How important are the swinging teeth on a splitter?

[Tom Jones III]

I'm having trouble with the anti-kickback swinging arms on my splitter, the teeth catch on the rear of the table preventing the wood from continuing to move past the blade. Before I go to the trouble of fixing the problem, can I just remove them? It is hard for me to imagine how I would get kick back that the teeth would catch with the splitter in place, but I've only had kickback once and that was with an old bench top saw with no splitter.

I don't want to remove a valuable safety device, but I am having trouble imagining how these are going to provide much help.

[Greg Heppeard]

Tom,

It seems to me that you have the splitter installed incorrectly. When you install it, pull the anti-kickback pawls up on top of the table so that when wood is passed thru them, they ride on top of your wood.

[Tom Jones III]

When there is no wood going through, the teeth rest on the table. When the wood passes and the teeth-arms fall down, one tooth often gets hooked inside the opening on the table. When I try and pass the next piece of wood through, the tooth is hung on the edge of the table opening and won't lift up.

There are many ways to fix it, I was just wondering if it is even useful?

[Richard Wolf]

Sounds like a file may fix your problem.

Richard

[Jeff Sudmeier]

I removed the outside pawl from my splitter because it annoyed the crap out of me. I have left on the inside one cause it doesn't :) Never had it "save" me but I like it there just in case.

[Michael Ballent]

One of the first things I do is remove the anti-kickback pawls. I have found that they scratch the wood as it passed by which leads me to sanding ... and I hate sanding. I am sure that there is a good reason to have them there, but if the splitter is already there, then the odds of getting kickback are minimal, but not eliminated.

[Jim Becker]

I do not use the pawls on my Biesemeyer snap-in splitter. I have experienced the same marking issue that Michael speaks about and they also get in the way of push blocks on narrower cuts. It's much more important to use the splitter religiously than to have those pawls on it!

As to your issue, I had that happen with an OEM splitter on one of the table saws I have owned...I don't remember which one. No fun and a safety issue in itself.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Having experienced kickback more than once, the pawls are another layer of protection to me. It's like belt and suspenders. I agree they can be annoying at times, but they should not damage the wood. Perhaps running a file on the pawl teeth to reduce the sharpness will help, or figure out a way to reduce the spring tension is the answer.
-Jeff

[Jamie Buxton]

The answer may depend on the design of your splitter. For the splitter which came with my 25-year-old Unisaw, the pawls would be necessary for the device to do any good at all.

There's really two aspects of many splitters. There's the pawls which prevent wood from going backwards. There's also the splitting function. The upright piece of metal (which the pawls hang from) can prevent the kerf from closing on the back of the blade --- if it is nearly the width of the blade. In my opinion, that splitting function is perhaps more important in preventing kickbacks than the pawls. However, the vertical piece of metal must be nearly the width of the blade. In that old OEM splitter from my Unisaw, the vertical piece was sheet metal -- maybe a sixteenth of an inch thick. It was useless for preventing kerf closure.

[Greg Heppeard]

Ahhhhhhhhhh I understand now....you could probably take that side off, or file it down a bit so it doesn't catch. They can leave marks on your wood, but sanding is less painful than a board in the gut...or so I've heard. I hate sanding too.

[Barry O'Mahony]

The pawls also keep the piece against the table surface, preventing the wood from rising up to the part of the blade that is rotating back at you, where, if it gets caught against the blade, will get thrown back at you. Even with the spltter, a workpiece not in contact with the work surface may twist on an axis parallel to the line of cut, which may cause it to get caught by the blade.

[Dev Emch]

The old iron in me is thinking that they did this completely wrong. On old industrial saws like the olivers, the anti kick back pawls are on the overhead guard and not on the splitter. By putting them on the splitter, they make life hard and often damage your work. I cannt just crank up the pawels on a splitter version but I can on a guard mounted version.

Personally I would just remove them. To much trouble to deal with. If you really want some kind of gizzmo to keep teh board from shooting back at you and at the same time, keeping downward pressure on the board, then consider board buddies. They make a few different models and one of them has one directional bearing or sprag clutch. The wheel goes freely in one direction but locks in the reverse direction. I think these are meant for RAS machines but you can use them on table saws as well. And the rubber wheel keeps you damaging your finish.

[Tom Drake]

I think they are just another layer of protection with the splitter. I do not use the pawls. Only the splitter.