Just in. Once you have had a few close calls, it’s natural to start looking for safer ways to perform routine cuts. Grr-ripper is designed to minimize the danger of feeding your work pieces through a table saw – while allowing you to apply both inward and downward pressure at the same time.

At first glance, $100 bucks seems and feels ridiculous. Yellow is synonymous with cheap, and the packaging looks like it hasn’t been updated in decades. However, if this does what it’s designed to do – you can’t put a price on your fingers.

GRR-Ripper 3D Push Block

As soon as you grab a hold of the grr-ripper, you’ll notice the weight and feel of this piece is substantial and definitely doesn’t feel as cheap as it looks. There are two legs to this push block, with a space in the middle for your blade to pass through. One leg has a 1/2″ width and the other a 1/4″ giving you some flexibility in distance to your fence. The sides of your block are meant to run against the rip fence at all times to maintain a parallel straight push. It goes without saying, the green rubber end contacts should be clean and maximize contact with your workpiece at all times to prevent slipping. I’d suggest before each cut to check that the height of the blade runs just above your work piece, and within the clearance path provided to you by your grr-ripper between the two legs.

You may be wondering why you need a push block if you already have a push stick. The answer is quite simple. A push stick simply pushes forward in one direction whereas the Grr-ripper allows you to not only maintain control forward, but also downwards and inwards towards your fence. If you’ve made many cuts with a push stick, you’ll notice the contact area with your stock is quite narrow. This can lead to your work pieces tapering out and away from the fence as it runs through the blade. In comparison, the push block has a much wider range of coverage since it has a wider stance, allowing the push force to be spread across the stock more evenly.

If used correctly, one of the best benefits of a GRR-Ripper is letting you work with very thin pieces which ultimately reduces waste. This can pay itself off quickly if you use higher end material.

Tips for using the GRR-Ripper

Some quick tips for using the GRR-Ripper:

• Set your blade only slightly higher than your work piece. The length of the tips should be exposed.
• Ensure both work piece and grr-ripper is tight against your fence. When pushing make sure it has full contact with your rip fence to maintain equal pressure across all planes.

• Both right and left legs should have full contact on the surface of your work piece. On thin cuts where your left leg (opposite to blade and fence) cannot leverage your cutoff, use the balance support so that it runs against the table and stabilizes your push block.

• If you are only using one Grr-ripper – use your free hand to hold your work piece on the opposite side of the cut.
• Clean the green rubber once in awhile with rubbing alcohol. Over time, the saw dust can mitigate some of the friction and create a slippery push. The friction overall gives you much more control and creates a safer environment to work with.
• Of course, read the instructions and run some test cuts to get familiar with the movement.

Overall Impressions

Turns out I didn’t use the GRR-Ripper as much as I thought I would. Since it requires the removal of the blade guard, there are a few extra steps required to set the table saw up. Since most of my cuts are rips and don’t require precision, I found myself reverting to the standard blade guard.

That being said, when accuracy, thin cuts, dado’s and rabbeting came into play, I found this 3D Push block an absolute must have. There’s a strange satisfaction that comes with the push through. Perhaps it comes from the new found level of control or being able to push directly over the blade.

I’m still not sold on having a second one, however I can understand how it helps maintain constant and consistent pressure with the feed and it is definitely added to my wish list. That being said another $100 is a tough pill to swallow.

---

If you are new to the push block world, you can always dabble on a lower end starter set– just note there is no height clearance so the pushes need to be outside the blade.

---