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Serious question, why did my circular saw kickback bite me on a $40 oak stair tread
Was ripping an oak stair tread down to 10 inches in my garage on Saturday and the blade pinched about halfway through. Saw jumped back and chewed a 3 inch gash across the board, plus a nice scrape on my knuckle. I shut everything down, checked the blade for damage, then realized my riving knife was set way too low from the last time I changed blades. Reset it, switched to a push block instead of my hand, and finished the other 5 treads with zero issues. Anybody got a better method for ripping thick stock on a jobsite saw without fighting kickback all day?
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nora_barnes19d ago
Man, I gotta push back on this one. Low riving knife or not, a jobsite saw with a stock blade is just asking for trouble on 1.5 inch oak, and I'd bet good money the bigger culprit was the wood itself closing up on the kerf because oak treads are often wet or stressed and they pinch like crazy no matter what you do. Fancy push blocks and jigs are great and all, but they give you a false sense of safety when the real fix is a thin kerf blade, a splitter that actually sits proud of the blade, and slowing your feed way down so the saw never gets a chance to grab. Honest truth, ripping thick hardwood on a cheap portable saw is a losing game and no method fixes that, you just get better at not getting bit. Half the guys I know would've taken that tread to a bandsaw or a table saw with real power instead of fighting a $200 saw all afternoon.
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