"Morgans" wrote in
:

You know, I used to be about like anyone else, in that I never used a
guard
on a table saw. That all changed 18 years ago, when I took a job
teaching carpentry at the local high school. It was made very clear
to me that any and all safety devices available were to be used, at
all times.

For the first year or so I fussed under my breath, any time I had to
run the table saw with the guard in place. Slowly, I began to realize
that they really were not all that bad, in nearly all cases.

Now, I seldom think a second thought about the guards. The obvious
exception is when using a tenion jig, or dado blade or other or other
cuts that do not go all the way through the workpiece. Even then,
there are guards available for the second class of cuts mentioned
above.

So really, if everyone just made up their mind to keep with a guard
until they got used to it, you would find that it is a rare case where
the guard slows them down or prevents accurate cutting.

I think a lot of the problem is home table saw guards aren't good enough.
The first table saw I had was a Craftsman entry-level saw, and the guard
did not align with the saw blade at all. My current saw is a Ridgid, and
the guard takes a few minutes to adjust to be behind the blade exactly,
and has to be removed to allow trimming 1/8"-1/4" off one side to get a
decent edge.

There's better mounting mechanisms (behind the blade on the blade height
riser [riving knife style]) and new guard designs to allow trimming cuts
(each side of the guard moves independently) but I haven't used either of
them yet to say if they're really better.

Puckdropper
--
Never teach your apprentice everything you know.