Table saw

How it works

A motor turns an arbor that carries the blade below the table. A height wheel raises the blade through a slot, the throat plate, so that the amount projecting above the table sets the depth of cut. In a tilting-arbor saw the arbor and blade tilt for bevel cuts while the table stays level; Tautz’s 1939 application for Delta describes a circular saw of this type with a motor and arbor supported in a small enclosure and a short-center belt drive.

The work is guided by one of two devices. The rip fence is a bar parallel to the blade, locked to rails on the saw, which sets the width of a lengthwise cut. The miter gauge slides in a slot in the table, parallel to the blade, and holds the work at a set angle for a crosscut.

The blade is covered above the table by a guard. Behind the blade, a flat plate fits in the kerf: DEWALT’s manual calls it a riving knife or splitter and says it lessens the tendency of the blade to bind in the cut. Anti-kickback pawls oppose the thrust of the blade on the work. A hand-fed ripsaw carries the same three safeguards in OSHA’s rule: a hood, a spreader and non-kickback fingers.

Anatomy

Table: The flat work surface with a blade slot and a miter slot.
Blade and arbor: The arbor is carried below the table; in a tilting-arbor saw it swings to tilt the blade.
Blade height wheel and bevel lock: Raise and lower the blade and fix its tilt.
Rip fence, rails and rip scale: The fence locks to rails; the scale is set by moving the fence until it touches the blade and aligning the pointer to zero.
Miter gauge: Slides in the table slot to guide crosscuts.
Throat plate: The insert around the blade slot.
Blade guard, splitter and anti-kickback pawls: DEWALT supplies a guard assembly with a splitter and pawls for through cuts.
Riving knife: A flat plate that fits into the kerf behind the blade; DEWALT supplies a separate riving knife for non-through cuts.
Push stick: A wood or plastic stick that moves the work past the blade when the hands would otherwise be within 6 inches of it.

Variants

Saw bench: The nineteenth-century form. Richards (1873) says saw benches were mostly built by the wood manufacturers themselves with wooden frames and tops; Gear’s 1872 catalog lists iron-frame and adjustable benches.
Tilting-table saw: The table tilts for bevels while the arbor stays fixed. VintageMachinery.org lists a Delta No. 1160 10-inch tilting-table saw sold with the Unisaw in 1939 and an 8-inch tilting-table saw, No. 20-200, in a 1942 catalog.
Tilting-arbor saw (Unisaw pattern): The arbor tilts. Delta’s No. 1450 10-inch Unisaw of 1939, titled a Tilting Arbor Saw in its first manual, is the example documented here.
Cabinet, contractor and jobsite (bench) saws: The three categories used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in its table saw rulemaking.
Saw with active injury mitigation: SawStop released an industrial saw with a detection and braking system in 2004 and a jobsite saw in 2015; Bosch released the REAXX jobsite saw in 2016, according to the Commission.

Specifications

Blade diameter · in: 10DEWALT’s jobsite saw and Delta’s 1939 Unisaw both use 10 inch blades.
Maximum depth of cut at 90 degrees · in: 3-1/8One manufacturer’s jobsite saw; DEWALT lists 2-1/4 inches at 45 degrees.
Rated arbor speed · rpm: 4800The speed in DEWALT’s manual; blades must be rated for at least the arbor speed.

Made to

UL 62841-3-1
IEC 62841-3-1
UL 987
OSHA 1910-213
ANSI O1.1

Safety and care

Safety

OSHA 29 CFR 1910.213(c) requires every hand-fed circular ripsaw to have a hood over the blade above the table that adjusts to the material, a spreader of hardened steel thinner than the kerf, and non-kickback fingers or dogs.
DEWALT defines a kickback as the workpiece binding between the blade and the rip fence or another fixed object, rising from the table and being thrown toward the operator.
Never perform ripping, crosscutting or any other operation freehand, which DEWALT defines as cutting without a miter gauge or rip fence or other means of guiding the work.
Never reach around or over the blade, and stand to one side of it and not in line with it.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated 30,000 emergency department-treated table saw blade-contact injuries in 2021 (95 percent confidence interval 24,100 to 35,900) and 4,700 amputations among those of 2015; see the history.

Care

Circuit breaker overload is often the result of a dull blade, and DEWALT’s manual says to change the blade regularly.
DEWALT’s manual says motor bearings are permanently lubricated, that the blade height adjustment screw may need periodic cleaning and lubrication, and that dust and chips should be cleared from the motor housing with dry compressed air while wearing safety glasses.
Clean plastic parts with a damp cloth only; the manual warns that household cleaners, gasoline, turpentine and thinners can damage them.

Tips

Set the blade about 1/8 inch above the workpiece
For a rip cut DEWALT’s manual says to raise the blade so it is about 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) higher than the top of the workpiece, and to hold the work flat on the table against the fence, about 1 inch away from the blade, before starting.1
Match the pusher to the width of the rip
The manual calls for a push stick when 2 to 6 inches lie between the fence and the blade, and for the narrow-ripping fence feature with a push block when the gap is 2 inches or less. It says the feed force should be applied between the blade and the fence.1
Use the riving knife for non-through cuts and the guard with splitter for through cuts
The manual supplies a blade guard assembly with a splitter and anti-kickback pawls for through cuts and a separate non-through riving knife for cuts that do not pass completely through the work. Both fit into the kerf and lessen the tendency of the blade to bind.1
Zero the rip scale against the blade
To set the rip scale, DEWALT says to unlock the rail lock, set the blade at 0 degrees bevel, move the fence in until it touches the blade, lock the rail lock, and adjust the indicator to read zero. The manual also describes adjusting a rear pivot bracket until the blade is parallel to the miter slot.1
Do not use the fence as a length stop for crosscuts
DEWALT’s manual lists this among its never rules. In 1873 Richards attributed thrown pieces to fences that extend past the blade and are set at an angle to it, and advised that gauges not extend much beyond the front teeth.1 2
Push a short piece with a stick, not the hand
Richards’s 1873 handbook advises the sawyer cutting short stuff to use a stick for pushing the pieces, with the left hand keeping them against the fence. DEWALT’s present manual says to use a push stick whenever the size or shape of the work would put the hands within 6 inches of the blade.1 2

History

Earliest documented

5 August 1777 (earliest circular-saw patent); saw benches documented 1872–1873

England (patent); United States (saw benches)

Disston’s 1916 history gives Samuel Miller’s English patent No. 1152 of 5 August 1777 as the earliest on circular saws. A table that carries the blade is documented in American trade sources from 1872: Gear’s catalog illustrates an iron-and-steel saw bench with a 36 by 36 inch table, splitting rest, squaring rests for miters and an arbor swung from a frame so that the saw can be raised or dropped; Richards’s 1873 handbook says saw benches are mostly built by manufacturers with wooden frames and tops.1 2 3

The table saw is a circular saw taken out of the hand and set under a table. The blade came first: Disston’s history dates the earliest circular-saw patent to 1777, and by 1869 American catalogs sold blades with mandrels. The table with a slot is documented by 1872, when Gear’s catalog shows benches with a table, an arbor that could be raised or dropped, a splitting rest, and squaring rests that swiveled for miters. Those parts are the ancestors of the throat plate, height wheel, rip fence and miter gauge.

The first complaint about the form was danger. Richards’s 1873 handbook ranked circular saws second among the dangerous machines of a wood shop and set out the mechanism of thrown stock. In his account a piece closing on the saw behind the blade, or a fence extending behind the saw and set at an angle, lifts the work and carries it over the saw at the speed of the blade’s teeth. He recorded three fatal accidents among men he knew personally, and he advised short fences, a stick for pushing short pieces, and a heavy hinged plank above the saw as a safeguard that he judged unnecessary if other precautions were observed. The riving knife, the splitter and the hood of the present standards respond to the same mechanism. OSHA’s present rule on hand-fed ripsaws still requires a hood, a spreader behind the blade and non-kickback fingers.

The tilting arbor gave the machine its twentieth-century form. Tautz’s 1936 application for Delta already describes tilting-arbor saws as an existing type and states the faults of two older arrangements, a heavy tiltable support carrying arbor and motor together and a twisted belt. His patents filed in 1939 describe a tilting arbor saw in an enclosed sheet-metal cabinet with a short-center belt drive, and Delta’s Unisaw appeared in its 1939 catalog. VintageMachinery.org, a collectors’ reference, records that Delta says the Unisaw was released in 1937, that the catalog does not show it until 1939, and that its author found evidence of a late-1938 introduction. The same wiki says the Unisaw borrowed fence parts from earlier Delta 10-inch saws, Nos. 1160 and 1180, so Delta’s tilting-arbor work did not begin with it. The radial arm saw of Raymond DeWalt, patented in 1925, was a different arrangement in which the saw moved over fixed work, and Fine Homebuilding reported in 2019 that its influence had shrunk as table saws and compound miter saws took over.

Since 2003 the form has been the subject of a federal rulemaking. The Commission’s staff estimated 30,000 emergency department-treated blade-contact injuries in 2021 (30,100 in 2010) and, for 2015, 4,700 amputations, and that table saws accounted for about 18.6 percent of all amputations in the injury surveillance system that year. Its proposals of 2017 and 2023 would have required a table saw to limit the depth of cut when the blade touches a test probe approaching at 1 meter per second. The Commission withdrew the proposals in 2025, writing that it no longer intended to issue a final rule. No federal blade-contact standard exists; the voluntary standard is UL 62841-3-1.

The record on modular blade guards is contested. The Commission’s 2017 study found the risk of a blade-contact injury seven times greater with a traditional guard than with a modular guard, but its staff found no statistically significant decline in injuries over the years in which modular guards entered the market. The Power Tool Institute, a trade association with table saw makers among its members, reports a decrease of 9.3 percent between 2002–2006 and 2016–2021 and attributes it to modular guards. Both readings are shown under disputed. This archive has not located an independent comparison of table saws and offers no ranking.

Timeline

1777 (5 August)
Samuel Miller is granted English patent No. 1152, the earliest patent on circular saws according to Disston’s history.1
1869
Sargent & Co. offer circular saws by diameter and gauge with mandrels in their New Haven catalog.1
1872
Gear’s catalog of wood-working machinery lists adjustable and iron-frame circular saw benches, one with a table 36 by 36 inches, a splitting rest, two swiveling squaring rests for miters, and a grooving head that can be fitted to the arbor.1
1873
John Richards’s handbook calls circular saws the second most dangerous machines in a wood shop, describes thrown stock, and recommends a stick for pushing short pieces.1
1925
Raymond E. DeWalt is granted US Patent 1,528,536 (filed 27 January 1923) for a woodworking machine in which a motor on a yoke slides along an overhead arm and can be turned for different cuts: the radial arm saw.1
1939
Herbert E. Tautz of Delta is granted US Patent 2,168,282 on 1 August (filed 18 December 1936) for improvements in circular saws of the tilting arbor type. Its specification says that in such saws it had been usual to put the arbor and motor on one tiltable support, and that in other saws a belt from a countershaft or non-tilting motor had to be twisted when the arbor tilted.1
1939
Herbert E. Tautz of Delta files applications for a tilting arbor saw (25 January) and its mounting (22 April); the patents issue on 9 December 1941. Delta’s 10 inch No. 1450 Unisaw appears in its 1939 catalog at $89.50 without a motor, according to a collectors’ reference.1 2 3
1971
Underwriters Laboratories publishes the first edition of UL 987, Stationary and Fixed Electric Tools, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.1
2003
On 15 April Stephen Gass, David Fanning, James Fulmer and others, associated with SawStop and SD3, petition the Commission to require performance standards to reduce injuries from contact with a table saw blade.1
2004
SawStop releases an industrial table saw with a system that detects contact with the body and stops the blade; the Commission says the reaction typically occurs in less than 5 milliseconds.1
2010
UL 987, seventh edition (in effect from January 2010), requires modular blade guards that include a riving knife, according to the Commission.1
2011
On 11 October the Commission publishes an advance notice of proposed rulemaking and receives about 1,600 comments.1
2016
Bosch releases the REAXX jobsite saw with a retracting-blade system on 1 June; UL publishes the first edition of UL 62841-3-1 for transportable table saws.1 2
2017
On 12 May the Commission proposes a rule limiting depth of cut to 3.5 mm when a test probe approaches the spinning blade at 1 meter per second, estimating that it would prevent or reduce the severity of 54,800 injuries a year.1 2
2023
On 1 November the Commission publishes a supplemental proposal, estimating that it would prevent or mitigate 49,176 injuries a year and yield net benefits of $1.28 billion to $2.32 billion a year.1
2025
On 20 August the Commission announces the withdrawal of the table saw rulemaking among others; a notice of withdrawal was scheduled for publication on 29 September 2025.1 2

Where the sources disagree

Did the guard changes of 2010 reduce table saw injuries?

The Commission’s staff found no reduction in table saw injuries from 2010 to 2018 and, with data to 2021, concluded that blade-contact injuries have not declined despite the market’s move to modular blade guards and riving knives; it also reports that its 2017 special study found a traditional guard seven times more risky than a modular guard.1
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 2023 supplemental notice
Blade-contact injury estimates fell 9.3 percent between the 2002–2006 average and the 2016–2021 average, which the association attributes to modular blade guards; PTI members’ own reports show 25 blade-contact injuries on benchtop saws over six years.1
Power Tool Institute (trade association)
Stephen Gass and David Pittle questioned whether a seven-fold difference between guard types is consistent with the absence of a decline in the data; the Commission replied that tens of thousands of injuries still occur each year with either type.1
Comments and responses recorded in the Commission’s 2023 notice

Should table saws be required to carry active injury mitigation technology?

Yes. The petitioners associated with SawStop asked in 2003 for a performance standard. The Commission proposed one in 2017 and 2023 on the basis of estimated benefits of 54,800 and 49,176 injuries prevented or mitigated per year.1 2
Petitioners; CPSC staff and the Commission (2017 and 2023 proposals)
No. The cost of table saws would more than double, manufacturers might leave the market, a patent portfolio would give one firm a monopolistic advantage, and the voluntary standards are working.1
Power Tool Institute (trade association)
The Commission withdrew the proposal as one of several “costly, unsupported, and anti-competitive rulemakings that do not advance safety” and said that it does not intend to issue a final rule.1 2
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 20 August 2025

Who invented the circular saw on which the table saw is based?

Samuel Miller, English patent No. 1152 of 5 August 1777; similar saws are claimed to have been used in Holland nearly a century earlier.1
Henry Disston & Sons (1916)
Tabitha Babbitt of the Harvard Shaker community conceived it while spinning; the first circular saw made under her instructions is said to be exhibited at Albany, New York.1
Clara Endicott Sears (1916), quoting an earlier account
The Babbitt account first appeared in print in the Boston Sunday Globe in 1898 and is likely apocryphal; the Shakers were nonetheless early users of the circular saw.1
Shaker Museum and historian Christian Goodwillie, as reported by Snopes

Gaps in the record (9)

The first tilting-arbor or tilting-table saw patents are not identified; Tautz’s 1936 specification describes the type as already in use. The wiki labels the Delta No. 1160 both a tilting-table and a tilting-arbor saw.
No source has been read that dates the first electric-motor-driven saw bench; the motor-driven benches of Gear’s catalog are shaft-driven.
Delta’s own catalogs of 1937–1939 were not found; the Unisaw dates rest on a collectors’ wiki.
The Miller patent of 1777 is known only through Disston and Snopes; Goodwillie’s 2010 chapter has not been read.
The 2011 Commission survey (2007–2008) and the 2017 special study reports were read only through the Federal Register summaries.
SawStop’s own pages could not be retrieved (the site refused access), so SawStop’s claims are known through the Commission and the Power Tool Institute.
The Commission’s final-form Federal Register notice of withdrawal was read in its public inspection copy.
No independent comparative test of table saws has been located, so buying is null.
The standard slugs are guesses; ANSI O1.1 and the current UL 62841-3-1 text were not read.