Installing a Shark Guard on a Grizzly 1022 Table Saw

The standard guard on a Grizzly 1022 table saw is perfectly functional. but it has some significant shortcomings:

• It requires a wrench for removal or installation of the guard/splitter assembly
• Removing just the guard and leaving the splitter in place is very inconvenient and requires yet another tool
• There is no provision for dust collection
• If you have a Shop Fox fence, the guard limits how close you can get the fence to the blade

Here you can see that the Shop Fox fence hits the rear mount of the stock guard and limits the fence movement to about 2 1/2" from the blade.


The Shark Guard is a nice improvement. No tools are required to remove or install it, the three different splitters can be used without the guard, there is a dust collection port, and the fence movement is only limited by the width of the guard itself. Here are the steps I followed to make the upgrade.

First, I removed the throat plate and stock guard assembly. The rear mounting clamp (the one that interferes with the Shop Fox fence) is not used, so I removed it from the rod. Next, I checked the mounting boss that is used to attach the Shark Guard. Depending on manufacturing tolerances, the mounting boss may be too close to the tab on the saw table. See the arrowed gap in the photo below.

I test fit the shark guard splitters and found that I needed to increase the gap.



To do this, I removed the blade (for safety and easy access) and the mounting boss (two 10mm bolts). Then I used a a file to remove a bit of the casting and give enough clearance to insert the Shark Guard splitter plates. This is also a good time to thread the Shark Guard handle into the mounting boss. Here's the tab after filing the required clearance.


Next, I replaced the mounting boss, hand-tightened the mounting bolts,and installed a splitter. Using a square to make sure that the splitter is perpendicular to the table I snugged up the bolts. I reinstalled the blade and checked to be sure that the splitter is not only vertical but also parallel to the blade. I found that it was not quite parallel, so I needed to do a bit of shimming. After a couple of trial assemblies I found that I needed two layers of masking tape on one edge of the mounting boss to get the splitter parallel to the blade. Here's a photo of my mounting boss ready for assembly.


Now the splitter is vertical and parallel to the blade, but it also needs to be aligned with ("in the shadow of") the blade. I found that my blade was slightly offset from the splitter. One way to adjust for this is to re-loosen the mounting boss bolts and move the mounting boss to get alignment. In theory you can do this because the mounting holes are enough oversize to allow some sideways movement. However, I expect that this would take a fair amount of trial and error. And I already had the splitter vertical and parallel. So instead of disturbing those alignments, I made up a shim from 0.010" sheet aluminum to move the blade. Note that this shim needs to be about 2 3/4" in diameter to match the flange on the blade shaft. (The shims that are available from Shark Guard were too small for my saw.) Here's a photo of the shim on the shaft and ready for blade installation.

And here's a close-up of the Shark Guard splitter after everything is mounted and the throat plate is ready to go back on.


Finally, here is the completed Shark Guard installed on the saw.


The guard can be removed or replaced in a second or two, and the splitter can be removed or changed in less than 10 seconds with no tools. It's a pleasure to use! And this view from behind the guard shows that the Shop Fox fence can now get as close to the blade as the guard allows. For very narrow cuts you can use the splitter without the guard.