Aftermarket Riving Knife

[WoodWrangler]

Got this email from a buddy of mine in Florida and he asked that I post it here to get some feedback ... what do you know?

<<FROM CHRIS>>

Since a Saw Stop isn't in my near future (unless someone is unloading
one cheap), I've been looking for a way to add a riving knife to my
Dewalt DW746. I've seen in the NCWoodworker forums others asking
about the same thing, and I ran across the following:



Would you mind asking your group if anyone has seen something like
this available on the market?

<<END MESSAGE>>


To my knowledge, there isn't anything formally ... but heck, what do I know.

[Bas]

The only aftermarket riving knife that I know of is called a BORK - Bolt On Riving Knife. Don't think there is one for a DeWalt, only Grizzly and Unisaw.

[woodArtz]

Looks like a Leeway Shark. I've thought about one for my Dewalt.

[froglips]

Personally I love the idea, practically I'd not be keen to try it.

From what I understand of riving knives, saws need to be designed to handle them. Not that I know specifics, just generalities.

His pic shows what looks like an attachment to the arbor? That'd worry me to no end.

Just my 0.02 bucks, after taxes.

Jim

[Alan in Little Washington]

Looks like a nicely executed device.

I would definitely like more info how it mounts to the arbor trunion and also see how the height tracks with the arc of the blade. It appears that some re-engineering was done on the trunion to account for the thickness of the RN arm. In any case it looks like the arbor must be removed in order to install the support arm. I suspect, too, if there is no secondary linkage not visible that it doesn't quite track the height of the blade. The arbor follows an arc and unless I am wrong, that RN is at the end of the arc, so will eventually be higher than the blade. It may not be too much of an issue if that only happens when the blade is at it full height of 3+". The actual knife needs to be easily removable or replaced with a thin kerf knife, but that can be done by changing the mount from those two bolts to a quick release mechanism.

Can we get more info and pics?

The engineering looks much, much better than the BORK (which, and here I go again getting in trouble again, looks like a Rube Goldberg contraption)

[Tarhead]

If that one tracks with the blade and keeps the gap between the edge of the blade and the knife consistent it would be a good thing. The problem with mine (Shark shorty splitter: http://www.leestyron.com/sharksplitter.php ) is the gap can be pretty big when the blade is low. Bigger the gap, higher the chance that a piece of wood could pinch. Also...the height of mine, while very short, can be too tall for shallow cuts and has to be removed.

How easy is it to remove/install that one? If it takes more than a few seconds I would give it a likelihood of somewhere between slim and none that it would be used consistently. Anytime you need to change to a dado blade the splitter has to come off because the dado blade is 6 or 8 inches and the kinfe would be too tall for the dado.

[WoodWrangler]

Bump