Table Saw | Grumpa Joe's Place

It Finally Happened

Posted on 13/12/2022 by Grumpa Joe

For the past fifty or more years I have been working with woodworking machines. One thing I have learned is that kick-back on a table saw can be serious. For fifty years I have taken extreme care to set up my cuts so the possibility of a kick back was minimized. Today, I experienced a serious kick-back. A small piece of wood caught the spinning blade and shot back at me like a bullet. Ouch that hurt! It happened as fast as a bullet too. There was no time to react. In fact I didn’t realize the kick-back until the piece hit my arm at the inner elbow. I thank God that it didn’t hit me in the head. I would have dropped like a rock.

Insurance companies are always citing that accidents will happen, and show the probability. It is not that you will never have an accident, no matter how careful you are, it is only a matter of when it will happen.

In my case this happened because I was too comfortable with the cut I was making. The piece I wanted to end up with was small, and I thought the time it would take to jig it to reduce the possibility was not worth the effort. I know now that I was wrong. If the piece is small the possibility of a serious kick back is as great as working with a large piece. Small pieces get sucked into the spinning blade and are shot back with tremendous velocity.

Today, I learned a valuable lesson. Slow down and take every cut as if it is the one than will kill you.

Accident Statistics

A National Consumer League (NCL) fact sheet reports even more disturbing numbers, “an estimated 33,400 individuals required emergency department treatment to address injuries caused by table saws. Of these 30,800 (92 percent) were related to the victim making contact with the saw blade.” ⁽²⁾

NCL goes on to explain, “More than 4,000 of these injuries require amputations – an average of 11 per day.” ⁽³⁾

A survey conducted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported the estimated total of table/bench saws related injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms for a two-year period was 79,500. This total represents 78% of the estimated total stationary saw injuries of 101,900. The numbers are based upon National Electronic Injury Surveillance System data. ⁽⁴⁾

Filed under: Biography, Education, family, Hobby, Manufacturing | Tagged: Kickback, Table Saw, Wood working | 2 Comments »

One Baby Step Closer

Posted on 06/01/2011 by Grumpa Joe

The Man-Cave is the recipient of a significant baby step. The cabinet that caused me to blow my table saw is completed. I wasted an afternoon with the router trying to make the elegant solution in wood. I finally ruined the piece after three hours, and shut off the lights in frustration. I was finished, It beat me. Tomorrow is another day. Before I exited the cave, I sat on the throne for a few minutes, and thought. The answer for how to hang the cabinet came to me. It was so simple, I couldn’t believe it. I finished my meditation, and immediately turned the shop lights back on. Within thirty minutes I completed the job.

This morning, I removed the plate on the table saw and looked around with a flash light. I found the reason for yesterday’s giant firework display and ka-pow. I had the saw blade tilted to the most extreme angle it would make. Then, I backed the blade down to make a very shallow cut. What I didn’t see was that the saw blade came to rest against the cable connecting the motor to the switch. When I turned on the power, the blade sliced through half the wire and caused a dead short. Twenty amperes were sucked out of the grid in an instant. I am happy to report, that the circuit breaker functioned and killed the circuit.

I will sleep much better tonight.