a sufficient distance? Well rule of thumb is The width of your closed hand so any cut rip cut that's wider than that
2:12
You can just use your fingers and that'll afford great control anything narrower than the width of your hand
2:18
The push stick is the way to go and I mean they're just as the name suggests
2:22
They they all have a kind of a hook on the bottom
2:27
That engages the workpiece and you just push the wood through now
2:32
You don't necessarily need to buy one, although this is a nice one It's got a magnet on it so you can you can keep it handy
2:40
And keep it handy because it'll stick to just about anything on your saw, but you can certainly make them too
2:45
I mean, this is one I've I've had for years. It's easy to trace just zip them out on a bandsaw or a
2:52
jigsaw and Put the little notch in place The shape doesn't really matter too much
2:58
Although I do prefer this style to the kind of longer Handled push stick style. I don't think they afford as much control
3:07
This one's low but high enough to keep you clear of of any dangers
3:14
Now there is a third Danger you need to be concerned about and that's called kickback
3:21
kickback happens when The rotation of the blade and it's rotating towards you all the time all table saws are like this if
3:30
for one reason or another that blade catches the wood it can throw that back and
3:36
With quite a bit of force and in milliseconds, and you don't know what's happening
3:41
you don't know what's going to happen all of a sudden boom it's happened and there are different strategies for
3:48
Greatly reducing the kickback hazard and More on that's going to be coming up later
3:55
one of the things that has submerged over the last 20 years or so is
4:00
The design of what's called anti kickback blades and this blade is a perfect example
4:07
It has the carbide teeth that actually do the cutting But then there's this little rise of metal
4:14
Immediately ahead of the tooth behind it and that little rise of metal is
4:21
Slightly below the cutting point of the blade so what it does is it limits the bite that each tooth can take because
4:29
almost all kickback events happen when the tooth engages a as the wood and
4:35
Instead of cutting through it propels the wood and that's what you want to avoid
4:40
Anti kickback blades go a long way to reducing the kickback hazard
4:45
after 40 plus years of using a table saw I've only ever had one kickback event and that was before
4:54
anti kickback blades Became popular you can't get the anti kickback design in all
5:00
Types of blades because the very fine blades have so many teeth that there's no room for that little hump of metal
5:07
But most blades do have that and I strongly recommend it also as a final as a final
5:14
safety procedure Whenever you're using the saw just stand to one side of the blade that kickback event. I was telling you about
5:23
It didn't actually hurt me because I was standing to one side The wood shot out hit the garage door in my shop
5:30
I'm Shocked shut the saw off, but there was no injury at all. So
5:37
Don't be overly afraid of kickback But then also don't ignore the possibility as well because you need to to keep yourself safe now
5:46
No discussion of table saw safety would be complete without exploring guards and
5:53
That's what you see here. This is called an overarm guard. It happens to be raised now, but during use
6:00
It drops down like that. So the whole blade is Concealed it's covered you you wouldn't be able to put your hand into it
6:08
Even if you wanted to now wanted one advantage of the overarm design is that you can hook it up to dust collection, too
6:15
because although Most sawdust gets sucked out of the bottom of the saw
6:20
There's still a little bit and the very finest of dust too gets kicked up above the workpiece as the blade is doing its thing
6:28
So the overarm guard Sucks that dust up and really goes a long way to getting rid of the most annoying dust
6:37
the really fine stuff Other saws will have a guard like this
6:44
Incorporated into the back part of the saw so it's not really
6:48
Something that you can lift out of the way like this and it doesn't collect dust
6:53
but all saws are going to come with some kind of a guard and To be honest
6:59
They can kind of be a pain to use and that's why a lot of people don't even put them on in the first place
7:03
or maybe take them off after Not liking them for a while, but I don't
7:09
Generally agree with that because the guards are there for a reason and it's just another layer of safety
7:16
Also one other thing if you look back here, you're going to see something behind the blade
7:22
this is called a splitter and It's fixed at least the body of it is fixed but on the side of the splitter there are these
7:32
Anti kickback pawls, they're called so they're spring-loaded They allow the wood to slide in the direction. It's supposed to slide during a cut
7:40
But if a kickback begins to occur, it's kind of like a ratchet wrench in a sense. It'll only go one way and
7:48
If the wood tries to go the other way It's going to get caught on those teeth and a kickback could be avoided
7:55
You'll probably still ruin your workpiece, but at least you won't have a flying projectile in your shop
8:00
there's a kind of a cousin to this called the arriving knife and
8:06
arriving knife Looks similar, but there are two differences first of all the arriving knife
8:12
Goes up and down with the blade and it doesn't have these anti kickback pawls on at least not that I've ever seen
8:19
Some people prefer the arriving knife. I'm quite happy with this splitter here in both cases though
8:27
one of the ways these things work is That they fit within the cut line that your blade has just chewed through so during a cut that's called the kerf
8:38
That gap left by the blade and the wood that is chewed up both the splitter and the arriving knife
8:46
Prevent the workpiece from rotating which is often part of a kickback event
8:52
The the blade will grab the wood and rotate it very very quickly of course and then end up throwing it around
8:58
So if it doesn't start to rotate Then you're short-circuiting the kickback mechanism. So
9:06
Those two things very important Don't operate the saw without them Except when you can't use them for a certain kind of cut like for instance
9:19
Here this this splitter if I wanted to cut some really narrow stuff like this using a push stick of course
9:27
I'd have to remove that because that that is preventing me at least with the splitter and the dogs on it the anti kickback
9:34
dogs or pawls they They won't let the fence get close enough to the blade. So and also similarly
9:42
This guy this guard is pretty wide And if I want to cut something narrower than that, well, how am I gonna push that through right? I can't push that through so
9:52
You can raise it the overarm guards. They they can be moved out of the way, too
9:59
But like I said, that's for specialty cuts and you don't often have to do that
10:04
But sometimes you do I'm going to be talking a lot about safety throughout the course because
10:11
It's very important one huge huge advancement in table saw safety comes from saws that
10:22
Will not cut anything like meat Believe it or not. There's technology out there that allows the blade to sense
10:33
The type of material that it's encountering and it's if it's electrically conductive enough
10:40
There's a mechanism that will immediately Stop the blade or drop the blade just get it out of your way
10:47
I'm going to be showing you an example of that a little bit later a company called saw stop
10:53
pioneered this and they're Almost without exception pretty well the only company that offers this if you're at all nervous
11:04
You might want to pay the extra money For a saw stop type saw just to keep you safe. You still want to do all the things
11:11
I've told you about here. You don't want to omit any of them But just as an added layer of safety just in case everything fails it could save you from a pretty serious injury, too. So
11:21
Safety is important. I'm going to be coming back to that over and over in the course as I explain how these things work