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Anyone who works with woodworking machinery, be it in a hobby or industrial setting, knows that hand and arm safety (along with eye safety, of course) is a crucial part of getting woodworking jobs done. Safety is not something you can skimp on, but for some people, as they gain experience with the machines, it becomes easy to assume a task will go OK with a few shortcuts because those people have never had problems in the past. Never assume this when it comes to blades and your hands. If you find yourself getting a bit lax or are relatively new to woodworking and don't see why something you do should be such a problem, double down on hand and arm safety now, especially when using a fast-moving piece of machinery like a table saw.

Stop the Blade Before Doing Any Cleanup

Remember, that blade moves fast and you don't have any time to react should you find your fingers in harm's way. If there is debris you need to remove from the area around the blade, turn that blade off first. You need to keep your attention on the item you're trying to cut, not on pieces of wood that look unsightly and messy. Stop the blade, get the debris out of the way, and then restart the blade.

Cut-Resistant Gloves Will Not Help You

Cut-resistant gloves are a miracle for anyone slicing something in their kitchen or using a mandoline to cut vegetables. They are not a miracle for anyone using a table saw. First of all, the saw is much tougher than the glove material. Second, if, by some miracle, the saw doesn't cut through the glove, the teeth of the blade can snag on the glove and try to pull your hand further under the blade. Your sense of where your hand and fingers end does not extend to the gloves you're wearing, and you can easily misjudge how close the tips of the glove are to the blade.

Don't Reach Over the Blade—Even if It's Not Moving

You should know not to reach over the blade when it's moving, but it's also a very good idea to never reach over the blade in general. You can lose your balance suddenly or be hit (by an errant pet at home, for example, or a clumsy coworker at work), and crashing into a sharp blade is not pleasant, even if the blade isn't moving. If you have to reach to the other side of the blade, move around the table saw so that your hands and arms are not in line with the teeth of the blade. And remember to turn the saw off.

Again, anyone using woodworking machinery should know this, but not everyone follows these safety protocols. Maybe they've never had a problem in their experience, but the risk remains the same every time they or you use the machinery.