[runswithscissors]

I wouldn't worry about what it says on the riving knife. Instead, a quick way to tell whether there could be a problem is to remove the riving knife, run a short cut (2" or so) into the end of a piece of wood, then see whether the riving knife will accept the wood with that cut width. If it binds or sticks, then you have a problem. My guess is that it will be okay. If the kerf is a little wide (the blade can wiggle in the cut), I would have no concern about that. The main point of a RK is to prevent the wood from contacting the back of the blade as it passes by. That's what leads to a kickback. The other function of a RK is to prevent reaction wood from pinching the blade as it leaves the blade, also a potential kick back scenario.

When I first put a RK on my older Unisaw, I was using a TK blade-also a Freud Diablo. I took the wood down to the steel yard with a kerf sawn in it, and found that it fit 14 gauge perfectly. No slop, no binding. No worry about .0002" of anything. One of the first cuts I did was with some oak with a lot of built in wonkiness, and it pinched the RK so firmly that I couldn't advance it any further. Made me glad it was there.

 

[runswithscissors]

Do the RKs that are included with table saws come in any thicknesses other than full kerf and thin kerf? I can't imagine the manufacturers would make an RK that would not work for any and all blades available within either of those two size designations. In other words, I think this is a non-issue, and there is no need whatsoever to "err on the safe side."

Admittedly, I do sometimes see posts on here where people are grinding or sanding their RKs thinner to make them work, but I think something else may be going on there-namely that they are trying to use a TK blade with a FK riving knife.