Not for nuthin'…. But….. most of us have a kickback story, and the lucky ones only have a dent in the shop wall to show for it. Kickback is the table saw throwing the board back at you, hard and fast. It isn't bad luck. It has a cause you can see coming: the board drifts off the fence or the kerf pinches shut, the wood touches the back of the blade, and those rear teeth (which are coming up out of the table, toward you) grab it, lift it and launch it back over the top of the blade. That's how Fine Woodworking describes it, and anybody who's seen it happen will tell you it's faster than you can react. Everything below is about keeping wood off those rear teeth, and keeping you out of the way if something goes wrong anyway.
Why it matters: It's mid-October in New England. The boat's coming out of the water, the winter shop projects are starting, and the saw's about to get more hours than it did all summer. I rip a lot of white oak and cedar for the dory, and reaction wood will close up behind the blade before you know it. A riving knife, a fence that's set right and ten seconds of thinking about where your body is will handle most of it.
Materials
- Stock that's been jointed flat on one face and straight on one edge. Never rip a board with a crooked or wavy edge against the fence.
- Scrap plywood or poplar for a shop-made push stick, and a push block for narrow rips
- A wood featherboard (a 30°–40° end with saw-kerf fingers, per FWW) or a commercial one that locks in the miter slot
Tools
- Table saw with its riving knife (or splitter on an older saw) installed and aligned
- A sharp blade that suits the cut: a rip blade for long rips in hardwood
- Combination square, and a tape or caliper to check fence-to-blade at the front and back
- Push stick, push block, featherboard
- Safety glasses and hearing protection
Steps
- Check the fence. Mark one tooth, rotate it to the front of the throat and measure to the fence, then rotate the same tooth to the back and measure again (Woodcraft). Those two numbers should match. Some guys toe the back of the fence out about 1/64 in. so the board can't wedge; others, including Rockler's Chris Marshall and WOOD Magazine's shop, set it dead parallel and let the riving knife do the work. Either way, never let the fence toe in toward the back of the blade. That builds a funnel that shoves the wood straight into the rising teeth.
- Put the riving knife on and leave it on. It rides right behind the blade, moves up and down with it, and keeps the kerf from closing on the back teeth. Since 2005, the UL 987 standard for new U.S. table saws calls for one: between 3 and 8 mm (about 1/8 to 5/16 in.) from the teeth, and its top 1 to 5 mm below the top of the blade. It should be thicker than the blade's body but thinner than the kerf, and dead in line with the blade. If yours is bent or crooked, fix that before you cut anything.
- Set the blade height. The Power Tool Institute says no more than 1/8 to 1/4 in. above the stock, and WOOD Magazine likes about 1/4 in. showing. Less blade sticking up means less blade to get into trouble with.
- Put the featherboard ahead of the blade, never beside or behind it. Clamp it so its pressure is on the board before the blade's leading edge. FWW: no part of it should extend past the front of the blade, or it'll pinch the cut piece against the side of the blade, and that's your kickback right there. Set it with light pressure. It's there to keep the board on the fence, not to clamp it.
- Stand out of the line. Stand to the side of the blade, not behind it. With the fence on the right, that means a little left of the blade line, so if something does come back, it goes past you, not into you. Keep your hands flat on the board and out of line with the blade too.
- Pick the right pusher. Saw manuals (Bosch's among them) carry the same standard safety rule: use a push stick when the fence is less than 6 in. (150 mm) from the blade, and a push block when it's under 2 in. (50 mm). Push between the blade and the fence, so the keeper stays tight to the fence.
- Feed all the way through. Steady feed, and push the work completely past the blade before you let go or reach. Never reach over or around a spinning blade, don't back a board out of a cut with the saw running, and never cut freehand. Always use the fence or the miter gauge.
- Crosscutting to length? Clamp a stop block to the fence ahead of the blade. Never use the bare rip fence as a length stop with the miter gauge. That traps the offcut between the blade and fence, and Woodcraft says it'll kick back "almost every time." Clamp a block to the fence well in front of the blade, butt the work against it, and the piece clears the block before it reaches the blade, so the offcut has room.
MOAM's shop note: The most common mistake I see is pulling the riving knife for one dado cut and never putting it back. A real riving knife sits below the top of the blade, so on most modern saws it can stay on for non-through cuts like grooves and rabbets made with a regular blade. A dado stack is usually a different story. Check your manual. Pro trick for the boat shop: when you rip oak or anything with a lot of tension in it, watch the kerf behind the blade. If you see it start to close or the board starts to pull, stop feeding, hold the board, shut the saw off and wait for the blade to stop. A wedge tapped in the kerf will get you through the rest of the cut. Don't try to muscle it through.
Sources: UL 987, Standard for Stationary and Fixed Electric Tools, §40A.2.4 (riving knife limits), via Sawmill Creek; CPSC staff report on table saws (UL 987 6th ed., 2005 riving knife requirement); Fine Woodworking, "Safe Procedures at the Tablesaw," "Mastering the Tablesaw" and "Work More Safely with Featherboards"; Woodcraft, "Preventing Tablesaw Kickback," "Staying Safe at the Tablesaw" and "Two Dozen Table Saw Safety Tips"; Rockler, "Should a Rip Fence and Blade Be Parallel?"; WOOD Magazine, "What's the proper rip-fence alignment?"; Power Tool Institute, "Table Saw Safety"; Woodsmith, "How to Make Accurate Crosscuts on a Table Saw"; Bosch and Ryobi table saw manual safety rules; CCOHS, "Woodworking Machines: Table Saws."
MOAM Out.
Tools for this tip
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- Bench Dog 10-005 Feather-Loc single featherboard (miter-slot mount): locks in the miter slot so its pressure sits just ahead of the blade
- MICROJIG GRR-RIPPER GR-100 3D table saw push block: push block for narrow rips, keeps the keeper tight to the fence and your hands up out of the way
- iGaging 6-inch digital caliper: measuring fence-to-blade off the same tooth at the front and back of the throat
- Starrett 12-inch combination square (11H-12-4R): checking the blade and riving knife are square to the table and in line
Use whatever you already have in the shop; these are just the ones that fit this job.
