Tablesaw safety

[chaoticbob]

This subject comes up from time to time here, and there seems to be a consensus that the crown guard is an important safety feature. I have a Bosch site saw which can cut a bit over 75mm without strain, but with the guard in place the capacity is limited to about 53mm. Also the instruction manual says that the blade should be set about 5mm above the stock, which isn't possible for thin stock with the guard in place.
Result is that I don't use the guard. Am I being foolish? I stand well to the left of the blade and feed with two push sticks - I feel safe, but who knows?
Can anyone tell me what event the crown guard protects us against? Genuine enquiry, I'd rather learn from the hive than from painful personal experience. If I need to make a new riving knife to raise the guard, I can do that.
Robin.

 

[Trevanion]

Can anyone tell me what event the crown guard protects us against?

The blade :lol:


In all seriousness, it's a good question. I personally don't use a crown guard for a couple of dodgy reasons, but I do not advocate anyone else does the same. Bosch have more than likely designed the guard in that way so you can't rip anything bigger than 50mm because whilst the machine can probably handle it, they don't want units coming back under warranty because the motor burnt out because site monkeys thought that ripping 75mm Jarrah posts through it all day would be fine as it "could" rip 75mm. So you end up removing the guard to rip the 75mm because it can't with the 50mm clearance and your warranty becomes void because you removed a "vital" piece of equipment. It's the same principle as some of the 10.8/12v cordless drills, they usually put a 10mm chuck on them to limit the size of bit you can chuck up to try and silly person-proof it.

So long as your comfortable with the risk, you're using push sticks, a riving knife, a sharp blade, and you don't get complacent and lose concentration there shouldn't be much to go wrong if you don't have the crown guard in place. But ultimately that's your decision. If you've got the facilities to manufacture a new, higher knife that might be an avenue worth pursuing for the added safety.

By the way, my rule of thumb is that the bottom of the gullet of a tooth at the apex of the blade should be the same height as the workpiece. Everyone's got their own rule of thumb though from 1/4" to 3/8" to full height :lol:

 

[Orraloon]

I have one of those guards mounted on the riving knife so for some cuts I do have to take the thing off. I do however use it as much as possible for most cuts. Part of risk management is the frequency of exposure to the risk.
Regards
John

 

[sunnybob]

A couple more reasons;
if the top of the blade is exposed, theres a risk that something soft and fleshy will fall onto it at some time. If the blade is spinning at that time, the fleshy bit will be gone forever. Even if the blade is not turning, the teeth SHOULD be sharp enough to cut you.

If a piece of wood starts to climb during the cut, very possible on smaller pieces, then the crown guard stops that piece of wood flying up into your face at a speed even superman would be unable to dodge.

These risks are small, but they have the ability to seriously injure and even maim you. So you should take all possible steps to remove that risk. Not "minimise" by being aware, but "remove".

If its just you in your home, then you have the option to take risks, bearing in that in a worst case scenario, an insurance company will not pay out injury claims if the guards have been removed. If its anybody else using or or in proximity to the machine, then you have the legal requirement to remove risk by keeping all factory safeguards in place.

 

[AJB Temple]

As sunny bob says. I would add - with a spinning blade, if you get distracted or absentmindedly reach across, your risk is heightened. You cannot fully control distractions. The other risk is dropping things on a spinning blade (wood, tools, glasses - whatever) as they get fired out or up at warp speed.

Personally, if I have to do a cut that requires removal of the crown guard, I use a different tool to do the cut.

 

[Steve_Scott]

I don’t yet own a table saw and every time I use one elsewhere I am very apprehensive of them. It’s not to say they are unsafe; I’m just not familiar with them and their big spinning blades.

I find this topic very interesting as over here in the UK we seem to follow the view that additional guarding is good but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crown guard on a table saw in the states. I wonder how accident rates compare in like for like situations?

 

[Lons]

What Sunnybob and AJB Temple said =D>

I do, on very rare occasions remove the guard but only if no other way and I'm ultra cautious when doing so but I'd rather not.

Steve

I've often wondered about accidents in the US and elsewhere and I'm convinced it must be quite high, some of the youtube vids they post make me shudder.

 

[marcros]

there is nothing wrong with removing the crown guard- for some tasks it is necessary to do so, and the law/HSE does not prevent doing so.

BUT, the challenge is in replacing it with appropriate alternative guarding. The HSE regs do require guarding. This is where the makers of many jigs go wrong- they necessitate removing the crown guard, and fail to provide an alternative. I know that Steve Maskery goes to a lot of care to ensure that his jig designs are safe before, during and after the workpiece passes the blades. Some other jig designers likely do so too, but not all do. be careful of copying from youtube.

For ripping, one alternative may be a feather board to maintain downwards pressure, and an overhead guard. For this stick, I think that I would rather ignore the 5mm part and just use the standard knife and crown guard. for the max capacity, I believe that Steve did a fence mounted guard plan that might be worth looking at. The tables DVDs that he sells are well worth the money, and I am sure that Steve will tell you which one or ones are most appropriate.

 

[sunnybob]

Read this and shiver.
https://downtownlalaw.com/defective-pro ... tatistics/

 

[lurker]

I have been wearing a seatbelt in cars for 45 years.
At one time I was doing 40k miles a year.
In all that time I guess the seatbelt has prevented some minor injuries, twice (low speed shunts).
Do I think seat belts are pointless safety devices???

 

[Steve_Scott]

What Sunnybob and AJB Temple said =D>

I've often wondered about accidents in the US and elsewhere and I'm convinced it must be quite high, some of the youtube vids they post make me shudder.

100%, but in most cases its from inappropriate use rather than the lack of a guard. That being said, the absence of riving knives surprises me but I think this is because they often use saws to create rebates (or rabbits :lol.

I have wondered how much other differences in the US/UK skew matters. timber (well, lumber I guess) is cheaper, people tend to have more space to house a better equipped workshop and construction techniques for houses are very timber focused... perhaps this leads to more untrained people having table saws and thus increasing expose to the inherent hazard that is a spinning blade?

I see the guard as a visual reminder that there's a big sharp spinny thing behind it. Bizarrely people often take more notice of a cheap flimsy plastic shroud that you can slip your hand under than the blade itself?! Perhaps Sawstop is the way forward?

 

[sammy.se]

Read this and shiver.
https://downtownlalaw.com/defective-pro ... tatistics/

Reading this, it does make me wonder why any hobbyist or one-man-band would even use a table saw, when bandsaws and tracksaws can do the same jobs.

I have table saw, the second power tool I bought after a router, and now I really don't want to use it much, because of the relatively higher danger.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[transatlantic]

it does make me wonder why any hobbyist or one-man-band would even use a table saw, when bandsaws and tracksaws can do the same jobs.

They can do some of the jobs. Not all of the jobs.

But there are other factors too, like accuracy, consistency, ease of use etc

 

[Rich C]

I have been wearing a seatbelt in cars for 45 years.
At one time I was doing 40k miles a year.
In all that time I guess the seatbelt has prevented some minor injuries, twice (low speed shunts).
Do I think seat belts are pointless safety devices???

They're strangely resistant to seatbelts in America too...

 

[sammy.se]

I have been wearing a seatbelt in cars for 45 years.
At one time I was doing 40k miles a year.
In all that time I guess the seatbelt has prevented some minor injuries, twice (low speed shunts).
Do I think seat belts are pointless safety devices???

They're strangely resistant to seatbelts in America too...

Cos it takes away freedom.

'MURCA!!

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I have been wearing a seatbelt in cars for 45 years.
At one time I was doing 40k miles a year.
In all that time I guess the seatbelt has prevented some minor injuries, twice (low speed shunts).
Do I think seat belts are pointless safety devices???

They're strangely resistant to seatbelts in America too...

Cos it takes away freedom.

'MURCA!!

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

Or is it that there is significant profit to be made from table saw injuries in the US, both for the healthcare and legal professions, whereas in the UK it is just seen as a drain on NHS resources?

(That would be the conspiracy theorist view, anyway).

 

[Steve Maskery]

I don't understand why anyone would take the risk of using a TS without a guard.
A guard is protection against the unforeseen. It's easy to think you are being careful, but if something sudden happens, like the wood catching and being thrown, or you get surprised by something else, then it can easily be instinctive to try to catch the wood, or you lose your footing and fall forward or something of that ilk.
It is the unpredictable that is the danger, not the predictable.

I have a number of different guards that I use on my TS. I have a SUVA-style guard (cue Jacob), I have a magnetic stand-alone guard, and I have built-in guards on a number of my jigs. My Ultimate TS Tenon Jig has two guards built into the jig and I use my magnetic stand-alone guard with it, too.

There is no job that can be performed on the TS that cannot be sensibly guarded. So why take the risk?

 

[sunnybob]

I started wearing seatbelts long before it became law. I was driving a transit van and a stone smashed the window. I had some sacks in the back and this was way before mobile phones and instant rescue, so I spent an hour scooping up all the glass (it was before laminated glass as well) And i could not believe how much glass. I had trouble lifting the sack into the back of the van. From that moment I wore a belt. Strangely, although I can well beat Lurkers mileage, (i drove over 750,000 documented miles for one company alone), and never actually needed a seat belt.
Here, they not only dont like wearing belts, they let tiny little kids roam all over the seats while driving.

 

[Rich C]

I have needed a seatbelt once and I was very glad of it. I got away with bruising from the pretensioner and airbags rather than serious injuries. I think you'd have to be completely mad to drive without one.

 

[sunnybob]

Agreed. but conversely, the only car accident i was ever in that wrote off the car, I was in the middle in the back seat with no seat belts and escaped with no marks at all. the outside 2 got big bruises from the side glass. =D> =D> 8)