Kickback

[niki]

Thank you Lee

The Instruction manual calls for the RK to be 5mm from the blade.
I can set it Higher but that the distance is 15mm.

For the sake of safety, I prefer to follow the instruction and lose the extra 1" that till now, I did not need anyway.

I just made it and took the pics so you can see what I mean

Chris
I'm too "small" to unswer your question.

niki

[Stytooner]

Right. Thats only my opinion. He is right that the blade may cut better at a higher angle. That is assuming that no real blade design is factored in. Not the case with most of today's blades.
The higher shear angle seems fine and in fact does put more of the cutting pressure on the table rather than toward you. This is up until the stock passes the half way point of the blade. At that time, the back of the blade will be trying to lift the stock. Not as much forward pressure as lifting pressure. While it may or may not be cutting better up front, it's definitely trying to do more harm at the rear.

Consider a circular saw. Same basic premise here. Do you leave the blade at full depth to cut plywood? While it can certainly be done, it's much harder to adjust a deep blade when it goes a little astray. There is a greater chance of binding with the blade set too low.

[Stytooner]

Niki, I see that you are trying to keep the knife level on top. Will the knife lean in closer to the blade? I noticed on the Laguna, that the top of the knife wasn't level.
I would probably use your saw the same way you do if I had it. It makes more sense to me to set the knife lower so it doesn't get in the way. Especially since you use a guard. The guard would help prevent upward lift of a higher blade anyway.


I just realized that your guard does indeed need the knife level to work right.
There is one big thing I have come to know. There is no consistency between manufacturers.

[niki]

Thank you lee

I checked it again
The RK can move up/down or forward/back but cannot be leaned to any direction, so what you see in the pic is the closest position to the blade (almost touching the blade at the bottom).

The guard can move a little bit up/down but only a little bit, maybe that's the reason that I cannot lean the RK as you said.

niki

[gettools]

I am a newbie here & have only posted minimal threads, but I watch, listen & try to learn. I am real impressed with the amount of knowledge here not just on wood, but on this particular thread. I have read all the comments and it is really great to see different opinions expressed with passion & seemingly no feelings getting squashed. This is about safety not dissing the others opinions or getting mad. There are so many great ways to be safe, but never 1 way written in stone. I feel like I am learning from the BEST. Thanks to all.

Mark Warren
gettools

[drumpriest]

Niki, you are correct that with a standard American style guard, it must be removed to make non-through cuts. In fact it needs to be removed to make most really small cuts. For instance, if you want to rip 1" strips, you will need to remove the guard so that it doesn't interfere with the ripping fence.

The Riving knife on the PM2000 can stay in place for that type of small cut, and the guard itself just comes off in a snap. Then for non-through cuts the knife comes off as well. This is mostly not a big deal to me as no RK works with my dado stack.

The shark has 2 advantages over the stock PM2000 system.

1. Can stay on for non-through cuts with 10" blade.
2. Dust port.

The PM2000 design has an advantage over the BT3x00 design in that the RK can be taken off and put back on without messing with bolts on the PM2000. The whole operation takes less than 30 seconds. This is good as people have a tendence to take it off, and not bother putting a guard back on.

Lee, I'm guessing that there is no real standard at this point. ;-)

Mark, thanks for the kind words, I agree that this forum is great for those very reasons.

[niki]

Thank you Keith

For ripping 1" strips, I would use the method of "cutting strips on TS" post that gives me another 6" distance to the fence.

Riving Knife is mandatory in EU (from the 60's) but the Anti-kickback pawls are not (also, the blade must stop withing 10 seconds).

I found on my instruction that the RK should be 5/64" (2mm) below the blade, so nobody has a reason to remove it.

I found on the instruction manual of other model but the same company that "the blade height should be 3/8~9/16" (10~15mm) above the work being cut.

Did you noticed (on the pics) that I don't have normal blade throat but only small slot for the blade?, yes, I cannot use dado blade.

Mark, thank you for your kind comments

niki

[drumpriest]

Yeah Niki, I figured that you couldn't use a dado, isn't that also banned in most of Europe? There is certainly nothing wrong with ripping 1" strips via the cutting strips on the TS method, I personally will rip normally at 1", but no smaller. I wouldn't do this at all without a RK splitter behind the blade.

[niki]

Hi Keith

Sorry for the late reply, I was looking all over the Internet for some laws and recommendations.

To you question
Dado blades are not banned in EU, the regulation says that "a blade guard must be installed for every operation on the table saw", so if you are using "Overhead guard" no problem to use dado blade.
But, most of the TS's in EU are sold without Overhead blade guard and for some reason the manufacturers make the Arbor short enough so you cannot install dado blade and for that reason there was no demand and it's very difficult to find dado blade in EU.

Lately, the manufacturers got permission to make the Arbor long enough to accommodate 15mm (19/32") dado blade and there are negotiations for 19mm (3/4"), but for some reason (money?) they don't make long arbors.

I searched on Net for "TS blade height" and "Kickback"
Most of the University sites recommend 1/8", the others 1/4"
On the Delta site they have a "How to avoid kickback" and not even one of the items talks about blade height.

I found on the "WoodWeb" (professionals site) a question that he said that they leave the blade at 4" for all the operations but he is getting kickbacks from time to time.
Most of the replies where talking about fence alignment but there was one that recommended to lower the blade.

Happy New Year
niki