On Wed, 01 Mar 2006 20:34:34 GMT, "Leon"
wrote:

And there are thousands and thousands that have lost their fingers. Have
you ever cut yourself ,EVER, with a knife? A lapse of judgement can be
quite costly and NO ONE is incapable of having an accident regardless of how
safely you think you operate a TS.

And most of them, if you talk to them, were careless when they had
their accident. It's up to people to be careful and know when a
particular cut is safe and when it is not. If the cut is not safe,
one should not make it regardless of the safety equipment you have on
your saw.

It certainly is not necesssary but if you can afford it, it's well worth
consideration.

I never said it couldn't be useful, I just said it was more costly
than it was worth IMO. On the other side, having something like that
could give someone a false sense of security and lead to taking more
risks than they would otherwise.

Well in your own words, A woodworker exercising reasonable caution has
nothing to fear from the tablesaw. With proper caution a kick back is not
going to harm you either.

That's why most saws come with a splitter as standard equipment, it
prevents kickback. Without a splitter, it is difficult, if not
impossible on some cuts, to keep the kerf from closing on the far side
of the blade.

It isn't all that hard to keep your finger away from the spinning
knives of death if you think about what you're doing and you use the
standard safety equipment. How much do you want to bet that most of
the woodworkers who have lost fingers were working without a blade
guard?