brunelle

This is in the same category as using an angled jig to make a cove - cutting with the side of the blade. A good carbide blade probably doesn't care much how it engages the wood in respect of wear.

Suggest the article should highlight the SAFE way to do this and also the less-safe practices, such as the one the reader mentioned of making several spaced cuts and risking thrown chucks when any side-cutting is attempted.

A variation that is possible (I suppose) is simply to slide the work sideways on the miter gauge by one kerf-width on each straight pass. Sounds very safe if you advance the work no more than a kerf-width, but who could guarantee that? And probably slower.

OK, we now have available a technology that produces a significant safety enhancement. It has the same downside as airbags in a car: once fired, the tool or vehicle is out of commission until serviced. That's in addition to the first cost and the cost of servicing.

At the present level of devlopment, it sounds like a reasonable mandate for a workplace, where people of various skill levels and temperaments are constrained to work in whatever environment is provided.

It doesn't sound like a reasonable mandate for equipment I use in my home shop, or a one-man owner-run shop. In these situations, the owner/user has control of the purchase - and there are LOTS of ways to removes fingers that don't require a tablesaw. And there are LOTS of smart ways to ENSURE one's digits simply don't get close to the blade. So, depending on one's mix of work, that "$100" might well enhance safety more if spent otherwise.

Now, here is what I see as the commercial challenge: how about a SAFE retrofit that equally well stops the blade - but could be reset immediately following at no cost? And, perhaps, could be applied to portable saws, recipro saws. bandsaws, routers . . . hm, maybe even milling machines in metalworking shops. How about if this technology could be applied to most such machines for $50 or so to start, and fell into line with variable-speed controls after a while? And how about we make it in the US?

How to do it? I don't know; if I did, I'd be doing it and selling it, and every manufacturer would want it as much as Detroit wanted the intermittent-wiper control. It IS a challenge. But a government mandate won't get it for you.

One more guy who, had he been on the jury, likely would have reasoned that the wrong target was being sued.

While I'm pretty sure I've seen my father use a small table saw to cut a larger piece of plywood without a fence (going on 50 years back), you may be assured he had the skill to do it and kept his hands well away from the blade (and you may be further assured I'm not recommending it). I don't think anyone who'd never used a table saw before could be regarded 2 weeks later as qualified to deal with a board perhaps beyond the saw's capacity.

Regardless of Osorio's poor judgment, the employer has a responsibility here. But I can't see liability on Ryobi's part unless, through some design or manufacturing defect, that, say, the blade came loose in the middle of the cut.

Does anyone know what was up with the jury? I hope this is appealed successfully.