Leon wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...

Snip

Table saw safety 101--stock should never touch the miter gage and
fence at the same time during a cut--doing so risks getting a piece
of stock wedged between the blade and fence which results in the
stock being thrown at you violently.

Actually you need to ammend that comment.

No, I don't.

That is true only if you
are making a through cut resulting in 2 pieces. If you are cutting a
rabbet on the end of the piece and use the fence as as index to
establish the length of the rabbit you will be fine using the fence
and miter gauge at the same time.

No, you won't. The piece can still get crossed up and instead of just
getting a cut-off end tossed at you you get the whole workpiece tossed at
you. If you look on page 65 in "The Table Saw Book" you will find a
demonstration of just this occurring.

The one cut where it's safe to work with the fence and miter gage at the
same time cutting a rabbet in one pass where there is no stock between the
blade and the fence. One can stretch that a tiny bit if the piece between
blade and fence is thin enough to reliably break off rather than tossing the
whole lump of stock at you.