Just use the blade guard!

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Doug71

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Just a reminder to leave that blade guard on.

This guy spends most of the video discussing what went wrong and only briefly mentions at the end that maybe he could have used a blade guard :rolleyes:

And use some proper push sticks!

 
He blames the cut on losing concentration, mind being not focused, distraction blah blah. Not on the fact that there's an open and exposed high speed spinning blade! He'll probably carry on without a blade guard.

99.9% of videos on Youtube that show a tablesaw being used have unguarded blades, no riving knives, leaning over the unguarded blade with push blocks.
 
The way he explains it I doubt a blade guide would have helped, his fingers would have gone under it. This is a simple case of stupidity, there are no excuses and it was completely avoidable. If I was him I would avoid all machinery until at least I had attended some decent safety training to at least give him the right mindset. When that blade is spining you do not take your eyes off it, and always use pushsticks or the like to ensure your hands are well clear at all times and always know what your hands are doing. He literally put his hand into the blade whilst looking in the other direction, that is pure stupidity and there is no engineered solution that could make him safe. He is probably one of lifes walking disasters, the sort that accidents just love to find.
 
He was using a yellow push block and nothing else so he didn’t have a push stick in each hand, it becomes automatic when you’re using your saw that you have one of those in each hand and when you want to clear a bit of wood or offcut as he was doing It’s automatic to use the stick to do it with, my personal view is that if you’re using one of those push blocks you probably can’t do it easily with the guard over the blade in a lot of situations which is probably why so many Americans take the guard and the riving knife away – barking.
It makes me shiver to think of using one of those blocks as your hand is just far too close to the blade even when you’re using one correctly. Ian
 
Ten and a half minutes, maybe I’m too millennial... could have been a picture of how he was doing it and a big flashing sign saying “I deserved this one”

Aidan
 

So this is an American guy asking why most people remove the guards, he makes all sorts of reasons and excuses but basically it comes down to you can’t use a push block if you’ve got the guard in place. He is supposedly showing us how to use one safely it scares the hell out of me.
He also says that the main purpose of the guard is to stop you dropping pieces of wood onto the blade which would then be slung back at you, he just doesn’t get it at all.
 
In the video in the first post, he says it's a motion he's done thousands of times, I presume he means putting his hand right next to the blade to move a piece of wood, not that he puts his hand there without looking.
 
"Could have had a blade guard in place" followed by "all those things are options and considerations"???

He went out of his way to remove a safety guard and even after catching two fingers directly in the blade still thinks those same safety guards are "options and considerations". I suspect this is the first of many from this guy's 'just how dumb am I?' series of videos.
 

So this is an American guy asking why most people remove the guards, he makes all sorts of reasons and excuses but basically it comes down to you can’t use a push block if you’ve got the guard in place. He is supposedly showing us how to use one safely it scares the hell out of me.
He also says that the main purpose of the guard is to stop you dropping pieces of wood onto the blade which would then be slung back at you, he just doesn’t get it at all.

He recommends other people should use a blade guard then says he doesn't use one himself, and thinks it's safe to lean over and put his hands very near the blade and he's offering safety advice??!!
:dunno:

He's downplaying the purpose of a guard to justify why he doesn't use one.
 
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Having no guard isnt that unusual really I'm a culprit i hold my hands up to. Last professional workshop didnt have one fitted either.
Sure theres a danger involved, but theres also ..well not justifying it with talk of deep ripping cuts or cutting tenons or dados where the guard MUST be removed as the majority of saws being sold dont have a separately mounted guard(like the PK)
Personally I use long push sticks, and aged 15 i did have an industrial accident so i am aware more than most here how nasty that can be.
Being aware of the dangers of machines is always the right thing, the guard isnt the be all end all of prevention, you can still have an accident with a guard in place. ESPECIALLY when at 45d with the entire blade up.
Ill also say i dont like it when the blade is fully up, but i feel safe because i am always aware of the dangers each and every time i switch on. The push sticks are long and I never ever put my hands anywhere close to the blade. A long stick will be used to clear cut timber out the back or from the side.

Sorry I dont accept having a guard will prevent accidents 100% of the time, it is the operator and their attitude as well as their concentration that is the paramount aspect.
 
A couple of things to remember in the home workshop. Firstly distraction - dogs, cats, children and spouses as well as friendly neighbours bringing a can or two round.
Secondly we're working with wood which can have hidden variations in grain and density to say nothing of knots.
 
& yet he’s still made a near 13 minute video out of his ignorance that will no doubt boost his YouTube channel.
Pretty much sums up why I dislike YouTube.
 
And can’t they talk! The Americans appear to be particularly bad at it, waffle waffle waffle – state the blindingly bleeding obvious and then finally you might get round to something you actually MIGHT want to see, but not very often in my opinion. Ian
You’re right Ian, there must be benefits for the time a video runs as you invariably get 10 minutes of garbage waffle before a bit of action that is so self explanatory as to make the pre-talk worthless.
I will admit there are very few videos I’ve watched in there entirety, the best thing about YouTube is the horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen that allows you to forward through the dung.
 
There are always a few ways to cut material safely without removing the guard.
The problem is thinking the table saw can do everything for that's what they imply.
 
In response to TRITON's post up there. This whole thread is predominantly about the inherent dangers of people who seriously risk the well-being of others by disregarding crucial safety measures and propagating that on an open public platform. Why would you then reiterate that very same risk on that very same thread. I hear these counter arguments all the time;

Having no guard isnt that unusual really
The reality of a blade guard being there or not doesn't actually dilute its intended verifiable purpose.
Last professional workshop didnt have one fitted either.
Assuming we are still talking about a saw with a purposely removed safety guard, this is illegal and only a matter of time before more than one set of blue lights turns up at those premises.
aged 15 i did have an industrial accident so i am aware more than most here how nasty that can be.
This statement would have credibility if arguing for safety but to use it to argue against it makes no sense. Having an accident doesn't qualify anyone to argue against working safe.
the guard isnt the be all end all of prevention, you can still have an accident with a guard in place.
Obviously accidents happen with safety guards in place, that's just the law of averages but this doesn't mean they don't prevent accidents.
but i feel safe because i am always aware of the dangers each and every time i switch on.
That thought process doesn't replace safety guards, it can perversely however breed contempt over a period of time, for all of us.
Sorry I dont accept having a guard will prevent accidents 100% of the time
This is the classic devolution of the counter argument, reference something absurd never stated but subtly suggest the opposing stance made it. In all my years in interacting with other woodworkers, both in-person and online, I have not once seen or heard anyone making the case for working safe that 'having a guard will prevent accidents 100% of the time'.

I don't mean to single you out TRITON, I haven't a Scoobies who you are. This is not an attack on you, I am addressing your text as in my opinion it is crucial that any new woodworkers reading it need to know this is not common sense or a valid argument to not use safety measures on equipment that can change your entire life for the worse in seconds if not used properly. Safety guards are part of the machine design, your average woodworker does not know better than the machine designer or is in a position to question the validity of the Health and Safety directorate of their respective countries. We don't advocate removing the blade guard on a circular saw or suggest removing the guarding on most other high speed cutting machines so why do table saw's get a pass? in my limited experience the reason most people remove the guard is bore out of ignorance, arrogance or a laziness to replace it after removing it - yes you sometimes need to remove it but equally sometimes there are other safety measures to cover that circumstance, sometimes these are other guards.

I'm not the safety police, we are all adults. All I ask is if anyone comes across the text up there and thinks it's a valid case to remove safety guards please read a little further before going further. People can and will operate as they see fit, I'm in no position to tell anyone what to do and again TRITON, this is not aimed at you, more the argument you make.

Just like gambling, don't gamble with what you can't afford to lose.
 
I do think those gripper blocks are a really bad idea - they actually shorten your reach and you have to stretch your arm right over the blade, guarded or not, and no protection at all for the left hand
2 push stick reduces chance of accident to near zero (guarded or not), and give you better control.
 
I do think those gripper blocks are a really bad idea - they actually shorten your reach and you have to stretch your arm right over the blade, guarded or not, and no protection at all for the left hand
2 push stick reduces chance of accident to near zero and give you better control
I agree, they place your hand way to close for me. I've been using the Jessem clear cut guides for a few years now and whilst not useable for all cuts they have fit the purpose for me.
 
I agree, they place your hand way to close for me. I've been using the Jessem clear cut guides for a few years now and whilst not useable for all cuts they have fit the purpose for me.
Had to look them up. Pricey! I'm sure they'd work OK but I'll be sticking with home made featherboards and push sticks!
 
Had to look them up. Pricey! I'm sure they'd work OK but I'll be sticking with home made featherboards and push sticks!
Yeah, I winced when I bought them despite getting them at a vastly reduced priced at the time. I still use (home made) push sticks with the Jessem guides, not found anything that works as well in moving the wood through the blade whilst keeping my digits away from the whole process.
 
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