Fencing and safety precautions for wood-working machinery / issued by the Home Office.

Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fencing and safety precautions for wood-working machinery / issued by the Home Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    s) CIRCULAR SAWS. Circular Saws vary within wide limits both as regards size and conditions of working; they are in such common use and have caused so many thousands of accidents that their dangerous nature is well known and many devices have been brought for- ward to protect sawyers. It should be understood before going further that there is no single fitment which is universally applicable to every aspect of such a variable tool. There is, however, no sawing operation for which it is not possible to provide reasonable safeguards or safe methods of working. Injuries are occasioned by contact with some part of the blade, whether above or below the bench, and by objects thrown off the saw either because some loose piece of wood has become entangled in the teeth, or because the half-cut timber has closed in and caught upon the saw. ‘This projection of timber, due to the wood pinching on the saw-blade, is exceedingly dangerous, as the timber is flung back with great violence. The fatal accidents at circular saws are usually occasioned in this fashion, and a piece of parquetry no larger than a brick, ihrown back by the saw, has caused death. The riving-knife, which will be described later, is the great preventative of this type of accident, and fortunately there is practically no sawing operation at which one form or another of this safeguard cannot be used. A large proportion of the accidents now happening through- out the country arise at the front of the saw, the part which is most frequently left without protection, owing, no doubt, to the comparative difficulty of applying adequate safeguarding there. Numerous devices, such as adjustable front covers, pushbars, slides (or ‘‘ chariots ’’) and: mechanical feeds, are however, avail- able and should be applied. ‘hese will be found illustrated fur- ther cn. Where the work permits (e.g., for general repairs) it is highly desirable to instal a band-saw in preference to a circular saw, a band-saw being much the safer tool to cperate. Varieties and uses of Circular Saws.—It is not possible in a pamphlet to enumerate every variety and use of such an adapt- able implement, but some of the main principles of design, with their chief purposes, may be given. In the common “‘ General Bench’’ (often known as a ‘‘ Push °’ bench) neither the saw spindle nor the table is adjustable, but benches are obtainable whose tables may be raised or lowered or in which the saw spindle is capable of rising and falling relatively to the table. In other benches provision is made for inclining the table top at angles to the plane of the saw other than the usual right-angle. For cutting-out box boards, with a ‘‘ ground off ”’
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