An argument for tablesaw regulation
I appreciated Thomas McKenna’s thorough discussion regarding the pending tablesaw safety ruling by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (Tablesaws Under Siege, FWW #224), but I am disappointed that FWW has not taken a stronger stance advocating it. In 32 years as an emergency physician, I have never seen a tablesaw injury in which the guard was in place. The editors should take a leadership role in encouraging all tool manufacturers to adopt SawStop-type blade-braking technology—in more than just tablesaws. How many fingers and hands could be saved? Seat belts and airbags went from options to requirements, and there are scores of vehicular trauma victims who walk away rather than being taken to the morgue. Let’s do the same with our power tools.
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Is blade-braking a must? The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering requiring flesh-sensing, bladebraking technology on all tablesaws.
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-- Joseph Krug, Knoxville, Illinois
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Tablesaws Under Siege
An argument against tablesaw regulation
Every tool from car jacks to power drills and ladders can be either misused, modified, or both, leading to injury or death. The proposed ruling is ludicrous. Following the CPSC’s line of thought, every car sold should have: air bags everywhere, all-wheel drive, adaptive distance control, blind-spot nformation, collision mitigation braking, rear camera, active suspension, stability control, automatic wipers, to mention a few state-of-the-art safety features. There would be many benefits, including lower insurance rates for those who could afford to own a car; fewer cars on the road, reducing emissions, accidents, and injuries; and increased use of public transportation. One downside, of course, is that it would decimate the auto industry. The most important safety tool is knowledge of the equipment you are using. How many people do you know who have been hurt using a ladder? Whose fault was it?
| click to enlarge | Are riving knives enough? Manufacturers recently adopted riving knives and better blade guards. |
-- John Williams, Nine Mile Falls, Washington
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Tablesaws Under Siege
Tool test omitted shop vacuum bags
I’m curious why Asa Christiana chose not to use the bags in his recent test (“Tool Test: Shop Vacuums,” FWW #223), and how using them would have affected the performance. In my experience with Wap, Porter Cable, and Festool vacs, the bag keeps the filter cleaner, improving performance and reducing dust in the air. While I usually respect your tool reviews I found this one to be very questionable.
-- Neil Clemmons, Chicago, Illinois
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Tool Test: Shop Vacuums
Asa Christiana replies:
We knew that leaving out the bags would be controversial, but as we explained in the article, they fill much more quickly than the vac canister on its own, they are not reusable, and they are relatively expensive. So while bags work great as prefilters, keeping a HEPA filter unclogged and flowing freely, we made a judgment call that for most woodworkers, the bags would prove to be a nuisance and an ongoing drain on the wallet, and would ultimately be discarded. Or people would hesitate to use the vacuum for general cleanup for fear of running through their bag supply too quickly.
| click to enlarge | Bag the bags? Bags reduce a shop vacuum’s capacity, and can’t be reused. |
Shop vacuum: three stage filtering
Thank you for the excellent and informative article on managing wood dust (“A Revolution in Dust Collection,” FWW #223) and the importance of using dust separators with shop vacuums. I have a Fein Turbo II vac (model 9.55.13) that is about nine years old now. I’ve been using a HEPA filter and the Fein paper bags up until now, and the HEPA filter stays fairly clean. One scenario you did not discuss in your article directly is the use of the HEPA filter and the paper bags, with a separator in place. That would give three stages of filtering, you would rarely (if ever) need to empty the paper bag, and the HEPA filter would be kept even cleaner. Is there a downside to this setup?
-- David Rugid, Seattle, Washington
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A Revolution in Dust Collection
Asa Christiana replies:
No real downside, David, other than losing a bit of suction power. But there’s no big upside either, as separators like the Rockler Dust Right Vortex and the Oneida Dust Deputy do such a fine job of keeping the HEPA filters clean.
How to connnect a big dust separator
In “A Revolution in Dust Collection” (FWW #223), the Oneida Super Dust Deputy received a very complimentary review. I bought one, but I’ve had trouble mating it up with my single-stage Steel City dust collector. The Super Dust Deputy has a 6-in.-dia. outlet and my dust collector has a 4-in.-dia. intake. I bought a steel 6-in.-to-4-in. reducer, but it doesn’t fit the 4-in. hose I have.
-- Jim Gannon, North Canton, Ohio
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A Revolution in Dust Collection
Asa Christiana replies:
Your dust collector, and almost all single-stage collectors, comes with a Y-junction attached at the outlet, which reduces the 6-in. intake to two 4-in. intakes. Ditch it, even if you are not adding a separator. For best flow and suction, you want to keep hose diameters as large as possible for as long as possible, reducing the diameter as close to the ports on tools or machines as possible. Having this bottleneck so close to the collector adds turbulence and chokes power at the source. In this case, we used one of Oneida’s 6-in.-dia. flexible hoses to connect our single-stage collector’s input directly to the Super Dust Deputy. Everything fit perfectly.
| click to enlarge | X the Y. For best airflow, keep reducers as close to tools as possible. This means getting rid of the 4-in.-dia. Y-junction on your dust collector, and connecting a 6-in.-dia. hose directly to the intake. |
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Ten Tips For Getting Published
By
Fine Woodworking editors
2/19/2006
For more than 30 years, Fine Woodworking has made a name for itself as a reader-written publication. That means we depend on material from real-world woodworkers like you to fill each issue of the magazine. But before you send in your proposal, here's what you need to know:We concentrate on the how-to rather than the human interest. That means the articles tell you how to do things well, not about people who do things well. So we need the information from the horse's mouth -- not from journalists writing about someone else.Top 10 tips for first-time contributors
1. We run three basic types of articles: projects, techniques, and tool tests. If you are a first-time author, a technique article is probably your best bet. The focus is narrow so there usually is less involved.
2. A technique a...
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Tool Test: Shop Vacuums
When we first researched shop vacuums for our recent test ("Tool Test: Shop Vacuums", FWW #223), we found an online source for the Bosch Airsweep 3913A that included HEPA filters. But at the time the article hit newsstands, those product listings were gone, forcing readers to spend an extra $150 to buy optional HEPA filters. So we contacted Bosch, and they promised to make the vacuum available again with HEPA filters included.
Check Amazon and other online sources starting in March.
A Study in Squares
In “A Study in Squares” (FWW #221), there is a mistake in the drawing on p. 61. The angle of the table edge is labeled 30° (and drawn at 45°). It should be steeper, at 60°, as drawn in the side view on the same page.
Porter-Cable- PCL212IDC-2 12v Compact Lithium Two Tool Kit
The new drill/impact driver combo kit from Porter-Cable (PCL212IDC-2), reviewed in Tools & Materials (FWW #217), is not available online. It is carried by Lowes stores, for $140.
Tool Test: Heavy-Duty Benchtop Lathes
The article Tool Test: Heavy-Duty Benchtop Lathes was updated online to fix an error in manufacturer names.
Tool Test: Air Filters
In a chart in “Tool Test: Air Filters” (FWW #213) we gave misleading information about the total amount of dust in the air, and thus the overall performance of the units. Our meter measured only the dust from 0.1 to 10 microns in size, nothing larger. So after using the tablesaw, router, and sander with no dust collection in place, it stands to reason that there was much more dust in the air than the 3 to 5 mg/m3 shown in the chart. In retrospect, we should have tested for the total amount of dust, in order to give a more complete assessment of these units.
Bottom line: While these units reduced the levels of airborne dust in our tests, they did not bring it down to safe levels. So labels and headlines in the article that read “Clear the air and protect your lungs” and “Air filters get the job done” were misleading. Proper dust collection at the source is the only way to reduce airborne dust to a safe level, and we regret giving any other impression. We have reworked the online version of the article to correct these mistakes.
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If you see something that doesn't look correct in an article, please send feedbackto the editorial team.
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