Kickback and Table Saw Safety: Do’s and Dont’s
Construction and wood workers alike are all very aware of the dangers of Kickback. Kickback is what happens when the material that your cutting (most commonly wood) is driven back towards the operator in an unexpected fashion by the table saw’s blade. Its an issue that is caused in most cases by the teeth of the table saw catching onto your material, or not thoroughly cutting through it.
Advice, & Precautions for Safety
First, make sure that you have sufficient power from your table saw so that it can cut through the material on the table without any problems. Depending on the dimensions of the wood you are cutting, you will have to make sure that your table saw has enough horsepower in its motor so that it will cut directly through the wood without any problems. In most cases a 1.5-2 Horsepower motor will do just fine.
Secondly, you have to be certain that the height of the blade is set correctly. It doesn’t need to be super high, but about an inch and a half is good. If the blade is too low, the wood will have too many teeth in it, and can result in jamming and kickback. It also can result in your motor overheating because of how hard it will work. If your blade is set to high, then that is also dangerous because you arent very far away from the blades sharp edges.
Finally, try to keep the wood fed continuously and evenly through the table saw. A mistake that is fairly common amongst most new woodworkers is that they’ll feed the wood through either too fast, or too slow. Too slow results in overheating the motor (and drag), and too fast will result in uneven, rough, and cuts that are extremely jagged. For help on choosing a good table saw, please navigate to the best table saw reviews page for more indepth details.
