Safety First — New Zero Clearance Plates

	This is far from being a new product. Norm has been using it for years. It is a throat plate made of heavy gauge aluminum with white oak inserts. Specifically it is the Wood Dynamics' Throat Plate. It is priced at just over $100 and may be the last plate I will ever need.
This view is where Beth is elevating the blade slowly and cutting a zero insert plate for the CMT cabinetmakers blade.
	There are several small features that help this process a great deal. One, is that the aluminum body has two more than the usual adjusting screws. Four are  for the leveling — and that is typical. But two extras are at the ends so that the plate can be made to fit the opening exactly. Between the tight fit and the weight, the insert has no inclination to raise up. It stays nice and flat where it belongs.
Let's go step by step with Beth as she creates a new insert plate — this time for a standard kerf rip blade.
	Beth has lowered the blade all the way. With this plate, the blade does not touch the insert at this point. The plate and insert is flat and the saw can be started without any fear of the blade catching the underside.
For the first insert to cut, she had brought the fence over so that it rested on the aluminum portion of the plate — just in case. When she turned the saw on and heard that the blade was free of the insert, she realized that this precaution wasn't necessary with this system and she simply raised the blade.
	With the kerf cut, Beth now uses the MJ Splitter jig to drill 3 holes in the new wood insert. When drilling, Beth could sense when she went through the wood and reached the aluminum base.
She installs the little  splitter only to find that it doesn't go in all the way.
	The splitter's instruction sheet allows for this and says to just lop off the tips of the inserts.
Here is the finished installation.
	One last question Beth had was whether she could remove the oak insert once the splitter was installed — yes, she was able to.
Before Beth made many more inserts, she decided that she had better mark which one is which.
	Once again, the splitter fits into the kerf exactly.
The oak inserts are relatively inexpensive so there is a temptation to make an insert for each and every blade. That isn't necessary. I think we will start with one for standard kerf blades, one for thin kerf blades*, 1/4" dados (drawer bottoms), full 3/4" dado, and one last one for the CMT cove cutter.    I think it is a real nice system to have — and every little bit of added safety counts. *Thin kerf blades can vary in thinness. The MJ Splitter says that it is to be used with blades of 1/8" and greater. The thin kerf blades I have can use this splitter.