Sawdust on the Floor

Care to make a bet with me?  I bet that more then 80% of the table saw owners have either removed the blade guards and splitter assembly from their table saws or never installed them in the first place. The  number of reasons for not installing them or removing them later are as many as there are woodworkers.  The biggest is that it just gets in the way.  Maybe the number is even bigger then 80%, because even the TV shows that show someone using a table saw with the blade guard removed.  Of course they have a disclaimer stating something like, “the blade guard was removed to improve visibility of viewer”.  Sure it was. 

I don’t think that the problem really is with the blade guard, but with the splitter that is normally part of the blade guard.  The splitter’s purpose is to keep the wood from pinching back together after the wood leaves the back end of the blade. The splitter is also supposed to prevent kickback of the wood. Kickback can occur almost anytime you use the table saw, but is more likely when you are making cut offs.  What happens is the freed wood from the cut off  can make  contact with the spinning back edge of the table saw blade, when that happens the wood is thrown back at you, often very violently. 

When the blade is raised totally, the distance between the back of the blade and the splitter is very small, so kickback is normally eliminated.  But as you lower the blade, the distance becomes larger as you lower the blade, and this increases the chances of kickback occuring.  The reason for this is that the splitter is fixed in position, since it is part of the blade guard assembly.

Some manufactures of table saws have replaced the splitter with a device that is known as a riving knife.  The typical riving knife is shaped to look like a large shark’s tooth curved at the same radius as the blade.  The riving knife is NOT part of the blade guard, but is actually mounted on the table saw’s trunnion.  As you raise or lower the blade, the amount of the riving knife exposed above the table saw surface increases or decreases.  But even more importantly, the distance between the back of the blade and the riving knife never changes, no matter how high or low you set the blade.  Because of this feature kickback is virtually eliminated. 

To the best of my knowledge, riving knives can not be added onto an existing table saw and that is too bad.  But I am still investigating that issue because I would love to have one on my table saw. 

So it looks like the riving knife does a better job of preventing kickback then the splitter does. But neither one will work at all when they are not installed.  So do me and yourself a favor and put the blade guards and splitters back on your saw. And if you’re lucky enough to have a riving knife, be sure it’s installed and you use it.  This is one bet I really wouldn’t care if I lost.

Do you have your blade guard, splitter or riving knife installed on your table saw? Take our quick survey by clicking here and let us know. We’ll let you know the outcome!

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