Quote Originally Posted by Matthew Hills View Post
tracking at the very back of the wheel.
FWIW, I'd have found it a little more convincing if he had moved the blade to the front of the wheel rather than the back. I may be off base here, but it always seemed to me that if the front of the teeth were supported it prevented them from turning into or out of the workpiece. I'd think that moving the blade to the back still accomplishes that. Still an interesting video though, I just don't find moving the blade back as convincing.

I do think the little ripper looks interesting, but I don't see where you'd get by without switching to a fence when cutting thin pieces as you got to the last slices. Also I guess that for me it would be a solution looking for a problem to solve since I have had good luck just using a tall fence after creating a flat face by other means.

That said if I were to start having problems with the kerf opening up and stressing the cut, using a fence that stops at the blade sounds like something worth trying. In that case, using a piece of MDF as Mike Cutler suggested to provide relief makes sense to me.

I have had poor resaw performance at times that mimicked the problem he described with the opening kerf. The thing is that without exception it was immediately resolved by replacing the blade and properly adjusting the saw. I have never had issues like that with a fairly fresh blade and properly set up saw. So that raises the question, would the little ripper have made a nice straight cut without the blade change in those cases? I doubt it. Would it have made the blades last longer and prevented the blade's demise? Again I doubt it, but who knows?

I am kind of intrigued, but probably not enough to buy one.