So this has been driving me crazy...

[unclecritic]

I rarely watch TV, and yesterday I actually sat on the couch and watched Norm and that was followed by Woodsmith. I had never watched Woodsmith before and it was OK. But they got to a part in the show where they were showing technique, in this particular show it was how to making locking rabbets on the tablesaw for drawer sides.

The setup was the the blade was 1/4" high, 1/4" from the fence. The workpiece looked to be about 8" wide. The guy proceeded to run the workpiece along the fence, pushing it with his miter gauge. I thought I had missed something, maybe he was using some special backing push stick. But he flipped it over and did the cut again and this time it was a different camera angle. He indeed was using the fence and the miter gauge at the same time, and the sacrifical fence was about 1/16" or 1/8" off of the fence.

Is this right? I thought one of the sure fire ways to cause some serious issues was to use the fence and miter at the same time. Maybe the face of the gauge being so close to the fence makes a difference? Doesnt seem right and I dont think I'm going to rush out to try it.

Its driving me crazy.

[Sid]

The problem with pushing stock through with the miter gauge, and having it in contact with the rip fence at the same time, is when there is a cutoff piece that does not get pushed through. If that piece rotates just a bit it can get caught between the blade and the fence and be thrown back at you by the rear teeth.

In this case there is no cutoff, so no problem.

Sid

[Bruce Cohen]

It's OK to us a rip fence and the miter guage at the same time AS LONG AS YOU ARENT MAKING THRU CUTS.

What causes all the problems "kickback", is the loose (cut off) piece getting caught between the blade and the fence, the miter just increases the chance of getting "staked" by that piece.

Simple??

Bruce

[Uncle Cracker]

Even if you are not thru-cutting, you have to be careful that the workpiece does not bind on the face of the fence, as your continued pushing on the miter fence or gauge will cause the piece to cock sideways, and bind on the blade. Best things to do to avoid this are 1) use a low-friction facing, such as UHMW, on the rip fence, 2) take it as slow as you can through the cut, and 3) feel the resistance of the work as you cut, and stop feeding immediately if you feel an increase that shouldn't be there.

[LCHIEN]

while it may be OK to make a non-thru cut this way, I prefer to use the "short rip fence" technique - clamp a strip of wood to the front of the rip fence ending before the blade, on which to register the left-right position of the end of the cut piece relative to the blade.

[RodKirby]

while it may be OK to make a non-thru cut this way, I prefer to use the "short rip fence" technique...

Like this...

[Uncle Cracker]

Like this...

That is a safer solution... Hope nobody read my post as an endorsement to cutting with both fences. It's still dangerous, requires great care, and not recommended. Was only trying to explain how the problems arise.

[unclecritic]

I understand the physics behind this and granted the way it was setup had small room for error. I forgot to mention that the piece they were working on was really short, like 10 inches, and it was shorter than the sacrifical board on the miter gauge. I imagine a longer workpiece would drastically change the circumstances, it just didn't seem like a very safe setup. I appreciate the comments and helping me understand the logic, but I still don't think I will ever try this. I've always done the smaller block on the rip fence to register the cut as some of you have suggested. The closest I've come yet to a kickback was a narrow piece of mdf that I used the rip fence when it should have been more of a crosscut. I say "yet" lest I get cocky and endup with a hole in the garage door and blood on the floor and looking for my missing digits before the shock sets in. The TS is by far the scariest tool I currently own, but respect and knowledge of all my tools is always king in the grand scheme of things...

Now I sound like Norm...

And P.S. Mr. Kirby, that is a really cool idea for that mini fence.