: Well not your pain exactly but enough of my own over 25 years of professional
: woodworking to be sympathetic, not judemental. One incident occured when I
: was very excited about a new project and went to the shop before having a
: cup of coffee in the morning. I never start too early with sharp tools
: now. Another thing I read some where was that if an operation doesn't feel
: right, don't do it. Simple but effective advice. We are all comfortable
: with differn't levels of exposure to bodily harm. I think all the guards
: and precautions are worthless in that one instant of lost concentration.
: Knock on wood I still have all the body parts, but some painfull memories.
: Once again, SAFTY IS A MATTER OF SELF RESPECT. Steve

I agree.Fear is a good thing around power tools. If you had a close call or if you got nicked use it as a lesson to develope the sense of what feels safe and what does not.Along with reading a book on the tool and standard safety practices for that tool.

I got bit by a band saw one day when I was cutting a curve and my mind was elswwere.

I have used the following featherboard set-up to safely cut thousands of strips.

Saw Blade Set Up
Lower the blade all the way. Make an auxiliary throat plate of wood to fit your saw.With the saw turned on, slowly raise the blade up through the new wood throat plate to cut an opening only the width of the blade. This is important because now the strips won't be able to slide down between the throat plate and the blade. Next, screw an auxiliary fence to the saw’s regular fence, of 3/4” plywood, the length of the saw fence and 6-10” high.

Featherboard
A featherboard is a piece of scrap wood with a series of saw cuts at one end creating a flexible feather edge. This edge is cut at an angle of approximately 20°.

When a featherboard is clamped against a board being cut or milled, the board is held firmly and cannot kickback. The feathered edge is angled in the direction of board travel. Make a featherboard of l x 4 stock. The featherboard will be clamped and then screwed to the fence DIRECTLY OVER the center of blade.

This prevents the possiblity of your fingers touching the blade.

Check that the saw blade and the fence are perpendicular to the saw table. Make sure that the saw blade and the fence are parallel. Set the fence to cut your strip width.

Position the Featherboard
Use a scrap piece the same thickness as the boards to be cut. Start cutting a strip, but stop the saw part way through the board. Drop the blade flush with the surface of the wood. Press the featherboard down firmly on the wood surface and clamp with spring clamps. Then screw the featherboard to the plywood.

Turn on the saw and raise the blade 1/4” into the featherboard. Finish cutting the strip. The featherboard will completely cover the saw blade. There will be no chance for your fingers to touch the blade.

Once the featherboard is placed and adjusted correctly, with the board properly supported, it will hold the wood so well, that you can take your hands off the board being cut to walk behind the saw and pull the board through to finish the cut. On the last few strips cut from the board, use a push stick to press the wood against the fence.

Develop hand feed with constant pressure against the fence and you will cut consistant strips.

With this saw set-up and two infeed and two outfeed roller trays set-up correctly to maintain board travel against the fence, I’ve cut strips from 20’ boards by my self with ease.

I can post pictures if you wish, if someone will explain how to do this on this BB.

Work safe.

All the best,
Rob