Woodworking

[Bugeater]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Kickback.

My guess is that your workpiece was just a little too wide for it's length. When that happens, the backside of the cut can 'grab' at the tooth and the front of the workpiece doesn't have the leverage to hold it down anymore. So it walks up the blade and the blade, because it's spinning towards you, rockets it at you.

The big BIG problem with kickback is your right hand and its tendency to follow the workpiece. When a piece kicks like that (as opposed to a bind that's easy to deal with), it goes up, left and then back...when your hand does that as well, it goes up, left and then into the ****ing blade. That's why you always use a push-stick; that way the piece runs off the push stick and your hand doesn't follow. A push block helps even more.

So, some easy fixes for it and the easiest is a simple splitter. Microjig makes universal ones that go on older saws and work great. Newer saws have what are called riving knives that do the same thing. Kickback paws also exist but I hate them; they grab when you don't want them to.

But you're right, man. Kickback is terrifying. I was building some drawer bottoms with 1/2 ply. Since it was completely square, it was a kickback waiting to happen (like I said, wide and short is a recipe for disaster). I got through about 6 and at about 1 AM one of those things fired back at me. I tried to save it with my left hand around the back of the blade (because I saw it hop first) and all it did was fire into the top of my left hand and sheer some skin off before hitting me in the hip. Took me about 10 minutes to get my heart rate back under control but by God, I was finishing those ****ing drawers....

So a couple of my shot drawers may or may not have blood on the underside of the bottoms.

My saw is a deathtrap. No board buddies, no splitter, no nothing. My buddy is a no-shit craftsman and has built some amazing stuff and he's terrified to work with it. But it's got a great blade and it's a 3 HP, 220 saw so it cuts like butter. With my Vega Pro fence, that saw is a miracle worker and I just don't want to mess with that. I have some of those micro jig splitters, I just haven't gotten around to installing them yet. It's probably gonna be a lot harder to do once I lose a couple of fingers but I suspect that will be the catalyst.

The right safety devices and a willingness to use them makes a huge difference. I have the former....just not the latter.

It didn't come straight back at me. It somehow lifted the board and shot it off almost 90 degrees to the left of me. It had a curved gash from the blade in the bottom afterwards. It was a nearly square piece of wood though so it maybe it did kickback and then the blade caught it again somehow. It was weird.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Bugeater

It didn't come straight back at me. It somehow lifted the board and shot it off almost 90 degrees to the left of me. It had a curved gash from the blade in the bottom afterwards. It was a nearly square piece of wood though so it maybe it did kickback and then the blade caught it again somehow. It was weird.

So it grabbed more of the board or released it differently.

Pretty much any kickback is going to leave a curved gash because the piece is walking up a round blade (and still getting cut as it's being flung off.



Here's what the piece I'm talking about did. Unlike yours, mine hopped and that's why it's two cuts, but you can see that hard curve released into a second curve when it came back down.

Did you have a firm fence on the outside? Without the fence holding the right edge in place, I could see that propeller effect being extreme enough to shoot it off to the left. Or maybe if it did it just as it cleared the top of the fence. Kickback does some weird shit.

[Bugeater]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

So it grabbed more of the board or released it differently.

Pretty much any kickback is going to leave a curved gash because the piece is walking up a round blade (and still getting cut as it's being flung off.



Here's what the piece I'm talking about did. Unlike yours, mine hopped and that's why it's two cuts, but you can see that hard curve released into a second curve when it came back down.

Did you have a firm fence on the outside? Without the fence holding the right edge in place, I could see that propeller effect being extreme enough to shoot it off to the left. Or maybe if it did it just as it cleared the top of the fence. Kickback does some weird shit.

Yep, looks like basically the same result. I'm sure the fence was there, but I believe it was on the right side, it shot the board away from it. Either way, sounds like that was indeed the culprit.