I'm a little surprised that nobody has mentioned using
a horizontal featherboard while ripping.

Mount the featherboard so as to press the stock against
the fence. Position the featherboard an inch or so in front
of the blade (never position it so that it is at or overlapping
the blade). Standing to the right of the blade, I use one push
stick to feed the stock and another push stick to hold the stock
down. In this way no part of my body is ever in line with the
blade and neither hand nor push stick is pushing in line with
the blade.

Whenever possible I also use a vertically mounted
featherboard (easy to do if you have a high auxiliary fence)
to hold the stock down against the table.

--Billy

"jtpr" wrote in message
news:1096835894.eYlvSgVjg6IsV/Z5Ix8+Lw@teranews...
...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?

--
--Jim
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