blade guard by a pin 65 a pin 66 is provided on the rear guard section 56 and an arcuate slot 68 is formed in the front guard section 54 a generally vertical arcuate slot 70 is also formed in the front guard section 54 the motor drive shaft 38 extends through the slot 70 referring to fig8 the pin 66 moves within the slot 68 and the slot 70 moves relative to the drive shaft 38 when the lower guard section 48 is raised by contact with the workpiece 34 w 34 as the radial saw assembly 30 is moved forwardly in the direction of the arrow f 1 in accordance with the invention the lower saw blade guard 40 includes a safety lock assembly for preventing the lower saw blade guard from being accidentally raised to expose the saw blade 36 except during cutting operations when the saw guards contact a workpiece the safety lock assembly includes a latch mechanism for use in the rip cutting mode as will be described hereinafter the latch mechanism is preliminarily set by the operator before rip cutting and is automatically released when the lower saw blade guard 40 contacts the workpiece allowing the lower saw blade guard to pivot upwardly so as to expose the.