I’ve been kicking this can down the road for years, but I finally got a job that involves cutting so much melamine board there’s no way I’m doing it with a circular saw.
I watched multiple safety videos before even opening the package, and now I’m just sitting here staring at it wondering whether I should fire it up and cut off a finger or two. I’m fucking terrified of this thing.
Ah, very interesting. At some point I’ll clear room and take my dad’s saw. That predates 2003 for sure, but I remember it having a flappy clear cover over the saw and two serrated tails to prevent material slide back (not sure if that’s also kickback). It mounts into where the riving knife would be and I assume it’s mount is, effectively, a riving knife itself. We never did fancy work though, just plywood shelf cutting (now replaced with a battery circular saw) and ripping 2x4s like idiots.
That blade guard almost certainly mounts to a splitter, which does pretty much the same job as a riving knife. The technical difference is a splitter is mounted to the table, a riving knife is mounted to the motor/blade assembly. Those serrated tails are called anti-kickback pawls, they are indeed meant to arrest a board (sheet, really) during a kickback by digging into the stock by digging into it.