Jul
24
2007
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Riving Knifes Help Make Table Saws Safer |
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Written by Ben Jackson
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Tuesday, 24 July 2007 |
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Almost every power tool manufacturer at AWFS was displaying new table saws equipped with quick-change "Riving Knives". But what is a riving knife?
Essentially, a riving knife is a safety feature for table saws that's designed to prevent kickback. Kickback is when the piece of stock being cut by the saw is caught by the rear edge of the spinning blade and "thrown" at the operator. Given the velocity of the spinning blade, it's possible to sustain significant injuries from table saw kickback. Riving knives, long a standard (and legally required) safety feature in Europe, help prevent kickback from occurring greatly reducing the chance of injury.
According to US Consumer Product Safety Commission, table saws accounted for 73% of saw-related injuries. It's great to know that the industry is finally taking steps to make the products safer!
Riving knives are actually very simple: it's just a piece of metal that covers the back park of the blade. If kickback occurs, the riving knife "catches" the piece before it can be propelled at the operator.
The famous flesh-sensing SawStop saws have been equipped with riving knives since their introduction, but it's taken other manufacturers a while to add this feature to their table saws. Some companies have blamed "patent issues" for not implementing it sooner, but we're not sure if this is actually the case.
Turns out that Chris from Popular Woodworking (who was also at AWFS), wrote a great article about Riving Knives.
Wikipedia also has a great article on the subject.
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