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.
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.