TS Kickback


Marmotjr

If you have had kickback, how did it happen?  

43 members have voted

  1. 1. If you have had kickback, how did it happen?

    • Bound between blade and fence
      16
    • Tension in wood gripped the blade
      8
    • Accidental contact with blade
      8
    • Other
      11
  2. 2. Have you ever had a kickback?

    • Yes
      35
    • No
      8


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Reading another thread, and listening to an WT episode from April '15,  got me wondering, how does most of our kick back happen?  I'd be curious to know the mechanism that most of our kickbacks have occurred.  So I present this very unscientific poll. 

I've had 2, both were accidental contact with the blade, one with a bowl blank I was stupidly trying to joint, and the other with a push stick.  Both caught the blade as I was pulling it back to me supposedly above the blade.  Both bounced off my forearm and made holes in a ceiling or wall.   Both happened very early on in my career in the hobby, and I have since learned a healthy respect for the spinning blade. 

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I have thought about this numerous times since it happened and the best I can figure out is that as I lifted my push stick I got the piece between the blade and fence a little catty wompus and also not all the way clear of the blade.  The blade caught it and shot it back in my direction.  Fortunately I was standing were I was supposed to be and all that happened is I ended up with a dirty diaper and a hole in the sheet rock some 20 feet away.

I should add this was a pre riving knife saw.

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Was cutting plywood shelves and the wood climbed up the blade and came out of my hands along with hitting me in the gut.  Scared the crap out of me and didnt feel to good.    I had to look to see if my fingers were still there.    I was in a hurry and the blade was getting dull.   One other time I was cutting some small stuff and let a couple of cut offs sit near the blade and next thing I no the wood went through the window behind me.    I dont leave any cut offs siting on the table saw any more.

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I got a good one this past July. Tension in a piece of Hickory, was lifting the wood off the table as it went past the blade, and as I've done when that happens thousands  and thousands of times, I carefully reach around with my left hand and brought the piece back down to the table. I was pushing it through with a push stick, and it felt as though it was going to stay in place so, I slowly moved my left hand away. Then the board caught another tight spot and threw the board upward and slammed my hand into the blade.  Lost the tip of the thumb. The forefinger took a good hit, The finger came down sideways into the blade and went through the knuckle and several tendons.  I'm still not through with all it took to get it back in decent shape.  I had surgery on the finger to try and repair the tendons, and get it straightened out. But straight is not going to happen. The repair job on the tendons worked a little, but from now on, when I point with my left hand, I will always be pointing around the corner.

DSC01708.JPG

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I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't clear on the reason it happened.

I think it was that I didn't have a perfectly straight edge that I was running along the fence. or I didn't maintain correct pressure against the fence.

It shot across the shop like a bullet.

This is it, lined up with where it hit (25 feet behind me).

http://xzHgzhw.jpg

Here's the mark it left in the sliding door.

http://w0DlMu4.jpg

 

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I had a unisaw that would grabs cutoff pieces and throw them at me. But I really got nailed from small job site saws ripping small warped blocking for roofs.

I use my bandsaw for most of my ripping so kick back or turning my fingers into hotdogs on the tablesaw is not likely.

That looks bad Richard.:(

Aj

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I'm pretty new to all this, and having started a little later in life, I am much more paranoid that I would have been when I was much younger.  To that end, I try to do it all as safely as possible.  I have a Sawstop, and always use a pushsticks.  I also have the Jessem Table Saw guides which do an amazing job of holding the workpiece safely.  Whenever possible I use a feather board and the Sawstop blade guard.  As a minimum, the riving knife is always in place.  Basically, my piece is almost completely encased and held down by safety gear as it goes past the blade.

Seeing Richard's photo above only serves to reinforce my paranoia...

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16 minutes ago, RichardA said:

I got a good one this past July. Tension in a piece of Hickory, was lifting the wood off the table as it went past the blade, and as I've done when that happens thousands  and thousands of times, I carefully reach around with my left hand and brought the piece back down to the table. I was pushing it through with a push stick, and it felt as though it was going to stay in place so, I slowly moved my left hand away. Then the board caught another tight spot and threw the board upward and slammed my hand into the blade.  Lost the tip of the thumb. The forefinger took a good hit, The finger came down sideways into the blade and went through the knuckle and several tendons.  I'm still not through with all it took to get it back in decent shape.  I had surgery on the finger to try and repair the tendons, and get it straightened out. But straight is not going to happen. The repair job on the tendons worked a little, but from now on, when I point with my left hand, I will always be pointing around the corner.

DSC01708.JPG

 Short description would have been sufficient! Just kidding, glad it wasn't worse! 

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10 hours ago, Chet said:

Some bitch Rick that makes my fingers hurt.

Odd, it didn't hurt at all for several weeks, after the surgery it hurts from time to time. The strange part is if my hand and finger don't move for a long period, sometime while sitting absolutely still, it'll hurt for a while, then go away.  It makes no sense whatsoever.

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Just starting out and inexperienced . . . Mine was a piece of irregular stock and no splitter.  The unprepared surface of the stock cause a deviation in the feed path.  I was lucky; I was sawing and all the sudden the piece was just gone.  As others have said, it happens so fast.  I just roll my eyes at the folks who post that they will just 'hold on' or 'over power the saw' if things should go south; it happens too fast.

Fortunately I had my hands far enough away from the blade and was standing off to the side.  The piece ended up stabbed into a piece of plywood like some sword-thrower's act; boinnnng!  In a way it was anticlimactic in that I suffered no injury and the projectile missed anything of real value.  The delayed adrenaline blast upon realizing what could have happened if my hand position would have been different or if I were standing on the line of fire was the main impact.  Walked straight in and ordered an MJ Splitter :)

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9 hours ago, AJ_Engineer said:

Now I use my badsaw for a lot of those dangerous cuts.

This was a real game changer for me too.  My rule is that I don't let any tool with a plate blade touch wood until it's been milled flat and square.  Too much can go wrong.  All of my rough cuts are done with the bandsaw or jigsaw.  This lets you "explore" your stock and gives you a good idea if there are any problematic pieces of material that might cause issues down the road on other machines.  Once you get to know your boards you can usually predict if something might go awry during a table saw cut...and avoid those potential problems altogether.

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12 minutes ago, Lester Burnham said:

wrestling a full sheet of plywood over to the toy tablesaw and proceed to try cutting it in half. I made it a good bit past halfway and realized I was using a lot of downward pressure to keep it from tipping over. I pulled the sheet backwards(real smart) to get it to balance and ducked under it to turn the saw off.

LOL I've played that game in my life.  Idiots, the both of us.  Thank dog for the dawning of the internet, or I'd probably be dead by now.

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10 minutes ago, mat60 said:

Id like to no how you stand to the to the left of the blade and rip wide stuff.    Doesnt feel like its a good idea to reach over the blade.

Consider a full sheet of ply. Once past balance point, there is little chance of issue due to weight past the blade. It is also least likely to bind due to internal stress and is quite wide. Starting at the left corner makes sense but requires a shift to finish. A narrow rip is a bit different. That could lead two different guys to talk the same conversation with two very different approaches. 

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19 hours ago, Eric. said:

I've had two memorable kickbacks in my life and they were both more than ten years ago.  Once with a 2x4, once with a piece of ash.  Both released tension, I had no splitter, neither were milled flat and square because I didn't have milling machines and I didn't know that mattered...so essentially I was a moron and I'm lucky I still have fingers.  Then I learned about wood and how it behaves and how to safely process it, and I haven't experienced a kickback since.  Knowledge is power.

Well put.

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8 hours ago, Lester Burnham said:

Before coming here and getting my learn on, I've done some really stupid s#it on a tablesaw. Like, trying to cut full sheets of .75"  4'x8' plywood, freehand , by myself on a small tablesaw that weighs less than the afore mentioned plywood. No outfeed table, rollers, ...nothing. Picture a 150lbs guy wrestling a full sheet of plywood over to the toy tablesaw and proceed to try cutting it in half. I made it a good bit past halfway and realized I was using a lot of downward pressure to keep it from tipping over. I pulled the sheet backwards(real smart) to get it to balance and ducked under it to turn the saw off. I then flipped the sheet and finished the cut. lol I've done that lots of times. None since realizing I was tempting fate but... Another thing I've done hundreds of times with that same crappy TS is trim small pieces without a pushstick. Say I had a board that's 3"x10" and I needed to make some 3"x2" pieces from it, I'd just set the fence and hold the material against the fence with my index finger and thumb and make the cuts. What makes that even more scary/stupid is that the insert for that tablesaw is a flimsy piece of aluminum and it sags in the middle and shit catches a little where the insert meets the table. So, I'd have to lift the front of the piece to get it to clear the blade.

 

Here's the saw.

tablesaw.jpg

 

I need a new saw.

Please tell me that's a dado wobbler, not a regular blade that's seriously out of alignment.  :o

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I was trying to make a cut in the lengthwise center of a 2-foot board. I placed the end of the board on the far side of the blade and held it with my left thumb while I lowered it into the blade with my right hand. I thought if the board kicked it would yank it away from my thumb. It didn't.

The board and 2 fingers came through the blade and hit me in the chest. That was 10 years ago. They look a little funny, but I have full use of them.

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I was one of the ones that voted never had one.  The closest thing was a small knot, on the tail end of the board, on the bottom corner.  It bounced off the wall behind the saw, in line with the blade, made a double bank shot off the top corner of that wall, and took out a window pane on the opposite wall.

I've never tried to run something that wasn't straight through a table saw, as well as I can remember.   I never put a hand anywhere near the blade, and certainly not behind it, or over it.  44 years for a living now, and the table saw gets used most days, with some years before that, periodically, as a teenager.  I've also never run one with so much as a splitter on it.  I'm not saying to try this at your home.  Just don't do something stupid.  Always pay attention.

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