It is amazing how things can go wrong so fast. I have always said that you should never do woodworking/woodturning while tired or in a hurry but last night I broke both those rules. See I was trying to get just one more thing done for the night so I could start on the next section the next day. Everything was going along just fine then in a blink of an eye a loud bang was heard and wood was flying through the shop! Fortunately a quick inventory showed all my fingers still attached and no blood or pain so I figured I was ok. Just a Miter gauge about 40 degrees out and a chewed up board.
The next thing for me to do was to analyze what had happened and see where things went so wrong. See I was trimming the end off of a beech board getting ready to turn it around and cut to final length.
What I did not pay attention too was the cup in the board. The board is over thickness at 7/8” so I was planning on running the boards through the Performax after cutting to length.
There was another thing I did not notice, the length of the board as I was trimming was exactly 12-1/2” and if you look you will see this is the exact distance from the left of the blade to the left edge of the clamping section of my TS3650 Table Saw. (What were the chances of that!)
So what I think happened is cupped edge of the board was riding down in the clamping slot. When I reached the end of the slot the board edge got stuck. The cut had already happed so the edge of the board got caught on the saw blade as it was rotating up.
The sawblade lifted the board up and pulled it into the spinning blade and as you can see the blade made quick work of the wood. The wood then got bound between the Miter Gauge and the blade. The Miter gauge had enough force applied to it that it turned away from the blade thus freeing the piece of wood that then flew across the shop.
Now I am not real sure if I could have even avoided this other than having surfaced the wood and removed the cup prior to sawing but the reasons I bring this up in such details is 1) It scared the Dickens out of me! And 2) People on this Forum also use this saw and should be conscious of that clamping area and the length of material they are feeding through. So I guess all in all I learned something new that I need to be aware of while working out in the shop and it is a good reminder to me to follow my own advice.
Ken
The next thing for me to do was to analyze what had happened and see where things went so wrong. See I was trimming the end off of a beech board getting ready to turn it around and cut to final length.
What I did not pay attention too was the cup in the board. The board is over thickness at 7/8” so I was planning on running the boards through the Performax after cutting to length.
There was another thing I did not notice, the length of the board as I was trimming was exactly 12-1/2” and if you look you will see this is the exact distance from the left of the blade to the left edge of the clamping section of my TS3650 Table Saw. (What were the chances of that!)
So what I think happened is cupped edge of the board was riding down in the clamping slot. When I reached the end of the slot the board edge got stuck. The cut had already happed so the edge of the board got caught on the saw blade as it was rotating up.
The sawblade lifted the board up and pulled it into the spinning blade and as you can see the blade made quick work of the wood. The wood then got bound between the Miter Gauge and the blade. The Miter gauge had enough force applied to it that it turned away from the blade thus freeing the piece of wood that then flew across the shop.
Now I am not real sure if I could have even avoided this other than having surfaced the wood and removed the cup prior to sawing but the reasons I bring this up in such details is 1) It scared the Dickens out of me! And 2) People on this Forum also use this saw and should be conscious of that clamping area and the length of material they are feeding through. So I guess all in all I learned something new that I need to be aware of while working out in the shop and it is a good reminder to me to follow my own advice.
Ken
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