Not a zero clearance insert.

[robinson46176]

From time to time I like to drag a stack of books from my library to the living room and at least flip through them. This is usually more often in the winter and often when I am taking on a largish project. This month it was woodworking books, some of which are a little older. In the case of books I have been through several times I tend to look at different details in the pictures than I might have been drawn to before. I get to looking at back ground things and stuff that was maybe not considered important when the picture was being taken.
Looking at this picture today was the first time I noticed the table insert in this saw in the shop of a woodworking professional... This picture is part of a larger picture where the owner was the actual subject. I took this shot of that picture hoping I could get the insert to be clearly visible. In fairness the saw does not have a regular saw blade installed but looks to have a molding head on it. The existing insert looks like something most amateurs would throw away.
I've been in a fair number of professional shops over the years and it often strikes me just how far from "by the book" many of them operate... Some of them do things that scare the crap out of me, and I'm not afraid of anything. The frequent result however is the production of furniture of exceptional quality.

Table saw throat plate.jpg (241.01 KiB) Viewed 3387 times

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[jsburger]

From time to time I like to drag a stack of books from my library to the living room and at least flip through them. This is usually more often in the winter and often when I am taking on a largish project. This month it was woodworking books, some of which are a little older. In the case of books I have been through several times I tend to look at different details in the pictures than I might have been drawn to before. I get to looking at back ground things and stuff that was maybe not considered important when the picture was being taken.
Looking at this picture today was the first time I noticed the table insert in this saw in the shop of a woodworking professional... This picture is part of a larger picture where the owner was the actual subject. I took this shot of that picture hoping I could get the insert to be clearly visible. In fairness the saw does not have a regular saw blade installed but looks to have a molding head on it. The existing insert looks like something most amateurs would throw away.
I've been in a fair number of professional shops over the years and it often strikes me just how far from "by the book" many of them operate... Some of them do things that scare the crap out of me, and I'm not afraid of anything. The frequent result however is the production of furniture of exceptional quality.

Table saw throat plate.jpg


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I certainly agree it is not zero clearance and I would throw it away.

However, if you don't need/want a zero clearance insert why does it matter? It is not that bad. It mostly closes up the hole.