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I once bought a table saw, then watched a YouTube safety video about table saws, and then sold my table saw.

I wouldn't even consider owning a lathe. I know my limits, and even the chop saw in the garage gives me the shivers.



I used a Craftsman radial arm saw for a while. One day, I rotated the head 90 degrees to do some ripping.

The saw grabbed the wood, and climbed up on it, and fired it at unbelievable speed at the wall. It punched a neat hole in the wall the exact size of the board, and the board disappeared into the next room.

I got rid of the saw after that, and bought a sweet Makita cutoff saw instead, and a table saw for ripping. I also bought one of those full face shields people use with chain saws. I like these better than the usual shields because they are a wire mesh, and screens don't fog up.


For what it's worth the 3M full-face respirators are very well designed in that the inlet air passes over your face and then into a sub mask where it is inhaled. Exhaled air is directed out of the front and down. I spent hundreds of hours with one (the FF400) in unconditioned spaces running power tools in fairly strenuous ways and never had it fog at all.


If I ever need a table saw I'm getting one of the pricy ones that stops before it chews up your hand[1].

My cousin is a professional furniture maker and lost the tips of 3 fingers to a table saw. It happens quickly.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/shorts/vCuLs31fDaQ


I have a Sawstop for my main cabinet saw in my shop at home, but also a regular job site saw for working elsewhere.

The table saw is a great tool, and the safety feature makes sense. Especially for the cabinet saw where the incremental price for a comparable too is not so much - but there are plenty of other power tools that will hurt you just as badly. A router or jointer won't amputate a finger, it will just turn it to hamburger.

No matter the tool, you need to respect it and learn the safety rules.


Wow that was fast, how does that safety system work?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop

"An oscillator generates a 12-volt, 200-kilohertz (kHz) pulsed electrical signal, which is applied to a small plate on one side of the blade. The signal is transferred to the blade by capacitive coupling. A plate on the other side of the blade picks up the signal and sends it to a threshold detector. If a human contacts the blade, the signal will fall below the threshold. After signal loss for 25 micro seconds (µs), the detector will fire. A tooth on a 10-inch circular blade rotating at 4000 RPM will stay in contact with the approximate width of a fingertip for 100 µs. The 200-kHz signal will have up to 10 pulses during that time, and should be able to detect contact with just one tooth.[4] When the brake activates, a spring pushes an aluminum block into the blade. The block is normally held away from the blade by a wire, but during braking an electric current instantly melts the wire, similar to a fuse blowing."




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