Push sticks again.......

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Why do all saws seem to come with long fences?

American influence. In Europe you folks have been using sliders for sheet goods to make cabinets for a long time. On this continent the history is a lot shorter and the basic cabinet saw with out feed tables is used for cutting sheet goods forever. The long fence gives good control for materials that don't close or spread when cut. Hence the 50"+/- fence rails so sheets can be cut in two. Nothing to stop one from clamping/attaching a short fence to the face of a long one when ripping hardwood except the lack of knowledge. Since Asia makes all the cabinet saws and the big market is in the US they don't make short fence ones for your market as it makes them cost more for small volumes.

Pete
 
apologies if someone already posted this. This is a woodworker in the US from the early days - he said something about being a writer and went on to set up a "review site" for tools that was really nothing more than going through the specs on video (ahead of his time as far as people doing the same thing on YT now to get sponsors). I only remember him well because if you asked if his "reviews" of new tools coming on the market were comped tools or paid spots, he'd become very indignant (there was advertising on his site, of course - and he never directly answered the questions about who paid for the tools or if any other money exchanged hands - it may not have - who knows - just an odd response for someone doing tool reviews to get upset when someone asked them who was funding the "reviews")



At any rate, I don't know what his woodworking history was (if he ever made much - again, must like the YT folks). But his attempts at teaching shop safety were nearly disastrous.

The style of holding device that he has was sold in great numbers in the US - I have two or three of them - they have a grip bottom, and as soon as any dust is involved, they become slick.
 
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Your fence is long.

I hate to say it but the guy in the video you linked us to doesn't really do it for me. He uses the machine with the splitter (or riving knife if it had one) and crown guard removed. His hands go nowhere near a push stick or even a shoe type pusher at any time and he passes his hand close to the spinning blade - all shockingly bad practice in my eyes. He was only taking a sliver off the edge of a small piece of wood, so it's unlikely there would be enough stress released in the wood to cause kickback - try doing the same hand feeding trick whilst ripping ~100 mm off a piece of ~200 mm wide by 50 mm thick oak, or maple, beech, cherry, redwood, etc, and I would expect him to get into trouble very quickly. When he shows his 'short' fence it's not set right because it extends almost to the back of the blade. Short fences should be set no further back than the centre of the blade, and better still, should be set just beyond the point where the rip cut is complete.

If you go back to page two in this thread (near the bottom of the page) you'll find my first post in this thread. There's a link in that post to an article I contributed to that covers most or all of the issues you have questions about. Slainte.

Thank you, this is really really helpful!
 
apologies if someone already posted this. This is a woodworker in the US from the early days - he said something about being a writer and went on to set up a "review site" for tools that was really nothing more than going through the specs on video (ahead of his time as far as people doing the same thing on YT now to get sponsors). I only remember him well because if you asked if his "reviews" of new tools coming on the market were comped tools or paid spots, he'd become very indignant (there was advertising on his site, of course - and he never directly answered the questions about who paid for the tools or if any other money exchanged hands - it may not have - who knows - just an odd response for someone doing tool reviews to get upset when someone asked them who was funding the "reviews")



At any rate, I don't know what his woodworking history was (if he ever made much - again, must like the YT folks). But his attempts at teaching shop safety were nearly disastrous.

The style of holding device that he has was sold in great numbers in the US - I have two or three of them - they have a grip bottom, and as soon as any dust is involved, they become slick.

Thanks for that David, he was half an inch away from taking the end of his finger off. But at least at the end he did recognise the need for a riving knife and Crown guard, but still hasn’t occurred to him to keep his hands well away by using push sticks.
They are available, in fact when you buy a Dewalt tablesaw in the US there is one with it and it’s clipped handily just where you would want it – but only one.
Do you think it will reach the stage David in the US that a Sawstop fitted to a saw will become almost mandatory?
 
What is the best operator safety practice for the length of a table saw fence. should it stop at:
  1. start of cut (i.e.) just in front of saw teeth
  2. middle of saw blade
  3. end of saw blade (i.e.) just in front of rear teeth
Accepting that a riving knife will be immediately behind the blade and a reasonably substantial crown guard will be used AND 2 x longish pushsticks in use.

What practical considerations determine your advice.

BTW I am attracted/tempted to the use of a long fence even reaching into my neighbours yard!!! but I am also worried about safety.
I was taught by the local HSE instructor to set it at a point where a line at 45° from the centre of the blade met the far end of the guide
 
Do you think it will reach the stage David in the US that a Sawstop fitted to a saw will become almost mandatory?
I know you weren't asking me, but I think it will - on the basis that it'll become near impossible to get insurance for a significant workshop that has a non-Sawstop (or equivalent) tablesaw. I'm not sure it'll be through legislation - too much lobbying from Big Tablesaw for that.

This image keeps haunting me - arm stretched over an unguarded blade, pressing down towards the blade. One slip and it's ploughing straight into your wrist - and this is an advertising image for a "safety" device...

Grrrriper.jpg
 
I know you weren't asking me, but I think it will - on the basis that it'll become near impossible to get insurance for a significant workshop that has a non-Sawstop (or equivalent) tablesaw. I'm not sure it'll be through legislation - too much lobbying from Big Tablesaw for that.

This image keeps haunting me - arm stretched over an unguarded blade, pressing down towards the blade. One slip and it's ploughing straight into your wrist - and this is an advertising image for a "safety" device...

View attachment 125968
What a clumsy bit of kit and incredibly expensive.
Not advisable but if you are a chancer, but you can do that same operation much more safely with two push sticks - the big mouth standard pattern not just little birds mouths.
If I had to use a gripper I'd be inclined to ignore the grip handle and hold down / push the daft gadget itself with, er, two push sticks! :ROFLMAO:
 
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I know you weren't asking me, but I think it will - on the basis that it'll become near impossible to get insurance for a significant workshop that has a non-Sawstop (or equivalent) tablesaw. I'm not sure it'll be through legislation - too much lobbying from Big Tablesaw for that.

This image keeps haunting me - arm stretched over an unguarded blade, pressing down towards the blade. One slip and it's ploughing straight into your wrist - and this is an advertising image for a "safety" device...

View attachment 125968

what a contraption - it's about as complicated as a 9 joint robot that unzips your pants for you at the loo when you could just do it in a simple move. Who in the world wants to have their arm over a blade. As soon as something catches wrong, that thing rotates your arm right down into the blade.
 
This image keeps haunting me - arm stretched over an unguarded blade, pressing down towards the blade. One slip and it's ploughing straight into your wrist - and this is an advertising image for a "safety" device...

I thought long and hard about whether I wanted one of those. The thing that really put me off, other than what you say, is that if there's a kickback, the grippy green stuff (which is excellent, I have it on the router table kind of block) is going to send the block wherever the wood goes. Better hope you don't let go at that point...
 
Do you think it will reach the stage David in the US that a Sawstop fitted to a saw will become almost mandatory?

Gass or whoever the attorney was (I think that's his past trade) did attempt to lobby congress and have something like his device made mandatory. The import companies were willing to license some version of the technology, but S.S. at the same time apparently wanted a pretty good chunk that made no sense in bumping up the cost of an $1100 (at the time) cabinet table saw. The lobbying effort in front of congress was unsuccessful. The combination of things to me was a "no like", as in, attorney creates a technology and then understanding the legislative and regulatory process, heads to congress to push it after not reaching an agreement of any type. It was more of a business move, at least it seems to me.

I'm in a special case of woodworkers as I could live without a tablesaw - easily - and don't even have a bandsaw, so if you said "nothing but sawstops will be available and the cost of everything will double" - meh. But for the average hobbyist building their nest...I just can't make a real solid decision on it. I get a huge charge out of working by hand because....well, there's nobody on the other end that I have to figure out how to charge. Even my early kickback experience would've been avoided with something simple like a splitter or two birds mouth sticks - either one, and both together would've been insurance. So I don't know that the SS will become mandatory because that's congress picking a business winner. When we get to the point that the idea is no longer protected, then you will probably see more of it. If I had to pay $1500 for a site saw instead of the $550 the bosch version that I have hanging on the wall cost, then I wouldn't have one. I use my bosch saw seldom enough that its primary duty is hanging on the wall in the spark exit from the belt grinder ....as in, when doing heavy grinding, the belt grinder throws off fiery pig tails that don't just spark two feet -they will go ten and if something is close to them, they will weld themselves together. Right now, they fly across space and hit the top of the TS and drop to the floor. I don't think $800 worth of blade stopper will be any "gooder" at that.

No clue what osha has to say, but in schools here, most saws are sawstops. I think the insurers had something to say there - and I think that is a very good idea as the kids in schools can break into MMA style horseplay any time - including while someone is using power tools.
 
I was taught by the local HSE instructor to set it at a point where a line at 45° from the centre of the blade met the far end of the guide

Yes, let's make it sound far more complicated than it actually is.
You, very simply, just set the fence at the base of the gullet. It's
certainly not rocket science.
 
Yes, let's make it sound far more complicated than it actually is.
You, very simply, just set the fence at the base of the gullet. It's
certainly not rocket science.
I thought this might be quite a good idea when I first read it but then quickly realised if the fence is a long way away from the blade the 45° is going to be way in front of the gullet.
 
I was taught by the local HSE instructor to set it at a point where a line at 45° from the centre of the blade met the far end of the guide
Thank you Ray Stockwell.
That happens to be close to where I presently and will continue to end my fence,...Regards..Richard
 
I thought this might be quite a good idea when I first read it but then quickly realised if the fence is a long way away from the blade the 45° is going to be way in front of the gullet.

This is in danger of becoming like a sharpening thread?
It's so simple.
Before setting the width of cut of the fence, you bring the fence up close to the blade.
You set the short fence, by eye, around the depth of the gullet.
Then you move the fence away to the required distance.
 
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Imagine if you made a video and you could get:
$1k of ad revenue
$1k of link-through revenue
exposure and maybe additional revenue from mentioning something revenue linked above and beyond the link through (for example, pushing a shop apron that costs more than something similar, but where you may get $2k to mention the shop apron and fit it in something and then another 3-4% link through revenue to an amazon listing (or maybe more for a link directly to a seller's website.

Not saying that the third is occurring because it's supposed to be disclosed, but that's how these channels work. Does anyone think stumpy nubs is an accomplished woodworker vs. accomplished at pondering how to make it seem like people just need more stuff to make things?

In my opinion, none of these guys started youtube channels and just chanced into selling stuff. They started youtube channels for that first and if they'd have been unsuccessful selling stuff, it's not as if they'd be sharing stuff they've made on YT just because they enjoy it.

What's happened, though, is YT and the channel makers have realized that this is where the money is, so you direct everyone (if you're YT) to those folks. Then the google ad sense folks like it even better, because the market is not only a target market, but it's one primed to buy - not one primed to learn. It's really an ideal low-effort revenue generating setup (except that the actual pure video quality issues - the planning, editing, etc, are not low effort). But there is no need to be creative about what you're selling - just look at what other people are selling or look at what's prominently displayed on woodworking retailer websites and then work backwards.

(not saying this as someone who has a channel and is cynical that it hasn't grown - it would be a burden to have a large viewership if you just want to use your channel as a discussion forum - having a clean shop with nothing going on in it, perfect lighting and someone alive behind the camera to make sure you don't record half of it only on the right side of the screen is ...well, not that interesting to most of us.
I think that many of the YouTube presenters started as a bit of fun or because they thought that they had something important to say. They then fell into actually making a living at it. But in YT you don’t actually have to sell stuff as you get lots of ads pushed your way anyway. In any case, a Lot of people learn a lot from YT, I’ve learned a lot from it for my wood turning where many of the presenters are clearly skilled people.
 
Thank you every one for your input.
Can I as the 'question asker' suggest we end this thread now.

Best Regards
Richard
 
I think that many of the YouTube presenters started as a bit of fun or because they thought that they had something important to say. They then fell into actually making a living at it. But in YT you don’t actually have to sell stuff as you get lots of ads pushed your way anyway. In any case, a Lot of people learn a lot from YT, I’ve learned a lot from it for my wood turning where many of the presenters are clearly skilled people.

Partly, yes - at least for US presenters. There was a time early on that google ads was paying people $10-$25 per thousand views, and most people didn't use browsers. Ads were less dense, but I think google was just spending the money it took to draw content makers (but never let the content makers know that).

So, if you made a video every other day and averaged 100k views, if $15 was the average figure per thousand views, you'd haul in $1500 every other day. If someone got upset, they could file a false complaint about your video and it may go down for a day or two, and I've heard from at least some folks that google could drag their feet a little certifying videos as eligible for adsense (until they did, the views went through with no revenue).

There was a dude who made stunt type videos who had probably about 50k views on average, but made a lot of videos and some hit bigger amounts. He showed his adsense checks - $20k some months.

Then, I don't know, 8 or 10 years ago, advertisers learned that google and facebook were counting ad views that weren't really views in their accounting of total clicks or views, and the content creators started begging for money because the CPS went to around $2-$4. I never had ads on, so I only remember what they were talking about. Long story short, advertisers were throwing money at web advertising without much audit early on and when they got upset, they stopped doing that and the follow up was that ads cost them less. Some of the content creators were signing with studios who promised promotion, etc, but were really just looking to get a share of the ad revenue. And ad blockers started to get more prevalent.

So, when you get someone like JKM (I rarely see his videos) or Wranglerstar or some of these other people who were never professional anything, the video creators groups started devising other ways to get revenue. Making videos and referring to amazon becomes more valuable than the ads, as the click through on amazon may be 3-4%. Suddenly, people like Wranglerstar are finding the most expensive things they can refer (like $300 chaps and expensive coats or work shirts) to try to drive their share of ad revenue, and advertisers started going directly to content creators offering multi-dimensional revenue for sponsored videos (and the FCC in the US wasn't doing its job cracking down on these videos - they're adverts and required to be declared - now you see things like "sponsored video" in the top corner of a video). The multi-dimensional revenue is often something like $5k for two videos, then a "coupon code" that refers back to the video maker to get an additional share, and a link with a token ID.

As the videos get bigger, the really pretty ones start hiring editors and studio help and that drives the need for more revenue, but also fits the goal of getting bigger and the thing goes around and around. One of the YT presenters created a YT studio group to "help" content creators and ended up selling the business to YT or google for $500MM. Ad revenue falls into the background as being needed, but it's easy to lose it due to copyright claims or audio (same thing) in the background or anyone making a claim (and that's probably rampant).

So, what does this mean? When the method to get views becomes very standardized and the algorithms see what generates views, and more importantly, uneducated views of topically interested folks, it's a perfect recipe to catch people in the beginner's trap (when someone is just getting into a hobby and they'll buy almost anything).
 
(there are still people like curtis buchanan sharing things here and there, but for whatever reason, they don't trip the YT algorithm.).

How does any of this have anything to do with this thread?

Simple, it explains why you have people making videos on shop safety when they don't know any more about it than any other amateur worker, with the less typical add-on in this case of the video maker doing link through, ad revenue AND selling their own products.

It's almost a bonus if they do something stupid that draws attention to their videos because some share of the people gawking will make ad revenue, end up on amazon looking at something (and buying something else, but still referencing the token ID from the original presenter).

Banggood was the du-jour thing about a month or two ago because they were paying ungodly reference shares, so there were tons of "bargain tools" for $40 or whatever, one after another, and the presenters went through them as if they were reviewing them as a courtesy. Some of the link through revenue figures were 20-30% for certain items, so ring the register for $10 or so every time a $40 item sells in a high link through category.

If that hasn't gone down a lot, I'd imagine it will. Banggood or aliexpress or whoever, will get people into the platform by offering them huge amounts (like YT did with google ads early on) and then shut the faucet most of the way once everyone is drinking.
 
You set the short fence, by eye, around the depth of the gullet.
Then you move the fence away to the required distance.
I was told by a carpenter that the fence should not extend all the way across the table to reduce the chance of kickbacks.

I had assumed that the fence should end somewhere near the non cutting edge of the blade but then I see videos of very sophisticated fences which extend all the way across the table.

I am trying not to be pedantic but this issue has confused me. The gullet is the u shaped bit of the saw blade, “depth” something like 10mm to 20mm. Should the “short” fence end near the base of the gullet on the cutting edge of the blade ie the edge closest to the operator. In other words, about 15mm beyond the cutting edge of the blade.
 
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