Safety Topic

[Peter Durand]

Has anyone come up with a way to clamp small pieces on the Kapex? Pieces that are too short to go under the standard clamp. I just don’t like holding down a piece with my hands.

Check out the FastCap stick.

 

[ChuckM]

I have the Fastcap finger-saving stick, too. Highly recommended. It can be used on the mitre saw and table saw (cross-cut sled). But you can also modify the bridge block to work like the Fastcap product. Simply replace the strip on the block with a beam (say, 1" x 2" x 14" - 16"), and adhere some friction pad on the end of the beam. Don't become a statistic (6,800 estimated/projected mitre saws injuries a year in the US alone).

 

[Jiggy Joiner]

If I have a lot of moulded pieces to cut, I make up a reverse profile block, that sits over the top, and is then clamped. In this case there were only handful, and a bridge wouldn’t sit right on them. I also have a few small push sticks, which most importantly save fingers but, will not remove the risk of off cuts projecting themselves.

I always use the auxiliary fences where possible, along with oak zero tolerance facings

 

[Jiggy Joiner]

An update on using two clamps simultaneously. This is only done with larger dimension, and long lengths of hardwoods.

Always make sure the timber is flat and true, and any supports are the exact same height as each other, and the saw base.
Once the timber is lined up for cutting, both clamps are used, and recently the ends of timber has been clamped also. Cuts are made pulling the cutting head fully back and down, or as far down as the timber width will allow. The blade is always sharp, I keep one aside just for this purpose.

Switch on, and push steadily forward until the cut is complete, switch off, wait for blade to stop, raise cutting head. For real dense hardwoods, the cut is done with a few steady passes.

This works for us, and so far, I cannot find a reason not to continue.
I wouldn’t dream of doing this with warped, twisted, bent or pressure treated timber. If we have really large dimension timber, we use the large radial arm saw, which is in constant use, so making use of the Kapex suits.
I honestly have lost count of how many cuts have been made this way but, it’s a lot, certainly enough to make a conclusion.

 

[newoldwoodworker]

I think it is  important to know how and why accidents happen. I read an article that mentioned almost 80% of accidents on the table saw happen when people reach around the blade to grab a part before it has completely cleared the blade resulting in a kickback drawing that hand back into the blade.

Because of that article I never use a table saw without a good push stick and some sort of out feed table.

I think the more we know about how accidents happen the more likely it is we will avoid them.

This taught me a lesson. Thank you. Most of my mistakes these days are from rushing while fatigued, but this one I would have done just from bad habit, so FWIW this thread helped me for whenever I will next use a table saw.
I'm not using a table saw these days, as the track does nearly everything for me except rip a piece from something slim, but I'm old now and everyone in my memory would grab the part from the table saw at around the time it was clearing the blade. I bet I did it too, but I just can't remember. The move looked so graceful -- Run the piece through, maybe with a safety push stick, but then reach over and give it a little pull from the other side which guides it straight out, and then the piece is in your hand. All the way back to the custom cabinetry shop I worked at in the 1980's, all the workers were thinking about safety, but my (admittedly poor) memory has everyone doing this mistake.

Here's one of my recent mistakes. I was cutting the triangles out of a stair stringer with my TS 55 and the short 800mm track.
Mistake #1:
I prioritized what I thought would be accuracy above what I knew wasn't the safest setup. I wanted to cut against all the lines with the track edge, so in one direction I was plunging the saw in the middle of the 2x12, then driving it toward the edge.
Mistake #2:
I was exhausted but I wanted to finish that riser before ending the day. It's the equivalent of "I bet I can get in one more ski run".
Mistake #3, the real "Oh wow I'm lucky that's as bad as it got":
On the last of the cuts, I plunged and the blade wasn't very close to the vertex of where the tread & riser meet. Instead of leaving that for the jig saw work later, I BACKED UP THE TS 55. Total no-no -- The riving knife wasn't in the groove yet because I'd just finished the plunge. The blade kicked the saw backward, cutting way past the vertex before the saw rode up out of the board and I got it shut off. Just stupidity on my part. I didn't get hurt, so I was lucky for that. Our building code doesn't allow for over-cuts in stair stringers, and that was my last tread/riser cutout to do, so the whole 12 foot 2x12 was now a scrap piece.

On my replacement stringer board, I was well rested and hydrated, I wasn't rushing myself, I drove the saw toward the piece for both the riser and tread cuts, and I didn't bother getting too close to the vertex with the circular saw. The jig saw does a stellar job anyway. When I'm tired I don't recognize when I'm not making good decisions.