Mike W. wrote:
Before you read this, please understand I am not asking if it's OK to be
unsafe and have a kickback incident, I just want to know what really
happens to us all.

A post about a year ago from me describes a kickback incident I had that
hurt pretty bad. The board didnt break the skin, but blood finally made
it to the surface of my gut the next day. I never want to have that
happen again, but a recent post titled 'Table saw wood splitter/anti
kick back question' made me wonder what people are actually referring
too when they say stuff like "it'll eventually get you".

How many people here have had a significant kickback incident?

How bad was it? Was it just a 'put a bandaid on it and get back to
sawing' incident or a 'Im not sure I ever want to touch a tablesaw
again' incident? Was it really a life threatening issue?

Mine was a 'put a bandaid on it' (plus a new pair of undies) incident. A
year later and I'm still ultra careful and hate to think what would have
happend had my gut been my head in that instance.

Thanks,

Mike

In my 35 years of using table saws, I have had a couple of
kickbacks that hurt. Once I was cutting some wood that was
warping as it was going through the blade and kicked back
driving a splinter through the skin between my thumb and
forefinger. The splinter was about 3/8" diameter where it met
my skin. That hurt. Another time I had completed a cut but
hadn't pushed the pieces past the saw blade and was moving the
cutoff (widest piece) off of the table and came into contact
with the piece between the blade and fence. It bound up and
kicked back into my hip. That hurt quite a bit also and left
a bruise that stayed for about a week.

We set up a piece of plywood in front of a table saw once and
drew a target on it. We would leave the fence slightly loose,
run a piece of 1x4 through the saw (to make a 3/4 x 3/4
piece), then push the fence into the piece and send it flying
back (intentional kickback). You can put a 6 foot piece of
3/4 x 3/4 pine about 3 feet through a 3/4 inch thick piece of
plywood from 15 feet away that way. Really makes you respect
the power. Love those Powermatics!

In those 35 years, I have never used a table saw with a blade
guard, splitter or anti kickback pawls. But this is what I do
for a living, so I guess I am just used to saws that way.
Haven't had any other harmful kickbacks. A few kickbacks, but
none that have hurt me. I always stand out of the way.

--
Robert Allison
Rimshot, Inc.
Georgetown, TX