Question: I have seen videos related to cutting circles on a table saw. I would love to try this but I am hesitant to make a jig that, to me, seems to be extremely dangerous. [Here is a video](https://youtu.be/z-xhYnWDCd0?t=33) of Matthias Wandel using his jig to cut a rabbet into the circle, which seems like it'd be even scarier.

How does one make this jig and do so safely? Are there any gotchas that should be considered when executing this jig?

Answer: 
I'm of the same mind, Peter. All the plans I've seen require removal of too much safety equipment. 

There are too many other tools that would suffice- from a band saw for smaller circles to a jig saw or router on a commercial or shop made trammel for large ones.

e.g.

Band saw-
![band saw circle jig](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fyBVj.jpg)

Or router..
![Router circle jig](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gS2EE.jpg) 

Or for a jig saw..

![jigsaw](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hu0rj.jpg)
What I think makes most of such jigs dangerous is that they allow rotation of the work piece **while cutting**. That is not a safety issue per se, but at the begging of the process, the work piece is not a circle at all which makes it awkward to work with.

Here's what I suggest

1. use a sacrificial board like a table saw sled, this will become the "jig", but it really is just a sacrificial board
2. Put the circle-to-be board on top of it, mark the center (depending
on the desired radius) and place is accordingly (there should be the
a distance between the blade and the center as big as the desired
radius)
3. Screw the upper board to the sled. Position the screw at the center
of the radius
4. Add a second screw. This one locks the upper board from spinning
around.
5. Feed that into the saw. This is not different from any other two
board being securely connected. It's just "one thicker board".
6. Pull back, unscrew the second screw, rotate the top board a bit,
srew the second screw back in. Go to 5. until you have a
sufficiently round work piece.

These are just my thoughts. I do not have a table saw.

I agree with TX Turner that other tools might be better suited for this task or will be much safer to use.