Kickback scare

[Phil Hughey]

Here is a kickback story from my shop this past Saturday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFiIjCsTxXY

Never knew a kickback could pack such a wallop. As I think about it, I'm thinking that using a splitter would have kept this from happening. I always thought splitters just kept the wood from pinching into the blade, but in this case, it would also have kept the piece from rotating into the blade. I've got to rethink that one.

[Rod Sheridan]

Phil, I'm glad to hear that you're ok.

Yes a splitter or riving knife prevents the work from rotating into the rear of the blade, that prevents kick back accidents. You need one, no question about it, whether you buy or make one for your saw.

Regards, Rod.

[David Nelson1]

Glad to hear your Ok Phil. The table and the shaper get my full attention, as you have witnessed it doesn't take much for things to go wrong real quick!!

[Peter Aeschliman]

I don't know if you've seen my thread about how I took a board to the forehead (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?170208-Kickback-Hurts!-(WARNING!-GORY-PICTURES!!)&highlight= (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?170208-Kickback-Hurts%21-%28WARNING%21-GORY-PICTURES%21%21%29&highlight=)), but I'm with you man.

I always thought people were blowing kickback out of proportion. In one magazine a year or so ago, there was a funny write up about how a man was hit in his "man parts" by some kickback. It was written with a lot of humor, and at the time I thought the author was embellishing. My forehead and your piece of 3/4" ply are clear evidence that kickback, even if it doesn't throw your hand into the blade, can really injure you.

As for how to prevent this- yes, riving knives help a lot because it keeps the workpiece from coming into contact with the backof the blade. However, there are other parts of the blade where the workpiece can come into contact with the teeth and throw the piece back at you: the top and the front.

To keep the top of the blade from being a problem, you need to raise the blade enough that the bottom of the gullets clear the top of the workpiece. For the front of the blade, you need to use feather boards to keep the workpiece against the fence. It doesn't hurt to use the spring-loaded anti-kickback pawls as well.

Since my injury, I do not stand in the line of the blade. I was working in the shop on Saturday, standing safely to the side, and experienced another kickback. This time, I was ripping a board and it was the waste piece that kicked back as the saw was shutting down. It was a small piece (maybe about 1" wide by 24" long). After I completed my cut, the waste piece was stuck under the blade guard in an awkward position. I could hear it rubbing against the blade, and it was slowly moving back toward the front of the saw. I grit my teeth knowing what was coming as the saw was slowing down. And sure enough, Boom! the piece hit the wall and shattered into pieces!

Anyway, I'm glad you're okay man. Thanks for the reminder. All woodworkers need to read these threads to keep them honest!

[Jim Rimmer]

Great video. Glad you are OK. Thanks for the post.

[Ray Newman]

Phil: to echo others, glad you escaped injury.

Interesting to see Fellow Woodworker who utilizes the Delta Uni-Guard on a Uni-Saw. My Uni-Saw dates from circa 1986 and came equipped with the Uni-Guard and the disappearing splitter. And I religiously use both.

Do you have the disappearing on your saw?

The disappearing splitter is very functional -- to do a cross cut, all that is required is to remove the throat plate, push down on the splitter, then re-install the throat plate. To do a rip, just pull up on the splitter. Takes no time at all. And switching back and forth quickly becomes routine.

I believe that the older style disappearing splitter for the Uni-Guard is still available. Have no idea what it costs.

[glenn bradley]

I use a splitter for every cut that can use one (and that's most of them).

[Kevin Womer]

So glad you are alright, I have been fortuate but my brother-in-law has not and he has two missing fingers to prove it.
Thanks for the video.
Kevin

[Peter Quinn]

Good to hear you are not injured. I've been there, very frightening. A spinning board missed my head last year by a hair, I could feel and hear the swish as I dropped flat on my back away from the saw. I have a splitter for my saw which did little good because it was not installed at the time. Stay safe and move forward, lesson learned at a relatively low cost. Oh, and if your push stick looks like one of those shuffle board sticks, throw it out and make a push block, or "shoe" type pusher that give you downward pressure over a longer area. Much more control over the stock that way. Of course I was not using that either when I lost control over my piece, because I was just making one quick cut......

[Phil Hughey]

Thanks you all for the encouragement and the advice.

Peter A., WOW! I followed your link, that was a nasty blow to the head. Is it healing alright? Nice of the nurse to point out the "L" thing on your forehead :)
It is a weird feeling when something like that happens and it brings it home just how badly things could have been. It had to put a huge fright in you to see all of that blood from the head wound. It's amazing how the "quick cuts" can cause so much trouble because they breed carelessness.

I'll be looking into a splitter. Thank you all for the admonition to do so.

Ray, I'll check into the disappearing splitter for the uniguard / unisaw. My saw did not come with the uniguard, it was an add on that I go off ebay so I don't know if the disappearing splitter will work on it or not, but, I'll definitely do some looking into it though.

[Ray Newman]

Phil H: re. the Delta disappearing splitter, see --

http://www.mikestools.com/34-868-Delta-Disappearing-Splitter-For-use-with-Delta-10-Right-Tilt-Unisaw.aspx (http://www.mikestools.com/34-868-Delta-Disappearing-Splitter-For-use-with-Delta-10-Right-Tilt-Unisaw.aspx)http://www.toolmarts.com/del_34-868.html (http://www.toolmarts.com/del_34-868.html)
The Saw Center might have a disappearing splitter.
http://www.sawcenter.com/ (http://www.sawcenter.com/)
Then there is the newer design “easy on -easy off” Delta splitter:
http://www.toolbarn.com/delta-78-963.html

[Phil Hughey]

Thank you for the links Ray. It looks like that outfit should work on my saw. I need to look at the rod behind the blade to make sure. I like that design, it looks like it should be very effective.

[Brian Kincaid]

Wow Phil glad you are okay.
-Brian

[Larry Fox]

Phil, thanks for the reminder and am certainly glad to hear that you were able to escape injury. One other think that I noticed very early into your video and I typically classify as a safety concern is the cord on your saw. It appears to be running across the floor and in your walking path. Not a TS issue per-se but just something I noticed.

[Dave Aronson]

I have recently been thinking of selling my Jet contractor to to get a grizzly cabinet saw just for the splitter. I wish contractor saws could have good splitters.

[Peter Aeschliman]

http://www.grizzly.com/products/10-2-HP-Contractor-Style-Table-Saw-with-Riving-Knife/G0661

I think most of the contractor saws (and soon all of them) come with riving knives, like the one above. Although I'd definitely recommend saving a while longer for the few hundred bucks more to get a cabinet saw... smaller footprint, better dust collection, heavier duty, etc.

[ian maybury]

Good to hear you're OK, and a sobering video Phil.

I guess the bit we don't intuitively grasp is just how much energy there is wound up in a spinning blade and arbour assembly - even if it's quite a small saw. Most times if we get some sort of kick there isn't a truly efficient transfer of energy from the blade to the flying piece. It's probably a bit like baseball though - if it does manage to really hook up that piece (as the video shows) can really can fly....

ian

[Keith Pitman]

I had almost the same experience a couple of years ago, although with less dramatic results. In my case, I made the mistake of having the narrow side of a cut next to the fence. A piece about one half inch square launched itself from the saw, and penetrated and imbedded itself in a half inch sheet of melamine board that was standing about six feet behind the saw. Fortunately I was standing to the left of the blade. I left the rocketed piece imbedded in the melamine sheet for a long time to remind me to work safely.

[Chris Kennedy]

I am glad you escaped injury. I cannot stress enough the importance of not standing in the path of the blade.

A number of years ago, my wife and I were working in the "shop," which was the basement in our townhouse. I had configured it for one person to work in because it was usually just me. My darling wife was down there working on a set of shelves while I was working on a bench I was building. The main workbench was in direct line with the tablesaw -- why would it matter -- I would never be at the tablesaw and at the bench at the same time, now would I? I was working and my darling wife needed to crosscut a piece of stock. It didn't even dawn on me or her about the risk. She powered up the saw, made the cut and the saw threw the off cut. I took it to the chest.

I accused my darling wife of a diabolical level of passive-aggressiveness (once I was able to breathe again :D). To be honest, I am amazed I didn't break anything. It wasn't like I was cavalier with the saw prior to that, but ever since, I have been far more aware.

Chris

[Phil Hughey]

Larry, thanks for the heads up on the cord, I usually try to run it to the side of the saw but another thing that's easy to careless about. Maybe I should take up a safer hobby, like maybe, ultralight flying?

[Troy Turner]

The more of these kinds of posts I read, the harder I look to find the missing pieces for my blade guard/splitter. I have a mid-80s Craftsman belt drive, but for the life, can't find what I'm looking for.

[Jacob Reverb]

Somewhere I heard about a guy who was cutting real thin strips on a TS and had one kick back and it went all the way through the tailgate of his truck!

So no standing behind the blade, and no blade guards for me!

Thanks for the post Phil. We could all use the reminder.

[Phil Hughey]

Hi Ian, I did a rough calculation for a 10" blade turning at about 3400 rpm's the teeth on the outside are moving at about 150 feet per second. If the blade does really "hook up" as you mentioned, with the mass of a red oak board at let's say a pound, that board could potentially reach a force of 350 foot pounds, which is somewhere between the force of a 38 special and a 9mm. We don't think about that enough.

Troy, I'm on that same kind of hunt now. Just learning about them but am definitely going to do something. There have been some good suggestions given here but I have to make sure they'll fit my saw because it is so old. I had one of those older, cast iron craftsman for years. That thing came in handy so many times. My wife agreed to let me upgrade if I promised to always use a blade guard on my next saw. I do use it religiously, only removing it when the cut will not allow me to keep it in place.

Jacob, I never would have believed the story about the tailgate of the truck until I saw that piece of plywood with the rectangular hole in it. Now I believe you. I do have to say though, I would not be too quick to rule out a blade guard. I love mine. It keeps me so much safer by having something substantial between my hand and the blade. With a proper splitter or riving knife in place it would have kept the blade guard from pushing the piece down into the blade. I don't know about you but I do enough stupid things, often enough that my blade guard is one of my favorite table saw accessories.



Jacob,

[Peter Aeschliman]

Well, when you're ripping thin strips, the blade guard can actually cause the thin piece to be forced into the blade... this is what happened in the situation I described in my earlier post, when I had another kickback recently... although I definitely saw it coming and had plenty of time to make sure I wasn't in the path of destruction.

In the case of ripping thin strips, would I say that you should remove the blade guard? No. I'd say you should find another way to do the operation... I.e., use the bandsaw to rough cut the strips then run them through a drum sander to get your final thickness.

I think the tablesaw's versatility is both a blessing and a curse. Since you can use it for so many vital operations, and so many "tips and tricks" are written about them in the magazines, people view it as the ubiquitous tool in the shop... and perhaps it tends to make us forget about the special things other machines in our shop can do more safely.

I think one of the key safety rules in on the tablesaw should be: if you can't do it with the blade guard in place, find another way to do it. I'm eating my own words here by the way, because I remove my blade guard all the time for non-through cuts. And the only way to have a blade guard in place for a non-through cut is to use an overhead/overarm blade guard.

[ian maybury]

Ta Phil, scary numbers indeed. I raced motorcycles for years, but it applies to cars too - it's scary to think there too just how much energy you're carrying at even fairly moderate speeds.

On legislation. It's amazing the variety of technique that informs the use of apparently identical pieces of woodworking machinery in general - it's no wonder any given guard or safety system causes problems for some users - no matter how carefully it's designed.

Trouble is it moves the issue into the same place as lots of law - as in the one size fits all solution that any law is is inevitably highly sub optimal. That's not to say that equipment shouldn't be safe, but legislation and/or regulation quickly head into the realms of the inane if they go too far.

As I've posted before - you can't by legislation or regulation make a person that's not switched on and taking responsibility for themselves safe. At least not without huge on cost. Not only that - if it's overdone it may actually increase risk by switching people off and creating a culture of inattention and victimhood...

ian