Safety notes

Although care was taken in the design of this machine, no two shop built machines will be strictly identical.

It is assumed that the builder is skilled in woodworking. This should not be your first woodworking project. It is also assumed that the builder is already familiar with the safe operation of circular saws and table saws.

Woodgears.ca cannot be held liable for injuries that you may incur with your homemade table saw.

Some safety tips

• A potential danger with mounting the circular saw in an enclosed stand is that the saw may get hot and overheat. When using the saw for an extended period, always pull air out of the enclosure with a shopvac or a dust collector. Also, from time to time, check that the air inlet on your circular saw has not become plugged up with sawdust. Making the enclosure larger will alleviate this problem to some extent.
• When installing the dust guard or when changing blades, the saw table is typically upside down. If you don't adequately support the depth adjust mechanism while working on it, it may come down unexpectedly. Even while stopped, the saw blade coming down on your fingers could cause substantial injury.
• Table saws can be dangerous. Never make free hand cuts. When making rip cuts on small workpieces (less than 15 cm wide), always use two push sticks. Also be aware of kickback. Kickback danger is greatest with workpieces between 5 cm and 60 cm in size. Kickback is also likely if you are cutting a piece that is wider than it is long against the rip fence. A misaligned saw also presents a greater risk of kickback. For crosscuts, make a table saw sled.
• Although the saw can cut up to 68 mm deep, a circular saw motor will not be powerful enough to cut to this depth in one pass. If you need to cut deeper than 40 mm, it's advisable to make multiple passes of increasing depth.
• Make sure the saw comes to a full stop before making depth adjustments. If you way over-reach for the depth adjustment knob, you could potentially touch the blade, especially if you skipped making the dust deflector. Yes, you would have to be stupid to do that, but I thought I'd mention just in case.
• Before lifting the top off the saw, make sure the blade is fully lowered and the depth adjustment lock knob fully tightened so that the depth adjustment doesn't move spontaneously as you flip the saw over. Also make sure the saw is unplugged from the power bar. Otherwise the power cord will yank on the power bar as you lift and flip the top.