alt Hacker NewsMy shop teacher seemed to think the band saw was more dangerous than the table saw. Was he wrong, or is it just that table saws are used so much more than band saws that they dominate the injuries?
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I haven’t used a bandsaw a lot, but I have seen some photos of gnarly lost fingers.
I use a table saw quite a bit and think there are more ways things can go wrong, most of which stem from kickback which happens in a split second. The wood will either fly back and hit you, or your hand will be pulled into the blade and you will likely lose a finger.
Both machines can be safe with the proper precautions. That said, I still enjoy my SawStop as insurance for my fingers since I still write software for my day job.
They can both be dangerous but one difference is that the band saw _seems_ much less dangerous and people would take it less seriously. In a shop full of adolescent novices I could see this causing more injuries whereas the tablesaw is probably more closely supervised and people will respect it more.
I'd say overall a tablesaw is more dangerous compared to a band saw because it has the additional failure mode of kickback which happens occasionally even to very experienced operators.
Ever seen someone bind the material in the table saw where the material kicks back into the operator? Here's just the first example from a quick search:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuWNEAlC2-0
Not something a band saw will do. So a band saw will just cut you while the table saw will cut you but also hurl material at you.
Table saws are dramatically more dangerous than band saws. When a band saw blade makes contact with whatever it's cutting, the force is in a single direction. Down at the table which provides material support. Table saws use a rotating blade and often a fence system. Lots of things can go wrong there, but it typically involves binding between the fence and the blade which can lead to kickback which can send chunks of wood through a wall or potentially more dangerous is it can cause the wood to twist violently into the blade risking bringing your hand towards the blade.
Here's a saw stop in action, so it's not gory. But look at how FAST things go wrong here and how violent the interaction was.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatcouldgowrong/comments/11s53ew/w...
Compare that to a band saw in use, and you can see fingers quite close to the to the cutting edge and still have good control over the work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlHe9gOphBw