Table Saw Safety

Table saw safety is of paramount importance – and it’s a hot-button legal topic. Not only is it easy to quickly get injured with these powerful woodworking machines, table saws are a foundation tool in most shops, so there are a lot of people using them – and that means widespread opportunity for mistakes. Here, you’ll find table saw videos, discussion of litigation that could affect your woodworking, safety tips and techniques and shop-made push sticks (as well as other table saw jigs and fixtures) to help you use your table saw safely and efficiently. Let the experts at Popular Woodworking Magazine show you how.

Where Do Table Saw Safety Rules Come From?

In addition to designing the Morris Mini, Alec Issigonis is credited with coining the phrase “A camel looks like a horse that was planned by a committee”. I can’t think of a better way to describe the guards that were standard equipment on table saws sold in the United States from the 1970s until new … Read more »

Safety Rules for Tablesaws: the PTI POV

There are a couple of techniques I use to sort out thorny and complicated issues; follow the money and check the math. I also try to remember that my little corner of the world is just that, it isn’t necessarily a reflection of the world at large. Like most serious woodworkers I don’t want to … Read more »

New Table Saw Safety Regs – PTI Speaks Up

Over the past few weeks, the debate over proposed Consumer Product Safety Commission regulations for table saw safety has been in the news. Curiously, the reason for it being in the news wasn’t any new development; CPSC has been holding meetings with representatives from both SawStop and from the Power Tool Institute, but these meetings … Read more »

Table Saw Injuries-What is the Real Cost?

© As are all of our blog posts, this story is protected by copyright; Popular Woodworking Magazine, 2011. The costs of any hazard are central to the question of whether or not the Consumer Products Safety Commission should step in and make and enforce rules. It tends to be a touchy area; one persons avocation … Read more »

Table Saw Injury Numbers in Perspective

© As are all of our blog posts, this story is protected by copyright; Popular Woodworking Magazine, 2011. When the debate over table saw safety gets heated, numbers are brought out to bolster one side or the other. This happened the other day when USA Today published the headline: “CPSC wants to stop daily table … Read more »

Should We License Table Saws

And If We Did, Would You Pass the Test? Whether or not the Consumer Product Safety Commission should mandate the inclusion of “flesh-detecting technology” in new table saws has generated much debate. When the article in USA Today appeared on Wednesday, I questioned some of the numbers being used, and asked CPSC for the source. … Read more »

CPSC Chief Wants Improved Table Saw Safety

It isn’t often that a woodworking topic makes national news, but today’s USA Today carries just such a story. While not charting a specific course of government action, CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum was quoted by the paper as saying “The safety of table saws needs to be improved in a way that prevents school children … Read more »