American pork chop style guards in UK?

[John McM]

Are the American pork chop style guards on planer thicknessers allowed over here? Never see them. Can’t say I’m a big fan of the over and under guards. Although they do keep the blades covered at all times. The swing type guard covers the portion of blades not covered by the timber.
Any thoughts?

 

[Trevanion]

They're technically illegal to use in a commercial environment (and to sell on a new machine, naturally) because of health and safety stipulations since the cutter block is completely exposed at the end of a cut, but they've never really been popular here anyway so even older machines with that style of guarding are very rare.

MikeG is an advocate for them though, he did a thread recently about his guard improvement: https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/post1346639.html?

It's certainly better than no guard though

 

[John McM]

Interesting. I thought they were probably not allowed in a pro shop. Mike’s thread is worth some thought. Thanks for that