chuck623

I've been a woodworker for 7 or 8 years now. I removed the tablesaw guard (I have a Rigid contractor saw) almost immediately. The issue I have with the guard is that it hangs off the back of the saw and and makes it difficult to get my extension table close enough to the saw to not have a large gap between the saw and the extension. Also, the splitter at the back tends to want to pull the work away from the fence affecting the accuracy of the cut. I would have preferred to have a riving knife but at the time I bought the saw riving knife saws were exotic and prohibitively expensive.

If there were a cost effective way to retrofit my saw with a riving knife I would. I haven't seen anything on the market though. As an alternative, I've considered overarm guards, but they seem a bit prohibitive also.

I do worry about accidents in the workshop. I am always highly aware of what anyone of my woodworking machines could do to me if I allowed my concentration to lapse. Recently I purchased a Micro Jig Gripper push block system. It takes me a moment or two extra to set up the Gripper, but I feel it keeps me safer by keeping my hands well away from blades and allows me to do thin cuts confidently.

The bottom line is that while table saw manufacturers talk about safety to make their legal departments happy, until recently very few spent the R&D money to develop and incorporate truly innovative safetly features into the blade guards.