Hey John, I start with a new throat plate and raise the blade through it then I remove the blade and add a spacer behind it that equals the thickness of the sand disc + sandpaper + about .010/.015 then raise the blade through the throat plate again.
I have a 6 hp full shop vacuum that I built myself. Overhead pipes to the table saw, drill press, belt sander, floor mounted planer and router table. All the machinery is pretty much air tight so when the vac is on very little dust escapes.
I tried hooking this vac system up to my ROS for kayak sanding but the volume of air going through the sander made such a terrible whistling / whinning sound I couldn't stand it so I run the ROS on a shop vac.
My thinnest strip thic
kness I have ran through the tablesaw sander is a little less than 1/8". Not much interested in doing veneer thicknesses. I seldom use veneers and when I do I want something special and it is much easier to just buy it.
Your caution about not standing behind the board going through the saw - - it was late, I was just finishing up a deck and this was the last board that needed to be ripped to fit against the door. I was in a hurry, no time to find a push stick just run'er through and be done for the day. I got up off the floor, shut off the saw, grabbed a towel and walked into the house and told Jane I thought I needed to go to the hospital. She was not impressed. 29 stitches between my chin and lower lip. Every single time I turn that saw on now I think, that could have hit me right in the throat, crushed my wind pipe, I could be dead.
Amazing how much more respect one has for a machine when one has to spend a couple hours cleaning one's blood off of it :(