Beisemeyer Splitter

[Byron Trantham]

Well I used my new splitter for the first time today ripping about 90 feet of 3/4 birch. As had been my experience over the last 7-8 years, everything went fine. Then guess what? One of passes came back on the splitter so hard that the board could not be advanced! :mad: If I hadn't had that thing in place I probably would have been smacked in the head with the board! :eek: I used a small wedge on the end of the board to release it from the splitter and finished pushing it through. I guess fate was on my side. ;)

As an aside, I really couldn't believe how much pressure was exerted against the splitter. I flat couldn't move the board. Had it been the blade I suspect it may have stopped the motor!

[Tyler Howell]

Great Save Byron, I know this is all well documented in Pix on your Web site;) .

And the new Router Dado technique too!
thanks for sharing in advance.
:D

[Dick Parr]

Gald it was there for you Byron. :rolleyes: I haven't started my saw since the spring broke on my splitter and I won't until the new spring gets her from Beisemeyer. :)

[Paul Downes]

I currently DO NOT have a splitter on my saw. Thanks for the reminder. I guess I will be putting one in soon. I've been thinking of making my own, and your experiance drives the point home with a vengence. I have several youngsters in my shop and I will not let them use the table saw at all. I have worked with machinery all my life and have seen some horrific accidents. I told my kids today that we are going to have a shop safty class soon. They are my constant shadows and it is always on my mind. I visited a high school woodworking class with a master turner last week and I was dismayed at the lack of safty protocol and safty equipment. I am going to meet with the shop teacher and discuss some changes. On thing I gleaned from this master turner was that his home made lathe tools were very safe to use compared with the standard lathe tools. We are going to work to manufacture some for the school. I just picked up $100 worth of cobalt steel and tool steel to get going on this. I think I will ditch most of my own lathe tools once I make the new ones. The school had only one face shield!!! and 4 wood lathes. I did not see ANY safty glasses in the class. One of the first times I turned a bowl on my lathe I had a bad catch and the bowl ricocheted off my face shield. It would have caught me right between the eyes. Both of my older sons were watching and got an 'eyefull' of the danger. It was an excellent object lesson. Be SAFE...

[Bill Esposito]

Byron,

Yep, it's happened to me twice (which is alot since I only do this as a hobby) since I bought the Bies splitter. I think part of it is that it is a full kerf splitter which is significantly thicker than most OEM splitters....That and the fact that my saw mill tends to sell boards with lots of stress in them :)

I have modified mine to accept my Jet OEM blade guard (http://cerealport.net/woodworking/biespliter.html) because I didnt like the idea of not being able to us the guard with the splitter and I dont want to get an overhead guard until I get my shop layout finished.

In my opinion the Bies splitter is worth the high price they charge for it.

[John Miliunas]

Yup, another vote for the Bies splitter, even though it was kind of a PITA to modify it for my BW. Still, wouldn't be without it. I'm so concious of it now that, the other day, after doing a few dado cuts, I reset for ripping. I had the dimensions all tweaked in, the featherboard on and hand was on the power switch. THEN, I noticed that I had forgotten to slip the splitter back in. :o Teardown the setup, put the splitter in and reset everything back up. For TWO, short rips, no less! That's OK...I can still count to ten on my fingers, and outside of some road rash from way back when, I don't intend on getting too much uglier due to a nasty from the saw! :D Can't have too many safety reminders, Byron! Thanks! :cool: