Missing Table Saw Guards

[CPeter James]

I am trying to buy a small table saw for my niece. All the saws on CL are missing the guards and the owners do not have them. There must by a large cache of them someplace! This applies to old and new alike. Doesn't anyone ever use theirs? I have an overarm guard on my PM66. The original one was among the missing when I bout it used. It was about 10 years old at the time.
CPeter

[Mike Cutler]

Mine are in a box in the loft. If I ever CL my table saws, I'm pretty sure I can find all the OEM parts
I know I don't use them. I'm sure they allow the manufacturer to meet some minimum "legal liability" criteria. As far as actually performing a useful function, they're very much lacking.

[David Kumm]

Buy a good quality saw in good shape, set it up and adjust it- and add a sharkguard from Lee Styron. A saw with a crappy fence that doesn't keep its settings is scary. Dave

[John TenEyck]

You can often find OE replacement guards from the manufacturer; certainly, you still can for any Sears saw. But the recommendation to buy a Sharkguard is a good one. In any case, you are doing the right thing to make sure your the saw you give to your niece has a splitter and guard on it. If she starts out using one it will be second nature.

John

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I'm one of the oddballs who has the blade guard mounted on his saw and uses it unless I am doing a non-thru cut which requires me to remove the guard and the splitter that mounts to it.

[Jim Becker]

CPeter, most older saws used guards that were inconvenient and cumbersome to remove for non-through cuts...so a "large percentage" of folks pretty much didn't use them and lost track of them. The best replacement would likely be some kind of overarm type because as you know...it can stay on the saw pretty much all the time with little interference.

[Wayne Lomman]

Get one with guards or retrofit good aftermarket ones. Do you really want to present your niece with a machine that is not guarded and live with the consequences. If anyone wants to remove their own guards, that is their choice. Remove it for someone else? Let them make their own choice.

As I have said before, if you can't use your saw with a guard, you need to learn because your training is lacking. Even if you need to remove the standard guard for some tasks, it is not hard to clamp a temporary guard in place for that task. When you are finished, put the proper guard back on. Cheers

[Frederick Skelly]

My Delta contractor saw came without a guard. I wanted a new, aftermarket guard and finally settled on a Shark Guard. One small step in the right direction...

[Osvaldo Cristo]

I'm one of the oddballs who has the blade guard mounted on his saw and uses it unless I am doing a non-thru cut which requires me to remove the guard and the splitter that mounts to it.

The same here but I experiment some frustration as I cannot make a non thru cut removing only the guard but maintaining the splitter... unfortunately I have to remove both for a non thru cut.

BTW even my sledge can work with both guard and splitter at their place.

Regards.

[Mike Cutler]

As I have said before, if you can't use your saw with a guard, you need to learn because your training is lacking. Even if you need to remove the standard guard for some tasks, it is not hard to clamp a temporary guard in place for that task. When you are finished, put the proper guard back on. Cheers

Wayne
I'm not sure what kind of guards come standard, OEM, on saws outside the US. For many of the saws sold here, the OEM blade guard, and splitters, were just awful.
They were really cheap stamped metal that would deform out of shape seemingly on their own. I could never keep mine aligned for any length of time. It was like the vibration of the saw would cause them to move. If you just bumped one, it was sure to be bent.
The actual splitters weren't the same thickness as any normally kerfed blade, effectively doing nothing. The height under the ratcheting pawls precluded using any material over an inch thick, and the springs on those pawls were guaranteed to leave two lines down the face of any material. None of them came OEM with any dust collection capability whatsoever. Many folks took them off as they were just as much a liability, as a benefit, and made their own.
My blade guard/dust hood is based on a design someone on the forum presented here, many years ago. It suspends from the ceiling, and can be swung up and out of the way when not needed.
I made my own splitter out of 1/8" plate steel.

What's interesting is that many of the overhead blade guard/dust collector hood, designs out now are very, very, similar to some of the home built solutions I saw presented on wood working forums 15-20 years ago. I think small fabricators saw an existing market and moved into it. Which was a good thing.

[John TenEyck]

Mike, not looking for an argument, but thought it worthwhile to point out that the guard on my old CI Sears saw has integrated dust collection, a splitter that is about 0.1" wide, and pawls approx. 3" above the table which don't scratch the wood traveling underneath. I'll admit it wasn't the easiest thing to align or keep aligned, but I always thought that to be a small price to pay for helping keep all my fingers safe in case I did something stupid. My well used Unisaw came, surprise to no one, without a guard. I fabricated my own splitter and repurposed the Sears guard onto an overhead mount. It meets my needs w/o issue.

Using a guard is more about choice than anything else. If you have your mind made up that it's a pain, inconvenient, can't see, whatever, then you won't use one. But if you view it as a seatbelt on a car, something you never need until you do, then you will learn to use one. A year or so ago I badgered one of my woodworking friends into getting a Shark guard. He said he'd never even had a kickback in 35 years of woodworking, but decided maybe a guard would be OK. I asked him a month or so ago how he liked it and he said it didn't bother him at all. Old dogs can change.

John

[Wayne Lomman]

Following on from Mike's comment, it would appear that Australia is not plagued poor quality guarding. I even have a cheap no-brand Chinese combo machine in the corner that is accurately and conveniently guarded. My advice is if the guard doesn't work, replace it rather than discard it. The seatbelt analogy is a good one. Cheers

[Martin Wasner]

He said he'd never even had a kickback in 35 years of woodworking,

How is that even possible? Some odd ball operations it's an oddity when something doesn't come winging out of the saw.

[Lee Schierer]

I am trying to buy a small table saw for my niece.

I would recommend taking a look at the Rigid 4512 13 amp 10" table saw. This saw has all the guards, a cast iron top and a fence that locks down repeatably. My son purchased one in December and I helped him assemble it. The directions have a couple of weak spots, but they will work to get the saw together. It is a belt driven saw. Assembly takes about 2 hours. The saw was very closely aligned out of the box and the small tweaks I made were pretty easy to do. It is a pretty good investment for just over $500 and the guards are easy to work with though it does take a time or two to get used to how they go on and off.saw.jpg

[John TenEyck]

How is that even possible? Some odd ball operations it's an oddity when something doesn't come winging out of the saw.

I have no clue Martin. And this guy has produced a fair amount of work for a hobbiest and is not prone to exaggerate. He uses some nice wood, but still.

He not only had no guard he had no splitter on it either. I cringed every time I looked at it. But I eventually wore him down and he got the Shark guard. And as I said before, he likes it just fine now that he has one.

John