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Table Saw Safety 101
3K views
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