Bandsaw kickback

[Anthony Whitesell]

Do you adjust your blade guard/upper guide bearings to sit close to your workpieces? That alone creates a blockade and prevents the wood from rotating up and flying at the woodworker.


I'm religious about adjusting the bearings to sit at most a 1/4" above the workpiece. Not for the rotation issue but just because excess open bandsaw blade is a recipe for something bad.

I adjust them as close as possible. Normally about 1" above the piece, there is a lot of stuff in front of the blade and much closer I can't see what the cut is doing. Unfortunately, the resaw fence is just over 6" tall and only cutting 1" thick the upper bearing/guard was about 6 1/2-7" above the table.

[Andrew Hughes]

I too have had the blade grab onto small blocks on both my bandsaws.I will use a half inch sheet of ply or mdf to cover the throat plate.Pretty sure the throat plate will flex some things get grabby and spoil the cut.I also keep the guides low.Standard operating procedure.

[Steve Peterson]

It sounds like the trailing edge cut through the bottom of the block and pushed the top corner down, allowing the block to rotate. Maybe this would be enough to cause the block to "Frisbee".

Steve

[Peter Aeschliman]

I'm probably being dense here, but I still don't get it.

I think this is one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words.

When we say "kickback" in this context, we're not talking about table saw style kickback, right? Where the workpiece goes flying across the room and puts a hole in the wall?

Are we really just talking about a quick jolt, where the piece pops back an inch or two? Like, the downward-moving teeth pinch the workpiece against the throat plate, causing it to almost kind of "squeeze out" like when you squeeze a slimy pumpkin seed?

[Chris Padilla]

I'm still trying to grasp what exactly happened here. I've broken a blade on my band saw (nice expensive Trimaster, carbide tipped) that cause soiling but I've never been able to get any sort of kickback from it (not that I've tried to).

[Jason Beam]

A regular push stick in my left hand for feeding and a safety push stick (narrow grrriper style) in my right to keep the piece against the fence.

I'm trying to recall if I had ever attempted to cut something of this size or shape on the bandsaw before. It was only about 4x4x5 and I was trying to rip cut a 1" piece off. It was too big for either the scroll saw or the table saw. The bandsaw was the first and logical choice.

Was the push stick high or low on the piece? Was it supporting the 'back' of the stock well?

[Prashun Patel]

The piece was probably around as tall as it was long . the blade cause the leading, top edge to be pulled down, flipping the trailing bottom edge up and creating a frisbee or bizarro ninja star, i think.

[Chris Padilla]

The piece was probably around as tall as it was long . the blade cause the leading, top edge to be pulled down, flipping the trailing bottom edge up and creating a frisbee or bizarro ninja star, i think.

I assume then that the piece that was launched was between the fence and blade? That is the only pressure point I can think of for something to get stuck for a period of time and then suddenly becoming unstuck.

[Anthony Whitesell]

Prashun has the right picture. I do mean kickback such as is usually associated with a tablesaw. Actually both pieces went flying in this case. The piece between the blade and the fence was more airborne than the offside piece. The push sticks were close to vertically centered, but it happened so quickly. It may be a chicken and egg situation. Did I push low that caused the rotation or did it catch and rotate the part that caused me to push low.

[Chris Fournier]

There is no such thing as bandsaw kickback, the cutting force is towards the table. This is a case of operator error plain and simple. As others have mentioned caution must be taken with piece dimensioned as described, it's tippy and as you pressed against the resistance of the cut you did not control the piece. The bottom of the piece was not sitting flat on the table because of your feed and all bets were off and you the the piece without serious harm thankfully! The piece between the blade and the fence had more force because it was trapped and the blade had it's way with it.

With a piece if this dimension I'd be careful and use two push sticks, the rearward stick would be of equal height (ish) and drive the piece into the blade. The second stick could be anything and it would direct the piece into the fence.

If your work piece is planted on the table and tight to the fence the bandsaw will "catch" nothing and be a predictable shopmate.

My advise is based on my own misadventures so take no offense. Too many woodworkers go on and on about how safe the bandsaw is compared to the tablesaw. The bandsaw will bite deep if provoked. Of course it was the right saw for this particular cut.

[Chris Padilla]

I take "kickback" to mean the wood flying back at the operator...i.e. 'kicking' back at you. I do not think it is specific to a particular tool. In this case, it sure sounds like the wood decided to head back towards the operator. Sounds like the very definition of "kickback" to me.

[Chris Fournier]

I take "kickback" to mean the wood flying back at the operator...i.e. 'kicking' back at you. I do not think it is specific to a particular tool. In this case, it sure sounds like the wood decided to head back towards the operator. Sounds like the very definition of "kickback" to me.

This would dilute the meaning of "kickback" and make it meaningless in my opinion. Might make you feel good about yourself because you fell victim to a "phenomenon" but it won't make you safer and safe should be our goal. Nothing wrong about admitting that you made a mistake that the outcome was dangerous; nothing wrong about pointing this out to help someone be safe either. Not to do so will ensure that you are in a dangerous situation in your shop again soon enough. I am the first to admit that I have learned by my mistakes.

If you want to be safe in the shop then you need to be honest and rational about incidents like the OP describes and every time you have to take responsibility for your actions and their consequences. In this case the wood came back at the operator not because of "kickback" the idea, but because the wood was not fed safely into the bandsaw blade.

It's not my intention to be harsh and I certainly am not judging anyone but bending language so that we can all feel good about ourselves isn't helpful in fact it's gotten us into a lot of trouble.

Respectfully,

Chris

[Peter Aeschliman]

If you want to be safe in the shop then you need to be honest and rational about incidents like the OP describes and every time you have to take responsibility for your actions and their consequences. In this case the wood came back at the operator not because of "kickback" the idea, but because the wood was not fed safely into the bandsaw blade.

Why does it matter? His point is that the wood flew back at him and caused minor injury. He's reminding us to not be complacent, and to provide us the opportunity examine and learn from his incident.

Let's focus on substance here.

[Chris Fournier]

Why does it matter? His point is that the wood flew back at him and caused minor injury. He's reminding us to not be complacent, and to provide us the opportunity examine and learn from his incident.

Let's focus on substance here.

I agree completely Peter and to my way of thinking I have. If you are comfortable with wood flying back at you being the same as "kickback" in commonly accepted terminology then we aren't in agreement about the very substance of this thread.

I hope that we all remain safe in our shops!

[Alan Schwabacher]

In this case the wood came back at the operator not because of "kickback" the idea, but because the wood was not fed safely into the bandsaw blade.

If you are suggesting that tablesaw kickback happens without any mistake by the operator, I'd disagree in most cases. If you are suggesting there's only one thing called "kickback", I'd say the type of tablesaw kickback caused by the kerf closing on the blade is significantly less dangerous than the type caused by pinching the stock between blade and fence. Perhaps those should not be called the same thing, but they are.

I approve of your suggestion that avoiding dangerous situations requires taking responsibility for your actions in an honest and analytical way. I just don't understand how calling this kickback or not has anything to do with that.