Universal tablesaw blade guard/dust collection?

[David Tolsky]

A couple of days ago I finally got my right of passage as a woodworker. No guard on the tablesaw, and a decent slice through my left thumb. Turns out, no stitches needed, no bone hit, and the doc says it could even regenerate with time. Lesson learned. Now looking for a universal blade guard I could use on my old Transpower tablesaw, or are there plans to make one myself? I'm pretty sure my original blade guard got tossed in transition from storage locker or just misplaced. At any rate, I'd love to have a blade guard with a housing that I could hook up my shop vac hose to. Does something like that exist?

[Mike Ontko]

David,

Glad to hear that your hitchhiking days aren't over yet! I hope you had your towel with you.

I use the stock blade guard/splitter thing that came with my contractor style saw, but have read a lot of positive reviews for the Shark Guard aftermarket system that fits most types of table saws.

[Terry Hatfield]

I built mine. It's basically the Wood Magazine plan. I made a few mods including having a friend make an all lexan hood but I used the one in the plan originally and it was fine. Here's a link to the plan...

http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodwork...ust-collector/

[Dick Mahany]

I built a copy of the Shark guard from their downloadable plans on their internet site. It worked extremely well. If I had it to do over again, I would just buy the Shark guard as it is very well thought out. I had mine on a Unisaw and never used the stock guards again.
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[Erik Christensen]

I have a sharkguard mounted overhead and hooked to a central DC system. it rocks - the only beef is that it is a one man shop and it can take a while to get after you order (and pay) but easy to remove for thin rips or dado's, great dust collection and you now know - keeps fingers away.

you can build you own but I thought that sharkguard was fairly priced, most likely better than anything I could fabricate and so functional there is never an excuse not to use it

[Frank Pratt]

Just as important as a guard is some kind of riving knife or splitter. If your saw never had provision for one, there are products that will mount to the insert behind the blade.

[Terry Hatfield]

Just as important as a guard is some kind of riving knife or splitter. If your saw never had provision for one, there are products that will mount to the insert behind the blade.

Agree totally. You can see my MJ splitter in the pic. I love it. Very important device.

[Kevin Jenness]

A splitter is the first and most important improvement as it will prevent kickback. You can make your own with a fin in a shop-made zero-clearance insert. A guard with dust pickup is good, and you can make one as pictured above or a ceiling mounted unit, or buy one. Excalibur makes a decent one and Biesemeyer has something similar.