BOW Products Feather Board Probably Your Best Choice

Have you ever cut your finger on a table saw? I have, it isn’t the funnest of activities.

If you want to hear more about me putting a finger in the table-saw listen here: My tablesaw sent me to the emergency room

With that in mind the I think the Bow Products Featherboard is one of the best on the market, and the one you should buy. Here is why.

How The Feather Board Prevents Cut Fingers

One of the problems that comes up with cutting on the table saw is if you get distracted, you can lose track of where your hands are. You don’t have to always be distracted, you can also just be super new and trying to think of everything at one time. (points at self)

Giving a physical barrier for your fingers to touch is a great way to help you keep track of where those fingers are.

As an example as you are feeding long boards through the saw. Your left hand is generally holding on to the board to keep it steady while on the table. The question is how far forward do you move that hand before taking it away?

Do you know how far you have pushed that hand forward?

Some people hook a thumb at the edge of the table to so they keep it there.

Well the feather board can allow you to touch something with your fingers giving you feedback to stop moving your hand. That alone makes a feather board super important in my opinion.

Helps Prevent Kickback

Most feather boards just help to keep wood pressure against the fence. However, the bow products board has a rigid foam with teeth. These teeth will help to grip on to the wood if the saw tries to kickback on you.

It does this by being slightly flexible, then when the board moves backwards it causes the teeth to protrude more than normal putting extra pressure against the fence.

Multi-tool

I think one of the final, great, things about this feather board is you can use it on multiple types of tools. So it isn’t just limited to the table saw.

If you get the double stack option you can use take them apart and use them as 2 separate ones. If you stack them together you can use it with taller stock on various tools.

There is also a t-track option if you have t-tracks on your router table, or assembly table.

Cons

I have talked pretty extensively about the pros, and by far there are a lot of pros. Enough to make this an easy buy.

However, you should know about the cons.

1. I think the biggest frustration is since the foam board is so big you can’t use too wide of a board so it really only works for smaller cut offs on the side opposite the fence. Now most of the time this is not a big deal at all, but on occasion it can be annoying.
2. The parts that go into the miter slot can be tough to actually push into the slots, sometimes. I don’t really understand why. At times they just slide right in at others I have to coerce them. (that said the new version has a bit of a different way so this cold be fixed)

That is really about it.

Conclusion

If you don’t have a feather board totally buy the Bow products featherboard. It is well worth the money. If it is possible to use it, then I do. I am also going to make sure when I build a router table, I can definitely use these feather boards with it.

Finally they have a product for the bandsaw to re-saw wood. I like this one so much I am going to buy it to test out and use.