On Monday, June 12, 2017 at 8:00:40 PM UTC-4, Unquestionably Confused wrote:
On 6/12/2017 5:00 PM, wrote:
On 12 Jun 2017 11:40:39 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

[snip]

As long as you've got sufficient vertical clearance, there's nothing
wrong with your hand going beyond the front of the blade. If the wood
disappears or the notch breaks, those shoe style pushers will let your
hand continue safely out of harm's way.

That's the theory. In practice, it's easier to train oneself to
*never* do something than "it's OK, except...". I can feel it if I
screw up, long before I get into trouble.

In my professional life I had to constantly be mindful of potential
conflicts of interest as well as the appearance of improper conduct. A
very wise mentor taught me early on, "If I have to give serious thought
to whether or not any action by me would be a conflict of interest or
considered improper, I simply assume that it would be either or both and
I just don't do it."

That can easily be transferred to every day life in the woodshop and
elsewhere. On nearly every occasion that I deviated from sound safety
practices and paid a price, I had that nagging thought before I did it
that asked, "are you sure this is safe. . .?" Turns out that often it
was not. ;-)

That was one of the things I told my son while were discussing his need
to learn about the saw before he starts using it.

"If you are thinking to yourself 'This just doesn't feel right', then it
probably isn't."

It sounds like you waited a little too long to make that decision. ;-)