Comment by nprateem
7 months ago
If you look on YouTube, almost all US woodworking channels remove the riving knife and blade guard. That just encourages new woodworkers to do the same. They then demo rabbit blades which are illegal in the EU due to being so dangerous.
I would be surprised if you see a moderately popular woodworker on YouTube that has removed the riving knife. Are you assuming that no blade guard implies that the riving knife is also not present? Yes a lot of people remove the blade guard but they then insert the riving knife. If they would make the safety pawls slightly better I think more people might leave the blade guard on.
Here's an example of a popular woodworker with no blade guard, (also no mask). Wood particulate is really something you don't want to breathe in...
At least he has the riving knife in place. But YT is a cesspool of bad safety habits when it comes to most crafts (welding, woodworking, plumbing, soldering and don't even get me started on electrical work).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKPQVPUfSKo
I said "I'd be surprised if you find [someone] that has removed the riving knife." And you comment with a video of someone that has the riving knife installed? I'm not sure what you were getting at.
"Rabbit" (dado) blades aren't illegal in the EU.
Why are Dado Blades Illegal in Europe and Is It Safe to Use Them?
https://www.toolsadvisor.org/why-are-dado-blades-illegal-in-...
Holy shit, is that verbal diarrhea written by ChatGPT or something? It's multiple pages of talking in circles, in the end it doesn't provide anything other than an unsourced assertion. This is how you get your information?
But no, they're not illegal. The actual directive governing that is MD 2006/42/EC[1].
The reason for why you don't see them in the EU are probably twofold:
1. That directive mandates a stopping time for the blade which wouldn't be possible with the same saw with a dado blade, a dado stack has more inertia.
Therefore saw manufacturers cut the arbor short so they don't need to deal with accommodating and certifying that fringe use-case.
But you're perfectly free to import a saw that can do this yourself, or modify and use an existing saw, or even start a niche "dado saws with EU stopping times" manufacturer.
2. There's a lot of difference in everyday life between the EU and US that don't come down to someone banning something.
That directive is from 2006, dado stacks weren't in wide use before that either.
I'm fairly sure that the reason this is a thing in the US is because of the relatively wide availability of table saws. I think most people over here wouldn't think to modify a saw for this task, they'd use a router.
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02...