What is an anti-kickback Pawl?
An anti-kickback pawl is a safety device that can be attached to the rear of a table saw blade to prevent a piece of material from moving backwards towards the user. This movement back towards the user is known as kickback and it’s a situation where, for any number of reasons, the saw can not effectively cut through the material and the blade begins to push the piece of material back towards the user .
Anti-Kickback pawls work by utilizing a set of teeth that are angled with the direction of the material being fed through a saw - away from you that is. That way, if the saw begins to kickback and push the material towards you, the pawl’s teeth bite into the material and help to reduce the risk of the piece flying back at you
When to use an anti-kickback pawl?
You’ll want to use anti-kickback pawls any time you are making a proper through-cut and where they can be safely used. There are very few, next to no situations where anti-kickback pawls can’t be used.
When can you not use anti-kickback pawls?
Anti-kickback pawls typically cannot be used with a dado stack
For some specialty cuts, like a vertical cut using a sacrificial fence, anti-kickback pawls can’t be used.
For any partial cut where the wood is not fully cut through, as you wouldn’t be able to bring the wood back.
With certain jigs or sleds, using anti-kickback pawls often isn’t possible.
Anti-kickback pawls generally can’t be used in conjunction with a dado stack, at least for most modern table saws - double check your owner’s manual to be sure. However, kickback is still a concern with dado stacks.
With the exception of using a dado stack, In the event you must remove the kickback pawls, never remove the riving knife.
For softer woods, you’ll hear some complain that the pawls will make streaks on the wood. This is normally true, but not an excuse to not use the pawls. It doesn’t take but a few minutes of time to sand the marks away.
What saws can an anti-kickback pawl be installed on?
Any modern table saw will have a riving knife, or in some cases a splitter, but more often a riving knife. The riving knife will have a notched area or hole that holds the anti-kickback pawl.
The pre-installed riving knife on the SawStop Compact does not have a way to attach an anti-kickback pawl. A second riving knife is included to attach the included pawls to.
Riving knives that are included with the SawStop compact table saw. One includes cutouts for anti-kickback pawls to be attached.
The second included riving knife with the SawStop compact is installed with the anti-kickback pawls.
If you purchased a table saw second-hand and it did not include a riving knife or anti-kickback pawl, you’ll want to purchase both immediately. Riving knives are as common and as needed as a seatbelt in a car. Do not use a table saw with a riving knife or splitter.
What is saw kickback?
Kickback is where the saw blade begins to push the material in the direction the blade spins. While we’ve covered table saws in this article, kickback can happen on all types of saws and power tools - radial arm saws, circular saws, chain saws, routers, and others.
The issue with it occurring on a table saw is that the work piece will often go flying since the cut is being made with the top of the blade. Based on the experiments from Jonathan Katz-Moses (video below), an approximate 1.5lb piece of wood, will produce 141 lbs of impact force.
Lethal? Unlikely.
Will it hurt like a mother f*cker and cause some bleeding? Most likely.
This is a good time to point out that if you get hit by a flying piece of wood, it’s highly likely that you were standing in its path. Pay attention to any experienced woodworker and you’ll notice they stand slightly off to the side when making cuts - that’s for this exact reason.
If kickback were to occur and the work piece did go flying, they wouldn’t be in the flight path.
What causes table saw kickback
Using the wrong type of cut for the workpiece
The workpiece binds between the blade and fence
Improper installation of featherboard
Not using a riving knife or splitter
The workpiece binding between the fence and saw blade is the most common cause of kickback and that can result from a number of issues. For example, a fence that is more narrow in the rear and wider in the front will result in the workpiece being pinched as it gets closer and closer to the blade.
An example of an improper cut is performing a cross cut on a 2x4 and only using the fence as a guide - no miter gauge or anything. In this scenario, there’s a high likelihood that one of the pieces of wood will move and get grabbed by the spinning blade, even if you are using a riving knife.
A riving knife helps to prevent the kerf from closing on itself, but it can’t do much when length of the work piece is smaller than the blade and won’t make it to the knife.