Safety Question

[Peter Gavin]

With all the recent threads on accidents et al, I thought I would posit a question on how I could have done something safer. Last night I was rabbeting some wood about 1" x 3/4" that will become a sort of picture frame. The rabbet was about 3/8" wide (less than half of the woods width) and 1/2" deep. I was using a sacrificial fence which buried part of the dado blade, a featherboard to keep the wood tight against the fence, and a gripper to move the stock past the blade. On the first cut, when the dado blade cleared the end of the board the board became unstable and twisted into the blade (thank god for the gripper which now has a nice gouge in the pad and plastic). I had unfortunately already cut the 45 degree miters on the ends of the boards, so a standard push stick didn't lock on very well. After careful thought, I couldn't devise a safer way than moving the pad on the gripper away from the fence so that it's downward pressure was directed over solid wood that wasn't being wasted away. This felt awkward to me, as I am used to using the gripper to apply pressure both downward and against the fence. So, other than not cutting the miters until after rabbetting, what suggestions do you have?

Thanks

Peter

[Ken Fitzgerald]

From what I read...it sounds like when you cut it...you're removing some of the surface that provides support....on a narrow piece that's a significant portion of the supporting surface....thus...there's nothing to support it.....it drops on the side that is dadoed....and twists into the blade. Two suggestions......1) try reversing your setup....use a flat fence....use featherboards to hold the piece against the fence and down to the table top......2. And probably the safest......Start with a wider piece....mill your rabbet and then rip to width and miter.....Good luck!

[Scott Loven]

What about adding a piece of wood to the fence just after the blade to give support to the piece being cut? I havent tried this, but it seems it would work.
Scott

[Tyler Howell]

Like Ken said dado the board and the rip it to size. Much more to hang on to.

[Dan Stuewe]

Zero clearance insert would help too.

[David Duke]

Like Ken said dado the board and the rip it to size. Much more to hang on to.

I agree this will be much safer plus if the pieces are short I would cut the dado on one long piece then cut to length and cut miters.

[Lee Schierer]

I've done this by cutting a strip of wood that will be the same height as the portion being removed and sticking it to the saw table with double sided tape right behind the blade. It doesn't have to be the same width or leght as the cut, but the height is critical and make sure you chamfer the edge toward the blade so the piece you are cutting will go up over the end smoothly.

[tod evans]

mill your stock in long lengths then miter, working with short pieces is always dangerous, wood is much cheeper than stiches! .02 tod