recently I saw a video where someone used a hammer to pound-free a saw blade that had become stuck in a board while he was trying to cut it to length with a miter saw he literally took the blade off the miter saw while it was still stuck in the board and then he destroyed that Blade with a hammer to get it free he noted that that was a persistent problem he'd been having binding in the kerf and it's one of the reasons why he thought he needed a new saw of course that was an extreme case I don't think I've ever before seen someone have to destroy a saw blade with a hammer just to free it from wood but I have seen people bind their blade in the wood with their miter saw and I've even been seeing some dangerous interactions with miter saws when the wood pinched on the blade here's a relatively minor example that I caught on film several years ago note how the blade jams in the kerf and jerks forward and up this could have been much worse if it went for several precautions being taken at the time and it's important that you understand what those precautions are as well as something else that could have been done because improper use of a miter saw particularly one with a sliding mechanism can lead to very serious injuries so let me go through this really quickly for you the nature of a miter saw is very different from a table saw because the blade is positioned above the work piece where it spins like a wheel toward your body a miter Saw's head is also hinged so it can lift the blade up and out of the cut easily and sliding miter saws in particular have mechanisms specifically designed to allow that blade to move towards you so if used improperly all this can add up to disaster unfortunately most people I see using sliding miter saws especially on YouTube are using them improperly a sliding miter saw is not intended to be lowered into the cut and then pulled toward you through the wood that's a climb cut in that case the teeth are rotating down on the wood from above and like a wheel the blade wants to climb on top of the work piece instead a sliding miter saw should be pulled forward above the work piece then lowered into the edge closest to you as the cut is made by pushing the blade away from your body in that orientation the teeth are pulling the blade down into the wood this type of push cut is much less likely to result in a dangerous climbing situation in my video here the push cut was being made so why did the sauce still kick up and out of the cut because what happened wasn't a climb the blade didn't walk up on top of the board instead it got pinched in the kerf and tried to stop the blade and all of that energy has to go somewhere obviously having the saw fastened down to a bench or a stand as it was in this case is a good idea but better yet you can take steps to greatly minimize or even eliminate the chance of pinching or binding altogether and that starts with knowing your materials if you're cutting rough sawn lumber or boards that don't lay flat on the saw because they have a slight twist or a bow in them you're asking for trouble because as you cut through the wood the board May begin to settle downward on top of the saw which could close the kerf and pinch against your blade your best option when working with boards that aren't straight is to cut them with a handheld circular saw while one end is hanging freely off your bench or off your sawhorse so its weight will open the kerf as it falls away a jigsaw would be an even better option because it doesn't spin in a circle and it's much less likely to bind but I know that most of you are probably not going to do that if you got a miter saw on the job site you're going to use it so there is another option it's called kerfing kerfing is commonly used when cutting thick materials where the internal stress of the wood might cause it to close its kerf and bind even if the board is straight but it can also be used for rough boards that have a slight twister bow the idea is to score the top surface of the wood with a light cut followed by another that goes deeper and so on cutting through the piece in multiple passes if the curve tries to close during one of these passes there won't be enough of the blade buried into the wood to cause a violent reaction and then the next pass reopens that closing kerf and creates some relief for the next Cuts this technique can all but eliminate incidence of binding now before you go I have one more tip that may save your fingers someday perhaps one of the biggest causes of injuries with miter saws is cutting small work pieces with your hand close to the blade especially if the cut off doesn't entirely span the gap in the fence the blade can catch and pull that piece twisting it as it pulls it into that Gap and pull your hand right into the blade in the blink of an eye so if you must cut small pieces with a miter saw get one of these it's called the 10 million dollar stick I've had it on before a couple years ago really it is ingeniously designed to hold small pieces firmly both down on the table and back against the fence it has little knobs on the bottom and the forked end that make it very stable in strange situations with small pieces and fast to use it saved one person in my shop already this honestly is perhaps the most important safety device I've ever seen for a miter saw I'll link to it below get yourself one and I hope these tips mean you never have to destroy your saw blade with a hammer now check this out we use blade guards and push sticks and safety glasses and hearing protection to keep us safe because we want to enjoy this craft for many years to come but what about our lungs I like Trend stealth masks because they have bodies that fully seal on my face this is important to me because a leaky mask is a useless mask the original stealth features a compact size easily adjustable dual straps for a proper fit on your face a downward facing exhale valve that won't fog your glasses and replaceable n100 filters I switched to Trend stealth masks for my Dusty work a couple years ago because they offer the advanced protection of a larger canister respirator in a less cumbersome size that's comfortable to wear all day long check them out at the link below the video
