A near kickback

[Ed62]

Have you ever had this happen? After ripping a few boards with no problem, I was ripping one about 40" long, and had a problem. After ripping through about 3/4 of the length, the saw began laboring, and I had to exert more feed pressure to make the cut. My first instinct was to turn the saw off, but I would have had to reach across my body with my left hand to reach the switch. That would have compromised my control, so I finished making the cut, hoping for no kickback. After the cut was made, I inspected the saw, but found nothing wrong. I decided to carefully try another rip, and it went flawlessly. 3 more rips also went well. But I can't figure out what happened. The board I had the problem with was straight after ripping, so that wasn't it.

What gives?

Ed

[lcm1947]

I don't have an answer for you but that does seem strange. Not that you had a problem with cutting through that one board but that you had no problems on the ones before or after. What type of wood were you cutting? I know they're gonna want to know that.

[jeff_1064]

I have had this happen in my shop... 9 times out of 10 the cause is the board squeezing together causing friction on the splitter or blade (if you aren't using a splitter). The reason this happens is the way the grain is structured. I have my students place a painters stir stick in the kerf right after the board passes the splitter. This usually solves the problem. The other cause that I have found is the toe of the rip fence is tweaked in just a little...

Hope this answers your question...

Jeff

[Ed62]

This happened to be a piece of 3/4" baltic birch ply. The blade guard was on the BT3K, so the riving knife was in place.

Ed

[Stytooner]

Sometimes its difficult to identify a problem, especially when you can't repeat it. It's possible that the ply stuck or bound somewhere. This is why guys like to wax the tops and the feeding side of the fence. You can wax that RK as well, but pay close attention to those pawls.
I think you did everything right especially if the piece was straight after the cut. The best thing you did was to have that guard on there though. I can just about guarantee it helped you avoid a kickback.

[Garasaki]

You also did the right thing by pushing the stock thru to finish the cut, even though it's certainly not your first reaction.

Well done!

[Ed62]

Thanks for the replies. I doubt I'll ever know what happened since it hasn't happened since.

You also did the right thing by pushing the stock thru to finish the cut, even though it's certainly not your first reaction.

Yeah, you got that right. I felt like letting go of the workpiece, and running for cover.

Ed

[eezlock]

near kickback........

Ed, sounds as if there was internal wood stress that was temporarily
releived in making the cut and then tried to close itself back up on you as
you were cutting. Eezlock

[Ed62]

That's what my thinking was, but I was surprised when the workpiece came out straight.

Ed