I have been a general contractor for over 30 years. My first purchase before I got into the business was a Craftsman Radial Arm Saw. I bought it because it could rip, crosscut and make compound miter cuts.
When I started working professionally, I purchased a Ryobi table saw but since I was driving a van at the time it was a bit much to get in and out of the van, heavy and bulky. It also had a very poor motor so ripping was a bit of a chore. A fellow contractor suggested a much lighter Makita Table Saw with legs and I have been using it ever since. Since 1997 I have been driving a 14' high cube van or box truck and I have no trouble lifting the saw up and into my truck even though the floor is about 3.5 feet off the ground.
Unfortunately I can not claim 0 injuries. As cautious as I am, the first month that I owned the saw I was ripping a piece of PT to make a replacement sill nose for a rotted window sill. I think that I had the blade up too high (wood was only 1 1/2" thick, blade set maybe 2 1/2") and as I was pushing the piece I didn't lift my front hand soon enough or high enough before it reached the spinning blade. I sliced my middle finger and my fourth finger like a duck's mouth so I ended up with two flaps. The hand surgeons first comment at the hospital was "hummm, brand new carbide blade??? Nothing cuts clean like a new carbide blade". I didn't cut the finger tip off on my middle finger but the bone was gone so the surgeon trimmed the remaining finger down as there would have been nothing but meat otherwise. I had no feeling in the finger for years and when hunting it is the first thing on my body to get cold.
My guess is that the blade was spinning so fast that I only saw the solid portion of the blade and not the teeth so the motion to move my lead hand from in front of the blade to beyond the blade either wasn't soon enough or I didn't raise my hand high enough. I was around 40 or when my eyesight was starting to get weaker and that may have also contributed to the situation.
So now my middle finger on my left hand is a little shorter than it should be but it allows me to give anti gunners and bad drivers the "ugly stick" when necessary.
When I started working professionally, I purchased a Ryobi table saw but since I was driving a van at the time it was a bit much to get in and out of the van, heavy and bulky. It also had a very poor motor so ripping was a bit of a chore. A fellow contractor suggested a much lighter Makita Table Saw with legs and I have been using it ever since. Since 1997 I have been driving a 14' high cube van or box truck and I have no trouble lifting the saw up and into my truck even though the floor is about 3.5 feet off the ground.
Unfortunately I can not claim 0 injuries. As cautious as I am, the first month that I owned the saw I was ripping a piece of PT to make a replacement sill nose for a rotted window sill. I think that I had the blade up too high (wood was only 1 1/2" thick, blade set maybe 2 1/2") and as I was pushing the piece I didn't lift my front hand soon enough or high enough before it reached the spinning blade. I sliced my middle finger and my fourth finger like a duck's mouth so I ended up with two flaps. The hand surgeons first comment at the hospital was "hummm, brand new carbide blade??? Nothing cuts clean like a new carbide blade". I didn't cut the finger tip off on my middle finger but the bone was gone so the surgeon trimmed the remaining finger down as there would have been nothing but meat otherwise. I had no feeling in the finger for years and when hunting it is the first thing on my body to get cold.
My guess is that the blade was spinning so fast that I only saw the solid portion of the blade and not the teeth so the motion to move my lead hand from in front of the blade to beyond the blade either wasn't soon enough or I didn't raise my hand high enough. I was around 40 or when my eyesight was starting to get weaker and that may have also contributed to the situation.
So now my middle finger on my left hand is a little shorter than it should be but it allows me to give anti gunners and bad drivers the "ugly stick" when necessary.
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