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That's a good point. I would think that a circular saw or track saw is more dangerous. You tend to be hunched over the blade in an awkward position. I use a tab

That's a good point. I would think that a circular saw or track saw is more dangerous. You tend to be hunched over the blade in an awkward position. I use a table saw over a circular saw because, for me, it seems safer.

rimunroe 3y ago
I would love if someone could chime in with actual statistics here, but I've always heard that table saws are the most dangerous common power tool in the US by raw injury count alone. I have a weak assumption that more people have circular saws than have table saws. This seems unsurprising to me, because both track and circular saws are used with the blades faced away from the person. I can't speak to track saws, but I've never had a board launched at me by a circular saw. People also tend to over-extend themselves over tablesaws, and have their hands inches from the blades.
- thatguymike 3y ago
  Also, when you drop a circular saw it stops spinning. Table saws won't shut off automatically if you lose your balance or something unexpected happens in your environment.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    > Also, when you drop a circular saw it stops spinning. The blade is still moving very fast, it doesn’t stop spinning. The guard is what makes it safe - though maybe there are other types out there?
    - cwillu 3y ago
      Pretty much any circular saw made in the last twenty years has a brake.
      - throw0101a 3y ago
        Yes, but braking is not instantaneous. IIRC, the blade will spin for 2-3 seconds (instead of possible 10 without any brake). It's possible that the guard would close faster than the spin would stop.
        cwillu 3y ago
        It's pretty fast: my bosch stops in about half a second.
- oooyay 3y ago
  > I would love if someone could chime in with actual statistics here, but I've always heard that table saws are the most dangerous common power tool in the US by raw injury count alone. I don't have data, but there are various threats with a table saw. 1. Overconfidence / complacency. Things like reaching across the blade, not using push sticks, etc. 2. Kickback. It happens because you pinch the workpiece between the blade and the fence. Knowing how to properly configure a fench, featherboards, and how to use the kerf and ribbing knife is important. 3. Shop clutter. People tripping and/or slipping around their saw. SawStop style tech vastly improves most of these scenarios. Kickback, though, turns a workpiece into a very large projectile. Where you stand matters a lot.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    I try to stand away from the plane of rotation of the blade.
    - rimunroe 3y ago
      Yeah, you should never stand in line with it.
  - rimunroe 3y ago
    To be clear: I was asking for data about relative frequencies of accidents with varying tools, not about risks from table saws. But yes, those are all risks. Additionally, like most tools a poorly maintained table saw is more dangerous. The table saw I grew up using was from the 1940s, so was about 50 years old by the time I started using it in the late 90s. Its fence was always around 1-3° out of alignment. Absolutely no safety features whatsoever. The motor was fairly weak too, and the surface was rough, so you needed to use a bit of force while cutting, which obviously increases the risk of slipping into the blade. I got a SawStop last year for my new house's shop and was pleasantly surprised by how little force I needed to use to guide workpieces along it while cutting.
    - DannyBee 3y ago
      See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39982822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39982822 I tried to give the data you asked for. (I moved from a sawstop to a sliding table saw so i'm nowhere near the blade in the first place)
- theossuary 3y ago
  I'm actually for this change, though normally I'm not a fan of trying to mandate the use of technology to solve social problems (like vehicles installing distraction sensors). The table saw manufactures are caught in a stalemate legally speaking, where adding a massive safety feature like this can be seen as a tacit admission that previous generations of saws are unsafe. This could lead to a massive (expensive) recall, like what happened with radial saws. This seems like the perfect example of when a government should step in and brake the local maxima to ensure better safety for its citizens. If all this legislation does is push more people to use low-end track saws on foam, I think that's a huge safety win. In the shop, the only woodworking tool I'm more weary of than a table saw is a jointer. Interestingly both have large spinning blades on the surface of a large flat surface. I wonder if that design in general needs to go by the wayside?
- 15155 3y ago
  Sawstop prevents one specific mode of improper use, and it's not even the most common danger present with table saws: kickback. No matter how good or experienced you are with a table saw, you will have it launch material like a projectile backwards at some point (kickback.) Don't be standing behind it when it happens - instead, be on the other side of the fence. If you're on the safe side of the fence, you likely don't have enough arm length to comfortably cut your fingers off anyway. (And why weren't you using a push stick?)
  - keketi 3y ago
    For reference, this is what kickback looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7sRrC2Jpp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7sRrC2Jpp4 The workpiece goes flying and the guy almost loses a finger.
    - 15155 3y ago
      This guy is standing in the correct place (clearly experienced) but is pushing with the wrong apparatus and technique.
- DannyBee 3y ago
  See: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/01/2023-23898/safety-standard-addressing-blade-contact-injuries-on-table-saws https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/01/2023-23... and https://www.cpsc.gov/cgibin/neissquery/Data/Highlights/2022/2022%20NEISS%20Data%20Highlights.pdf https://www.cpsc.gov/cgibin/neissquery/Data/Highlights/2022/... for general data For table saw vs band saw, NEISS tries to track table saw vs hand saw vs radial arm saw vs band saw vs powered hack saw vs ... It's hard, obviously, since it depends on effective coding of at point of injury. As of about a decade ago (i don't have access to later data): 78% of injuries are table saw 9% band saw 8% miter saw 5% radial arm saw Circular saws and track saws would be in the "other powered saw" category, and accounts for less than 1% of injuries. blade contact was 86% of the injuries While this data is a decade old, the data trends have been relatively stable (even the track saw one) The simple reason that track saws don't show up meaningfully is there aren't enough sold - these aren't sale-normalized numbers, and the number of track saws vs table saws sold appears to be about 100x difference. The main trend is that radial arm saw decreases and goes to miter saw and table saw. This happens naturally since there are not a lot of sales of radial arm saws anymore. (But also shows you how dangerous RAS are - despite them not really being sold, they are highly overrepresented in percent injuries)
  - rimunroe 3y ago
    Thank you! This matches what I’ve heard, and what I’d expect just from the general geometry of things
- gorkish 3y ago
  IMO overhead router is way worse than a table saw, but compared to its usage, the table saw wins by far.
fatbird 3y ago
Intuitively, the table saw seems more dangerous to me (and I'm typing this with a finger with three pins in it from a table saw injury) because you're manipulating the circular saw directly, and thus more consciously. With a table saw you're manipulating the workpiece into the blade, which is indirectly a threat--in my case, the wood kicked, knocking my finger into the blade.
- 15155 3y ago
  Would a push stick have helped this situation?
  - fatbird 3y ago
    It wasn't the push stick hand (that was actually holding a push stick). It was the hand that was standing in for the feather board I should have had.
- quickthrowman 3y ago
  Wow, it’s crazy that the wood kicking caused your finger to release its grip on the push stick and get hit by the blade.
  - fatbird 3y ago
    What's crazier is that my grip on the push stick never wavered, and still managed to knock my other hand into the blade!

rimunroe 3y ago

I would love if someone could chime in with actual statistics here, but I've always heard that table saws are the most dangerous common power tool in the US by raw injury count alone. I have a weak assumption that more people have circular saws than have table saws. This seems unsurprising to me, because both track and circular saws are used with the blades faced away from the person. I can't speak to track saws, but I've never had a board launched at me by a circular saw. People also tend to over-extend themselves over tablesaws, and have their hands inches from the blades.

thatguymike 3y ago
Also, when you drop a circular saw it stops spinning. Table saws won't shut off automatically if you lose your balance or something unexpected happens in your environment.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  > Also, when you drop a circular saw it stops spinning. The blade is still moving very fast, it doesn’t stop spinning. The guard is what makes it safe - though maybe there are other types out there?
  - cwillu 3y ago
    Pretty much any circular saw made in the last twenty years has a brake.
    - throw0101a 3y ago
      Yes, but braking is not instantaneous. IIRC, the blade will spin for 2-3 seconds (instead of possible 10 without any brake). It's possible that the guard would close faster than the spin would stop.
      - cwillu 3y ago
        It's pretty fast: my bosch stops in about half a second.
oooyay 3y ago
> I would love if someone could chime in with actual statistics here, but I've always heard that table saws are the most dangerous common power tool in the US by raw injury count alone. I don't have data, but there are various threats with a table saw. 1. Overconfidence / complacency. Things like reaching across the blade, not using push sticks, etc. 2. Kickback. It happens because you pinch the workpiece between the blade and the fence. Knowing how to properly configure a fench, featherboards, and how to use the kerf and ribbing knife is important. 3. Shop clutter. People tripping and/or slipping around their saw. SawStop style tech vastly improves most of these scenarios. Kickback, though, turns a workpiece into a very large projectile. Where you stand matters a lot.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  I try to stand away from the plane of rotation of the blade.
  - rimunroe 3y ago
    Yeah, you should never stand in line with it.
- rimunroe 3y ago
  To be clear: I was asking for data about relative frequencies of accidents with varying tools, not about risks from table saws. But yes, those are all risks. Additionally, like most tools a poorly maintained table saw is more dangerous. The table saw I grew up using was from the 1940s, so was about 50 years old by the time I started using it in the late 90s. Its fence was always around 1-3° out of alignment. Absolutely no safety features whatsoever. The motor was fairly weak too, and the surface was rough, so you needed to use a bit of force while cutting, which obviously increases the risk of slipping into the blade. I got a SawStop last year for my new house's shop and was pleasantly surprised by how little force I needed to use to guide workpieces along it while cutting.
  - DannyBee 3y ago
    See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39982822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39982822 I tried to give the data you asked for. (I moved from a sawstop to a sliding table saw so i'm nowhere near the blade in the first place)
theossuary 3y ago
I'm actually for this change, though normally I'm not a fan of trying to mandate the use of technology to solve social problems (like vehicles installing distraction sensors). The table saw manufactures are caught in a stalemate legally speaking, where adding a massive safety feature like this can be seen as a tacit admission that previous generations of saws are unsafe. This could lead to a massive (expensive) recall, like what happened with radial saws. This seems like the perfect example of when a government should step in and brake the local maxima to ensure better safety for its citizens. If all this legislation does is push more people to use low-end track saws on foam, I think that's a huge safety win. In the shop, the only woodworking tool I'm more weary of than a table saw is a jointer. Interestingly both have large spinning blades on the surface of a large flat surface. I wonder if that design in general needs to go by the wayside?
15155 3y ago
Sawstop prevents one specific mode of improper use, and it's not even the most common danger present with table saws: kickback. No matter how good or experienced you are with a table saw, you will have it launch material like a projectile backwards at some point (kickback.) Don't be standing behind it when it happens - instead, be on the other side of the fence. If you're on the safe side of the fence, you likely don't have enough arm length to comfortably cut your fingers off anyway. (And why weren't you using a push stick?)
- keketi 3y ago
  For reference, this is what kickback looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7sRrC2Jpp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7sRrC2Jpp4 The workpiece goes flying and the guy almost loses a finger.
  - 15155 3y ago
    This guy is standing in the correct place (clearly experienced) but is pushing with the wrong apparatus and technique.
DannyBee 3y ago
See: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/01/2023-23898/safety-standard-addressing-blade-contact-injuries-on-table-saws https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/01/2023-23... and https://www.cpsc.gov/cgibin/neissquery/Data/Highlights/2022/2022%20NEISS%20Data%20Highlights.pdf https://www.cpsc.gov/cgibin/neissquery/Data/Highlights/2022/... for general data For table saw vs band saw, NEISS tries to track table saw vs hand saw vs radial arm saw vs band saw vs powered hack saw vs ... It's hard, obviously, since it depends on effective coding of at point of injury. As of about a decade ago (i don't have access to later data): 78% of injuries are table saw 9% band saw 8% miter saw 5% radial arm saw Circular saws and track saws would be in the "other powered saw" category, and accounts for less than 1% of injuries. blade contact was 86% of the injuries While this data is a decade old, the data trends have been relatively stable (even the track saw one) The simple reason that track saws don't show up meaningfully is there aren't enough sold - these aren't sale-normalized numbers, and the number of track saws vs table saws sold appears to be about 100x difference. The main trend is that radial arm saw decreases and goes to miter saw and table saw. This happens naturally since there are not a lot of sales of radial arm saws anymore. (But also shows you how dangerous RAS are - despite them not really being sold, they are highly overrepresented in percent injuries)
- rimunroe 3y ago
  Thank you! This matches what I’ve heard, and what I’d expect just from the general geometry of things
gorkish 3y ago
IMO overhead router is way worse than a table saw, but compared to its usage, the table saw wins by far.

fatbird 3y ago

Intuitively, the table saw seems more dangerous to me (and I'm typing this with a finger with three pins in it from a table saw injury) because you're manipulating the circular saw directly, and thus more consciously. With a table saw you're manipulating the workpiece into the blade, which is indirectly a threat--in my case, the wood kicked, knocking my finger into the blade.

15155 3y ago
Would a push stick have helped this situation?
- fatbird 3y ago
  It wasn't the push stick hand (that was actually holding a push stick). It was the hand that was standing in for the feather board I should have had.
quickthrowman 3y ago
Wow, it’s crazy that the wood kicking caused your finger to release its grip on the push stick and get hit by the blade.
- fatbird 3y ago
  What's crazier is that my grip on the push stick never wavered, and still managed to knock my other hand into the blade!