What exactly is an entry table for the table saw and why would you need one?
I was faced with a project that had over 90 sheets of furniture plywood. Very expensive and also very heavy. What made things worse was the fact that I was working alone, as my employees were busy in the workplace. Obviously a very big project. The people who would be most helpful in the store were also the important ones on the site. It is simply not an option. I could have asked my wife for help, but I couldn’t afford a divorce or a lengthy murder trial, so that was out of the question.
I started with a good attitude in the task of cutting these leaves. However, it did not last long. After about the fourth sheet, I had knocked down my roller stand so many times. What really didn’t help was the fact that I have a problem with my right hip, which would be irritated by the movement involved in placing the blade on the saw. After that fourth sheet, I felt a lot of pain. So, I did what any sensitive person would do. I gave up.
I started to think, there must be a solution for this. I went online and started searching. Zero, nothing, nothing. Unless you wanted to spend a large amount of money on a sliding table saw, which you didn’t have space for anyway, you were out of luck. So, I went back to the store and tried again with the time-tested roller stand. I managed to cut two more sheets, before the pain forced me to stop. I decided that if I was going to do this, I needed to find something to make it easier. I began to consider the process and the problems encountered. I came up with the idea for an entrance table.
As the name implies, an input table is one that would be used at the front of your table saw, making it easy to feed materials into the cutting device. A fancy way of saying it holds the material as you cut it.
If you’ve ever tried to rip a sheet of plywood or other sheet material, you know how difficult it can be. Simply placing the blade on the table saw can be challenging. This is exactly the number of back injuries related to carpentry. It is not easy to hold a 40 pound blade and walk up to the saw. So trying to bend down to place the blade on the saw table is a terrible strain on your back. Many woodworkers actually do this while the saw is running, as the switch is not easily reached once the blade is there.
Once the sheet is on the table, well actually partially on the table is more accurate, as the end of the sheet is probably on the floor, you walk to the back of the sheet, pick it up, and then try to walk forward. , inserting the blade into the blade, while trying to hold it tight to the guide. If you can’t keep the blade snug to the fence, you’ll end up with a crooked cut. Or, in extreme cases, move enough to cause a pushback. Kickback occurs when a part ties the blade, causing the part to be thrown towards the operator with astonishing force.
One option for this is to use a roller stand. After all, it is what they were designed for. Most people will give up trying to get the blade onto the saw table and roller stand in one go. This is because the roller stand will most likely tip over in the process. At the very least, he takes one hit, which means he is no longer square to the fence. Once that happens, it is actually fighting you throughout the cut. Try feeding the blade at an angle, again creating the perfect conditions for a kickback. Another method is to place the blade on the table, then lift the end of the blade and slide the roller bracket under it. It is very difficult to place it square with the fence in the way. As he tries to pull the blade from the fence, you try to force it to snap onto the fence. At best, you end up with a less than perfect cut, which has burn marks.
So, after considering the problems I was facing when cutting these sheets, I made a list of the must-haves. First, it had to be attached to the saw, so that it could never tip over or be out of alignment with the fence. He also needed to be able to get in or out of the saw quickly, so he wouldn’t get in the way when not needed. It should be folded so storing it would be easy. And in a perfect world, it should make it easier to put the sheet on the unit, eliminating the risk of back strain.
The first unit was made of wood and it worked very well. We used it for over a year, before I decided to replace it with a metal one. The metal one was better as I changed the design a bit, based on using the original unit. We also found that it would not only cut our time by 60 percent when ripping the plywood, but it was even faster to join the wood as instead of several passes through the jointer, it was one pass to through the table saw, using a sled. The roller on the side made it easy to load the sheets into the unit.
After a few years, the owner of a couple of Woodcraft stores came to my store. He was there to see a big veneer project that we were doing, with the idea that I would teach some courses on veneer. He spent a couple of hours with us, and upon leaving, he noticed that the unit was hanging on the wall. He asked what it was. After explaining what it was and the story behind it, I wanted to see how it worked. I was very impressed with it and wanted to know why we didn’t sell them.
Well, after getting a provisional patent, we started selling them. They are now found in many lumber stores, both home and professional, across the country and in Canada. They are used in high school stores, college lumber stores, municipalities, schools of technology, and many companies that need to cut sheet metal.
