Blade Height
There are two competing schools of thought when it comes to properly setting the height of the blade for sawing. The first is commonly expressed thus: "Only allow the blade to rise above the work by the amount of finger you wish to lose." That is, the blade should protrude above the piece as little as possible, to prevent the loss of a finger in case of a sawing accident.
Another competing view is that the saw functions at its best when the angle of the blade teeth arc relative to the top surface of the workpiece is as extreme as possible. This facilitates chip ejection, shortens the overall distance through which the teeth act on the part, reduces power consumption and heat generation, substantially reduces the peak pushing force required, thus improving control, and causes the blade's force on the wood to act mostly downward rather than largely horizontally.
Read more about this topic: Table Saw
Famous quotes containing the words blade and/or height:
“I would not knock old fellows in the dust
But there lay Captain Carpenter on his back
His weapons were the old heart in his bust
And a blade shook between rotten teeth alack.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“To say more than human things with human voice,
That cannot be; to say human things with more
Than human voice, that, also, cannot be;
To speak humanly from the height or from the depth
Of human things, that is acutest speech.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)