Comment by avar
7 months ago
It's really not analogous to seatbelts.
It's really simple to use a table saw safely: don't ever get physically close enough (by far!) for the spinning blade to cut you, or stand where it can fling something at you.
Then even if there's no riving knife and blade guard it's not going to ruin your day.
This means that you'll sometimes need to build a small jig to push wood into the saw, but usually you can just use a long stick to push the wood into it.
Every single table saw accident video you'll see is people who've clearly become way too complacent with them, or are trying to save themselves a few minutes of setup time.
It's simple to use a car safely too. Don't ever speed, be aware of your surroundings at all times, and practice defensive driving.
In theory.
As someone who has used a table saw, you simply cannot account for every variable factored in to having a 10" piece of sharpened carbide steel spinning at 5,000 RPMs and shoving a piece of probably inconsistently structured building materials through it, many, many, many times to accomplish a job. Maybe the sawmill left a nail in there for you: shit happens.
In the immortal words of Jean Luc Picard: It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That's why we build things with safety features: to manage those risks.
No it's not. Even if you're the best defensive driver in the world a seatbelt might still save you if someone plows into you while you're stopped at a red light.
But again, it's your life, your body, your choice.
7 replies →
Just accept it, smile, nod, and deny the existence of the router, lathe, bandsaw, angle grinder with a circular blade on it etc. Chainsaws are probably next up against the wall though since they're pretty well represented in low-effort horror media
While I agree with your premise, mistakes still happen.
I do all of the things you mentioned, plus I use pushers or a crosscut sled whenever possible. It should be impossible for me to make contact, but it only takes a split second of stupidity or inattention to mess up
They're holding it wrong?