You want to push the stock past the spinning blade deftly to feel you have control over the cut but you’re rightfully afraid of being cut or worse…the dreaded kick-back. Push sticks have been around for ages, are better-than-nothing extensions for your hands and fingers, but merely keep your body parts further away when disaster strikes. They really offer little more than mis­placed confidence.

What’s needed to rip stock safely, with confidence, is a feather­board and a “Pushover”. The featherboard, shop made or store bought, exerts lateral pressure, keeping the stock snug to the rip fence while also providing comforting anti-kickback insurance. The Pushover solidly supports the stock, and the resulting off-cut, from before the cut to beyond the blade, keeps your fingers away from the action and helps prevent the stock from potentially being lifted by the rising rear of the spinning blade when/if unexpected tension in the stock rears its ugly head.

What is this magic device?

I make my Pushover from straight-grained hardwood, three #10 woodscrews with washers, a stout metal grip and some glue. The design is flexible so it can be made to suit whatever rip fence it’s saddling. Overall dimensions aren’t critical, though some general guidelines will help. Most dimensions will have to be determined according to the width and height of your rip fence. It comprises five principal parts; a top, a side, a shoulder, a leg and a grip.

What’s important is:

• it’s long enough to not tip forward when pushed along the fence
• it’s precisely supported by the top of the fence and/or the saw table on both sides of the fence
• its rear-mounted sacrificial push “leg” be positioned snug to the side of the rip fence yet free, allowing the Pushover to glide easily along the fence.

8″ is a good length, stable yet small enough to keep close-at-hand and put in place when needed, but not bulky/awkward. My rip fence has a smooth supportive top tuned quite parallel to the table top so my Pushover rides the fence-top and the sacrificial “leg” and opposing side stop 1/32″ short of the table. Otherwise, the leg and side could come down to be supported by the table. Regardless, the inner width between the side and the leg should be fixed so a shim the thickness of a playing card can be pressed in on one side of the fence when the Pushover is in place.

The shoulder

The shoulder should be tall enough that it provides solid support for the attached sacrificial leg but not so tall that it interferes with your grip. Holes drilled to clear three #10 screws at both ends of the shoulder allow the mounting of a sacrificial leg at either end, making the Pushover equally adaptable for use on either side of the rip fence, depending on the task at-hand.

In use

If you’ve squarely crosscut the stock you’re ripping at both ends, the Pushover becomes an extension of your hand as you pass the stock over the table, between the fence and featherboard while its sacrificial leg guides the stock past the spinning saw blade. The first pass will rip the profile of the cut into the leg so the leg thereafter will safely compliment the off-cut as well as the stock. The leg can be easily changed to offer safe support to match the task at hand.