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My Table Saw Almost Got Me

By Jared Patchin | 02/03/2012 11:25:00 AM

 

A near-miss on a table saw accident got Jared Patchin at J. Alexander Fine Woodworking to think long and hard about saw and shop safety. Here's his recount of what happened in 2008, and how it lead him to change his woodshop. This is reposted with permission from Patchin's blog

Safety is very important! Woodworking is not the safest thing to do all day everyday. In just about every step of the construction process there is a chance to smash, cut, slice, and grind your fingers. I plan on building custom furniture for a very long time, and I plan on dying with all ten fingers intact.

The reason I mention the safety thing is because we had a bit of a scare at work today.

Sometimes wood does weird things when you cut into it. While cutting a board today, the cut-off side began curving back into the saw blade – essentially sandwiching the blade between the two pieces of board! The blade whined under the increased pressure, the wood smoked as the friction built up, and my mind raced wildly as I tried not to panic.

It is amazing how fast your mind can think when it is stressed. In a split second I had three distinct thoughts:

1. I scolded myself for being so careless. The table saw is an incredibly useful tool for cutting wood. It is also an incredibly useful tool for throwing wood around and for slicing flesh.

2. I felt the blade heat up, saw it wobble, saw smoke as the friction increased, and wondered how the heck I was going to extricate myself from the mess I was in.

3. I vowed to install two safety features as soon as this ordeal was over.

I knew that I couldn’t let go of the board for fear that the blade would catch it, bounce it up, and send wood and metal flying everywhere, but I needed to turn the saw OFF! I held the board as steadily as possible and yelled to a coworker to turn it off, which he was able to do.

Once the blade had stopped, I thanked God for not teaching me a lesson the hard way, and assessed the damage. The blade was scalding hot from the friction, dull as a butter knife, and probably too warped to be used again. The board sported some fancy burn marks.

click image to zoom

As noted above, I decided after this little scare, that it was time to install a few safety features on our 30+ year-old table saw. The first and, in many woodworker’s opinions, the most critical safety feature on a table saw is the riving knife. A riving knife is a piece of metal, the same thickness as the blade, that sits directly behind the blade. It prevents the material that is passing through the blade from clamping down on the blade itself (as happened to me). The riving knife ends up being the thing that gets squeezed if a board was to tweak during cutting, and this allows the blade to continue spinning away unimpeded.

This is the homemade riving knife I had made for our Rockwell Unisaw. I was unable to located the original owners manual anywhere in the office or the shop, but found a digital copy of the original owners manual for this saw on OWWM.com and discovered that this saw originally came with a riving knife! Unfortunately for me, it was probably lost somewhere along the way. I called a local tool retailer and asked them if they could order me a replacement one. The guy on the other line said he could but it was going to cost me about half as much as a brand new saw: $500! Instead I walked to the machine shop next door and asked them if they could help me out and one hour later I had a homemade riving knife in my hand, cut from scrap steel, costing a total of $0!

Here is a picture of the installed riving knife.

click image to zoom

Here is a shot of what it looks like while a board is being cut. The riving knife prevents the board from clamping down on the blade, thus preventing kickback and injury.

click image to zoom

The second safety feature I installed, or more appropriately, had installed for me, was an emergency off button for the table saw. Many woodworkers hang a board down in front of the on/off buttons that, when kicked, hits the off button and turns the saw off. I didn’t like that (it seemed like it would come with it’s own safety risks), so I had an electrician install a large round button close to the ground that is easily kicked if the user needs to shut of the saw for any reason.

From now on things should be a bit safer around here!

Jared Patchin started woodworking professionally in 2008 when he set-up  J.Alexander Fine Woodworking in Boise, ID, where he builds custom crafted furniture and cabinetry.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jared Patchin

Jared Patchin J Alexander Fine Woodworking Network Jared Patchin started woodworking professionally in 2008 when he set-up J.Alexander Fine Woodworking in Boise, ID, where he builds custom crafted furniture and cabinetry. He started building furniture at the age of seven when his father bought Shutter Crafts. He has developed his craft since then, moving from making wooden swords for himself and his friends to building some of the finest furniture and cabinetry available. He lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife and two young sons, who have taken over the sword making side of things.

 

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John Gresko    
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O'Brien Florida  |  February, 07, 2012 at 07:07 AM

Better late than never. As far as the E stop, I can't believe you just now recognized the NEED for it. Brother.

Grafton    
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Fayette, MO  |  February, 07, 2012 at 07:16 AM

In most cases these problems are created by poorly dried lumber. I suggest making it a habit to cut out both a "fork test" and case-hardening test on inbound lumber shipments.

Rob    
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NC  |  February, 07, 2012 at 08:49 AM

WOW! All I can say is this is hard to read. A table saw operator (since 1991) that writes articles that doesn't already know that he needs a kill switch. I can't be sure but that looks like a splitter not a riving knife. A splitter is stationary and a riving knife goes up and down with the blade.

Sam    
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Pennsylvania  |  February, 07, 2012 at 09:17 AM

There was no mention of the blade condition. With properly dried wood and a sharp blade this would not happen.

Francis Lemieux    
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Vancouver BC  |  February, 07, 2012 at 10:41 AM

The situation illustrated is completely preventable. This is the type of thing that should not happen if tradespeople learn and follow basic safety procedures. The splitter
behind the blade is standard equipment on European machines and in fact is often removed by morons in our area.
The STOP switch should be accessible by foot or some other part of your body other than your hands.

kirk skaggs    
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wv  |  February, 07, 2012 at 12:32 PM

If he had a saw with more power this would not be a problem. I cut knotty hickory alot and 71/2 hp 3ph on a ten
inch blade took care of the smoking problem. And a power feeder so you fingers are nowhere near the blade.
My panel saw has a 15hp motor. Nither has never stalled since I heavyed up the hp.
And stay out of the flight path is always a no brainer.
Dont be cheap when it comes to power.

NH    
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Ohio  |  February, 07, 2012 at 06:31 PM

First off I like to say is I didn't like the look of that fence being all cut up. That can cause hangups and it makes the fence not parallel with the blade. You should check your lumber like some of the other posts say. I'm glad to hear that you put a bigger stop button on the saw.I hope that your fence is parallel to the blade, check it with feeler gauges. Also check your arbor for serious runout with a dial indicator. If your arbor wobbles it put that 10" blade out of balance and pinch your wood. Keep those blades sharp. Use rip blades with lesser teeth for ripping usually with a flat grind on the teeth don't use anything over forty teeth, otherwise you'll put more heat buildup on blades with more teeth. Thats my 2 cents. Happy woodworking

Bill Esler    
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Lincolnshire IL  |  February, 17, 2012 at 02:08 PM

Editor's Note: FYI Jared wrote this four years ago - it's not "just now" that he made the changes.

Jared Patchin    
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Boise, ID  |  March, 15, 2012 at 12:09 PM

Hello all, this is Jared, the guy in the article. I thought I should respond to some of the comments.

1. The lumber I was cutting was 10/4 alder, so it may have been entirely possible that the lumber was not perfectly dried throughout.
2. It is indeed a splitter, not a riving knife.
3. We have recently installed a powerfeed on this table saw, primarily used for running dados in sheet goods. Maybe one of these days we will look into using it when we have a bunch of lumber to rip.
4. The fence does have some blade marks on it, but visually they look worse than they actually are. The blade and fence are nice and parallel.
5. The table saw has been used in the company for the past 30 years, and it has never had a splitter or kick stop button. Luckily, we have never had any serious injuries or close calls, prior to this event.
6. The bio at the end needs to be tweaked a bit. We began our furniture and cabinet division in 2008, which is when this event took place. I had been using the table saw for 8 years of so without any issue like this. Without no one to point these things out to me, I didn't realize that table saws even had a thing like a riving knife or emergency stop buttons. Thankfully no one was hurt and now we have the safety precautions in place.

Thanks for all the interest in the article.
Jared Patchin


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