On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 16:38:16 -0400, "jtpr" wrote:

...on your Table Saw? My brother in law was over last night and we were
standing at my table saw discussing safety. He said he always stands in
front of the piece of wood he is feeding into the table saw and feeds it
through by holding his push stick on top of the wood between the blade and
the fence. I said I always stand to the left of the blade and feed it
through by holding the wood on the outside of the blade. He felt he had
better control his way, I felt it was dangerous to stand directly behind
it. We both use those long notched push sticks.

Also, he cuts thin strips with the waste side between the fence and the
blade. So if he wanted to rip a 1" piece off a 6" board, he would have the
5" side between the fence and the blade. I do it in reverse. I never
really thought about it. How do you guys do it? Which is safer/better?

I use a Sears rig I found buried by the router bushings when poking
around their tool section. It's a yellow composite thing that rides
over the fence and has a some notches on it to hold down various sizes
of wood. It also has some settings to allow you to cut at 45 degrees
in either direction, and can be used as a tenon jig (though I've not
tried out the tenoning aspect of it.

As far as cutting thin strips goes, if they are under 1", I use your
brother's method- if they are any larger, I use yours, only I still
hold the piece between the fence and the blade, because of the way the
tool I mentioned above is set up. However, I Never, Ever, Ever stand
directly behind the wood. I got hit with kickback from a piece of
that cheap phillipine mahogany plywood right in the solar plexas once,
and I don't want to repeat that experience ever again. It's the only
time I've ever had anything cause a black line across my entire body,
and I spent days worried that I had ruptured some organs. Kind of
ruins the joy of woodworking if you bust yourself up doing it, IMO.