Wide or narrow side between blade and fence in rip cut on table saw

Question

I've heard lots of rip cut guides say that you should have your workpiece between the blade and the fence and the offcut on the free side of the blade.

The thing that bothers me about this advice is surely it should be based on which side is wider / narrower.

For example let's say I have a long board that is 200mm wide and I want to rip it into 4 strips of 50mm width, ignore the Kerf for this example. For the first cut should the there be ~150mm of wood between the blade and the fence or should there be ~50mm?

Answer 1

In your example, you'd set your fence to 50mm (~2" for those who like Freedom Units ;) and run it through that way. If you should happen to mis-set the fence a bit and you get it at 49.9mm or 50.1mm, at least your strips are all the same. If you put the "off cut" portion between the blade & fence, you have to adjust the fence for every single cut. I've never seen anyone do this. ^{See addendum at the end for an update on this}

While 50mm isn't much room to get your hand safely past the blade without risking losing a finger, this is what a push stick/block is for.

One thing you do want to consider is NOT having the fence on the same side as your blade tips to if you're making an angled cut. In this lovely ASCII art, you'll see that the cut piece between the fence and blade can get pinched, and that's where you get kickback:

  +--+         <--- Fence
  |  |   v--------- Work piece: this part could get pinched and cause kick back
  |  |
  |  |------\----
  |  |-------\---  <--- Tilted blade
---------------------   Saw table

Instead, you'd want to put the fence on the other side to significantly reduce the chance of kick back:

              +--+
              |  |
              |  |
  ---\--------|  |
  ----\-------|  |
---------------------------

In this scenario, the off cut piece won't get pinched between the tilted blade and the fence - it's free to move if it needs to. The "keeper" piece would be free to rise up some if necessary.

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I will note that since I originally wrote this answer, I have learned about a tool/jig called a "thin rip guide" or "narrow rip guide". This is a device that clamps into one track in your table saw and has a wheel against which you position the stock. You put the jig to the left of the blade and the fence to the right. You adjust the jig so the gap between the wheel & blade is the size of piece you need to keep, then make a cut. You then reposition the fence by placing the board against the jig's wheel and move the fence until it hits the wood.

This effectively puts the "keeper" piece to the left of the blade and the "off cut" between the blade and fence.

The goal of this is to be able to safely make thin cuts without risk of the thin piece falling between the blade & insert (hint: a zero-clearance insert also helps), and without it getting stuck between the blade & fence where it's difficult to push past the blade, even with a push stick, and could possibly kick back at you. It even allows you to reinstall the blade guard with its built in anti-kickback pawls for even greater cut safety.

With this setup, you do move the fence with every cut, but you've got the jig to make the movement quick and easy and the measurement is repeatable, instead of having to do the math on each one, relying on the fence's scale and your ability to work in imperial fractions (or the easier metric) and having to also calculate in the blade kerf for each cut.

One example of the "thin rip jig" is this one from Woodpeckers. From what I understand, they make very high quality (and expensive) tools and a lot of people recommend them. I cannot recommend them personally because I don't own any. The Woodpeckers was simply the first one I found in my searching - they're also made by a variety of other manufacturers at differing price & quality levels.

Answer 2

I've heard lots of rip cut guides say that you should have your workpiece between the blade and the fence and the offcut on the free side of the blade.

It's not really a hard and fast rule, and there are several factors to consider: safety, accuracy, feasibility, efficiency... Normally, you want the workpiece between the blade and fence because you set that distance directly with the rip fence scale; there's no need to measure the stock and then subtract the fence setting and the blade kerf. Also, unless you've already trimmed the far edge of the stock (by running it through the saw with most of it between blade and rip fence) you can't count on the edges being parallel.

The thing that bothers me about this advice is surely it should be based on which side is wider / narrower.

I'd only consider that insomuch as it impacts one of the factors (above) that I care about. Most saws have a rip capacity of at least 30"; any cut that you can make safely within your saw's range should be OK.

For example let's say I have a long board that is 200mm wide and I want to rip it into 4 strips of 50mm width, ignore the Kerf for this example. For the first cut should the there be ~150mm of wood between the blade and the fence or should there be ~50mm?

I'd set the fence to 50mm and make the cuts. That guarantees that they'll all be the same width, which is often important, and it saves the trouble of moving the fence after every cut. It's no less safe than starting with the fence at 150mm because the fence is going to be set at 50mm for the last cut, so I need to make sure I can do that safely anyway -- use a push stick/block.

Answer 3

when I was at Building College my tutor said if possible 99% of the time your work piece you are keeping should be between the blade and rip fence, the waste should be on the free side. This as you say is normally with the wider piece between blade and fence. Generally when pushing the piece through the saw, subject to right hand only, your thumb and fingers are placed closest to the fence with your little finger running along the top of the fence as a guide and support. When the piece your keeping is less than 100mm 4inch, I suggest only using push sticks, remember to stand to one side (generally left) to avoid kick back if not using feather boards.