Table Saw Push Stick

thingiverse

A simple push stick to keep your fingers safely away from the blade when cutting small pieces on a table saw or router table. Print 3 or 4 and keep them near every tool where you might use them. They're designed to be a bit 'springy' on purpose, to keep nice steady pressure on the work piece. Keeping the wood tight to the table and tight to the fence is critical in making accurate and safe cuts. Couple these with a featherboard and you're going to be in real good shape. (maybe I should model a printable featherboard?) I use the yellow plastic Milescraft featherboard, available on Amazon for under $15. They could be a bit larger but they actually work pretty well. My saw uses a 9" blade so these are fine, but if you have a 12" saw you're probably going to want something bigger. I already nicked one of them with the blade on my table saw. It took a small chip out of the plastic but the push stick still woks fine. Printed on a Replicator 2X in ABS. I didn't want the stiffness or hardness of PLA to be a problem if the stick comes in contact with the saw blade. The slightly softer ABS seemed like the better choice. I may try printing these again, but in in polystyrene (also know as the ABS support material the dissolved in limonene) because it's even softer than ABS. I'd like for it not to chip, but to simply be cut, if/when the stick gets into the blade. Instructions I think I printed these on standard quality, with something like 5 shells and 25% infill. The structural rails are meant to be springy but not overly stiff, while not being too wimpy. They sometimes try to curl up because there isn't much surface area touching the plate, so make sure you level your build plate really well (use my leveling pattern!), and use some ABS glue/slurry or Aquanet on the Kapton tape before printing to keep the ends from warping.