"Upscale" wrote in message
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wrote in message
oups.com...
I just purchased my first table saw this weekend and I'm trying to get
a better handle on how to most effectively (and safely) use it. I need
to rip some 2" wide pieces of 3/4" plywood and I'm trying to figure out
the best way to do it where I don't end up wasting a bunch of wood.
Say the plywood is 4' x 4' and I want to cut (4) 2" x 4' strips from
it. It would seem the most accurate way to do this would be to set the
rip fence (which is to the right of the blade) 2" from the blade and

One way to help lower the chance kickback is to have sufficient support
tables for infeed and outfeed. If that's not possible, then I'd cut the
4'x4' piece down a bit with a circular saw or jigsaw and then cut to exact
size on the tablesaw. Typically, if you're right handed, the wood being
cut
on the tablesaw is passed by the blade on the left side of the fence with
your body being further to the left out of the flight path if a kickback
occurs.

Unfortunately, if you experience a real kickback, you're directly in the
line of fire. Kelly Mehler ("The Table Saw Book" and strong proponent of
table saw safety) calls what I think you're talking about "ejection", where
a typically narrow piece is forced straight back. In a true kickback (at
least by his definition), a typically larger piece gets pinned between the
blade and the fence. The rear of the blade picks up the back and you get
free demonstration of the physics of moving bodies as the panel is shot out
at approximately a 45 degree angle. Maybe we're just dealing with
semantics, but I want to stress that standing to the left of the blade when
the fence is on the right is not necessarily a safe location. As someone
here said once, the only completely safe place to stand when cutting with a
table saw is in the other room.

todd