On Jan 20, 11:55 pm, "Leon" wrote:
Not my rule, just a common sence approach of how to gauge safe from unsafe.
You do have to admit that 20 x 20 is more likely to cause a problem than say
20 x 80,

I am a heckuva lot more comfortable doing 20x20 than the long stuff,
because I rarely work with long material and I don't have the outfeed
support that you probably take for granted, and my fence doesn't
extend very far past the back of the blade. That's the kind of thing
I would have to stop, move things around, plan everything out, and be
uncomfortable doing. I deal with small parts day in and day out, so
my comfort level is much higher there. 20x20 is kind of huge for me
actually. I make boxes not furniture.


I am not assuming anything here, nor do I think you sound like an idiot.
Where did you get that idea? You simply sound inexperienced whether you are
or not. I do things quite often that are not necessarily considered safe
but I deal with those situations as they come up.

I've been around table saws for 15 years or so, and I began doing it
that way out of experience a few years ago. I don't expect to
convert anyone to my way of doing it, but I maintain that it in that
situation it's safer to back out than to go through. Longer pieces I
do at the band saw, and I would do the short ones there too if I
didn't feel it was safe.

The OP sounds
inexperienced and the best approach here is to warn against an unsafe
procedure rather than give him a false sense of security and risk being
injured. With time he will learn through close calls and hopefully only
close calls that the unexpected can happen at any moment. Experience will
help him recognize those times and how to better deal with the task.

The safety rules are good, but it's kind of like the building code.
You can follow all the rules and still make a crappy house. If you
understand what's behind the rule then you can understand when you're
in a situation where the rule isn't going to cover it. I have a scar
to remind me that using pushing sticks doesn't guarantee you're safe.
The biggest mistake I see people make is to just fixate on what is
happening at the cut and ignore what is happening at the fence. Get
your hands out of the path of the cut and the blade will do its job
just fine without you staring at it, as long as you do your job of
feeding the stock properly.