| | The table saw is one of the largest power tools used in the scene shop. It is never to be used with out proper supervision and proper safety practices. | Pretty mean looking teeth on this saw blade. These are carbide tooth blades that alternate sides. In the photo on the right, you can see that the slant is off to the left on the tooth that's close and slants the other on the far one. |   | | The photo on the right is the blade, covered by the safety guard. The orange thing is the guard. IT WON'T KEEP YOUR HANDS FROM SLIDING UNDERNEATH IT! IT'S THERE TO REMIND YOU TO KEEP YOUR HANDS AWAY FROM THE BLADE! |   | A How-To by a HS Tech Student. Tools Used:  | pair of goggles | | pair of ear plugs | | a push stick or commonly called a cut stick | | preferably two persons present when cutting long pieces of wood |
Parts of Table Saw: | orange blade guard | | 1/8” rotating blade | | a guide/ sawing fence |
Steps Taken When Cutting: - First, set up the guide by measuring the needed width and/or length of your piece of wood. This is done so that the saw will cut through the wood evenly.
- When that is finished, try to have one person at one end of the wood piece, in order to push, and the other at the opposite e side, in order to catch the cut wood.
- When everything has been set up ( putting on of goggles and ear plugs, proper place of people, etc.) then begin the cutting.
- Make sure that the person who is cutting is pushing against the wood at a reasonable, steady pace.
- When the wood has come to the point where it is close enough to the circulatory blade that you risk danger of cutting of a finger or two, then proceed to push with the push stick, which should be placed in the guide .
- While this is all occurring, the other member of the cutting team should be catching the cut wood with their finger tips, making sure not to push up or down on the wood.
- Finally, when the wood has been successfully cut, make sure that the measurements are correct. If they are, congratulations!!! If they aren’t, then continue to read the next section to find out what common problem may have occurred.
Common Problems that Occur After/During Cutting: | If you find that the blade turns off suddenly while cutting, immediately turn of the saw. This occurs because the blade has been brought forward too fast, not allowing the blade to cut at a reasonable speed. When this happens, merely turn the saw off, bring it back to the starting point, then continue the cut as usual. | | If you find that at the end of the marvelous cutting experience you have a piece of wood cut at an angle, this could of occurred for many reasons. It may have been that the person who was pushing the wood through was pushing harder on one side than the other. It may have also been that the person catching the wood may have done something similar. Unfortunately, there is no way to fix this problem without cutting an entirely new piece of wood. Sorry. |
* These may not be one of the problems encountered, but these are the ones that I have had to face over my first year of Technical Theater High School. Sorry I couldn’t be anymore helpful, but I’m sure you’ll figure something out. |   |  |   |  |  | | | | | | |
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