If you ask around a wood shop, most people will agree that the table saw is the most dangerous tool around. There’s ample evidence that this is true. In 2015, over 30,000 ER visits happened because of table saws. However, it isn’t clear how many of those are from blade contact and how many are from other problems like kickback.
We’ve seen a hand contact a blade in a high school shop class, and the results are not pretty. We’ve heard of some people getting off lucky with stitches, reconstructive surgery, and lifelong pain. They are the lucky ones. Many people lose fingers, hands, or have permanent disfiguration and loss of function. Surgeons say that the speed and vigor of the blade means that some of the tissue around the cut vanishes, making reconstruction very difficult.
Modern Tech
These days, there are systems that can help prevent or mitigate these kinds of accidents. The most common in the United States is the patented SawStop system, which is proprietary — that is, to get it, you have to buy a saw from SawStop.
The system assumes the blade is all metal. It can detect your hand making contact with the blade, and if that happens, the saw reacts within 5 milliseconds. The system releases a beefy spring that jams an aluminum block into the saw blade, halting the 4,000 RPM rotation almost instantly. The force also moves the blade under the table. The cartridge that stops the blade and the blade won’t survive the encounter, but your finger will.
Tear It Down!
Of course, being Hackaday, we want to see what’s inside the cartridge, and [Spag the Maker] was happy to oblige. As he points out, the sensor sometimes fires when it shouldn’t, but that’s better than not firing when it should.
In this case, the cartridge fired after contact with a metal tape measure. We’ve heard wet wood can also cause false positives. You can see the inside of the dead cartridge in the video below.
Patents
SawStop owns several patents that prevented other similar systems from entering the market. Although many of the patents are now expired, there is one — known as the 840 patent — that is very broad and won’t expire until 2033. However, the current owners of the patent — TTS Tooltechnic — have claimed that if government regulation mandates table saws to have protection devices, they will release the patent to the public.
However, until that happens, the company continues to defend its patents vigorously. The most famous case was against Bosch, who has a competing system called Reaxx. The systems are superficially similar, but Reaxx does not destroy the blade, which only moves out of the way.
Even this year, SawStop litigated against Felder KG, another competitor. There have been accusations that SawStop won’t reasonably license their technology, either, but we don’t know the whole story. Anyway, they’re no Volvo.
Safety First
If you don’t think a woodshop is that dangerous, have a look at “It Didn’t Have to Happen” from many years ago. This isn’t a new problem.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has tried to force protection systems on table saws for many years. The industry, in general, opposes them as unnecessary and expensive. The controversy is heated, with proponents pointing to the 30,000 plus injuries a year and the cost to the injured and society. The opponents talk about free markets and government interference in your shop. We won’t take sides, but having seen an injury of this type, we’ll spend our money on a safer saw even if no one is making us do it.
Then again, no one is stopping you from making your own saw with whatever safety systems you like. We’ve seen many builds based around a circular saw.
My local makerspace is shared with the local middle school. Their table saw has a saw stop, and we’ve had some trouble with it – the stop triggered for unknown reasons, I think that happened twice, and then the saw was offline until we could get a makerspace member in to replace it.
And the blade, and some table saw blades can be expensive.
I think the right way to do this is to mandate them in schools, then the next generation will grow up having used them, and can make an informed choice.
I used to be a custodian at a high school, and they had SawStops saws of course. They never triggered it, which was a point of pride for the teacher. He only allowed dried wood in the shop, and was vigilant in making sure they were using proper safety practices. I could see it however triggering due to sweat on the wood, some random metal shaving, or even a sneeze so definitely not blaming you or your maker space.
Our local makerspace got a sawstop saw. Members had to replace the sawstop mechanism + blade a few times already. Green wood and birch plywood with carbon from being laser cut have been the culprits here.
And worse, SawStop claims they’ll replace cartridges that falsely trigger, but they themselves determine if it was a false trigger.
THAT’s a conflict if I’ve ever heard one.
Our makerspace has had two completely bogus trips so far (plus a few that were obviously the user’s fault, like a measuring tape), but SawStop said they read the cartridge data and determined that they were real events so they wouldn’t be eating the cost. Of course they won’t tell us anything about what the data contains, but CCTV footage of the incidents shows nothing untoward happening.
I trust them about as far as I can throw them.
Strange, we’ve never had a problem when we ship them a cartridge that we drew blood. Over the course of 13 years of use they’ve replaced a dozen, probably more.
It would be nice to get data back from them!
Cutting an acrylic mirror will trip a SawStop too.
Now, a SawStop cartridge alone costs more than my whole saw did, new (30 years ago…).
Yeah, the cartridge looks like it contains expensive electronics that have no need to be a disposable part of this system, and when you get to sell expensive cartridges after every false trigger there’s a reverse incentive to not fix false triggers…
Plus so many shops in a hurry will bypass this after a trigger to get the work done, and then it will get forgotten…
I admire the idea but hate their approach to commercialising it.
“Surgeons say that the speed and vigor of the blade means that some of the tissue around the cut vanishes”
Huh? You don’t need to be a “surgeon” to know this as it’s a commonly known fact.
It’s a blade with a kerf – no one needs to “say” anything – it removes materials to make the cut. That’s why you need to know which side of your line to cut on.
some of the tissue around the cut vanishes
Technically it doesn’t vanish… My dad once had the bright idea to make steaks from the too-big chunks of frozen cow in our freezer, using a radial arm saw (almost as crazy as a table saw). The sawdust was pretty awful stuff. Never tried that again.
Mmmm beef dust
SSSssssmoking…
Probably not too bad until the smell eventually kicked in. Butcher shops use band saws. I have no idea how they ever get them clean enough. I worked with a less intricate piece of meat processing equipment for a couple of years and it was a nightmare to sufficiently sanitize.
Probably not good that we didn’t actually have a means of testing beyond the next-day-smell test. But, you didn’t eat Old Fashioned fast food back in the 80’s anyway, right?
I’ve been using the same bandsaw I use for wood to cut pork cutlets. It’s a beautiful hunk of cast iron and definitely not made for this use, but it’s actually pretty easy to clean – just plenty of hot soapy water and some clever use of paper to avoid splatter all over the workshop. Sure, the place smells of pork fat for a month afterwards, but it’s not a bad smell (not rotten, IOW).
Butcher shops use stainless steel bandsaws that you can clean with a hot water pressure washer.
Bearded Butchers did a video on this a while back: https://youtu.be/gGZyeNCP-24
You take them apart and clean them. They are designed to break down quickly an designes to be easy to clean an sanitize. Done it hundrends of times back in my younger days when I cleaned the local butcher shop after hours
My stepfather cut a big frozen mulloway (fish) into ‘steaks’ with his circular saw, once.
He also never tried it a second time……
Bosch had a very much improved version several years ago. It did not damage the saw, and replacement parts after the thing triggered were very small and affordable, but they got sued out of the market by sawstop.
And I’ve read a few too many stories about false triggers. From a forgotten nail to simply damp wood, or no clear cause at all. I do like the extra safety, but the high cost of replacement parts after each trigger is no fun. It probably results in disabling the system quite often.
Yeah sawstop seems like a very crummy exploitative company who should have their patents seized and put into public domain
If all safety devices were forced into public domain there would be little incentive to work on safety devices.
I didn’t say all safety devices though did I? They had a good run, plenty of incentive has been generated.
Secondary: the world is currently clogged with extraneous safety devices
Patents for 10 years and an extension for another 10 years were thought up in some other era.
Limiting patents to 5 years should be enough to give companies a “headstart” in this fast changing word. That is what patents were were designed for. Far too oftne it’s used for completely misplaced things. From patent trolls, to making stuff so ridiculously expensive that it limits adoption.
Another thing completely boners is the patenting of trivial things. Many inventions get invented when the time is ripe for them. For example, in the first few years after the invention of the BJT, there was a whole slew of “inventions” of how you can connect these things together.
Torx only saw wide spread adaption after the patents expired. For the vast majority of applications it was not “important enough” to pay the royalties. There is also a weird story around “Robertson” (Those square bits used only in Canada).
A “use it or loose it” policy for patents is probably also a good idea.
Sawstop was “invented” by a group of three lawyers, not “engineers” or “inventors”.
Safety is a pretty good incentive.
I have no problem with SawStop defending their patents, vigorously even. I DO have a problem with judges and juries that aren’t able to see that the defendant’s product is obviously different or that the patent is obviously too broad. I also have problem with a company using patent litigation to drive a small competitor that can’t afford to defend themselves out of the market, but Bosch has plenty of resources.
Well, it’s not up to the judges or juries, but the down to the case that opposing counsel and their experts can make. There’s definitely a problem with the USPTO granting patents that are over-broad, but that’s not the fault of the judicial system or the juries involved. Overly broad patent grants are a huge flaw in our patent system though.
It’s also hard to understand how it is that patent cases in the US are decided by jury trials. The Sawstop patent claims ate relatively straightforward as such things go, involving a basic electromechanical system, but I can imagine it still being difficult for the average jury member to sort through. Can you imagine the complexity of some semiconductor design patents, let alone innovations in advanced biology and gene-splicing? It’s kind of crazy that we expect John and Jane Q Public, literally pulled off the average American street, to be able to understand and split hairs on the details of infringement of 200-300 page technical patents. Yet that’s what happens, and hundred-million dollar judgements hinge on it 🤯)
You would think if the simply copied the original device they would not have a leg to stand on, as the original design would not be covered under subsequent patents.
“if they”
edit ability please!
Toolguyd has more info on it, but during the trial pushing for the mandate, it came to light that Bosch bought the rights to saw stop during the trial, effectively ending the suit.
So Bosch could have been selling the Reaxx system for at least 5 years after the suit, but chose instead to pull all Reaxx saws.
It leaves more questions than answers, but most educated public opinion is that the system is too expensive to be marketable globally, even if the parents to do it are free to use.
Speaking of table saws – this is the funniest clip i’ve seen in my whole life !
Epic !!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRq-JUCoHo8
Ok, that was weird….
There’s just no accounting for taste. Or smell.
James Hamilton has a thoughtful discussion of some of the legal and technical issues. No surprise, it’s more complicated than you might think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxKkuDduYLk
In case WP eats the link, search for “Sawstop” on the Stumpy Nubs YouTube channel.
lol
Demonstrates no good deed goes unpunished.
Life is inherently dangerous in many different and often unpredictable ways. Devices like the SawStop are more likely to lead people to be careless and inattentive when they encounter dangers because they assume they are “protected” and don’t even consider the hazards.
Learning safe work habits is far more valuable than expensive “safety features”.
The table saw is very dangerous. I don’t use a guard, but I never move my hands near the blade until it is completely stopped. Nor do I reach over the blade when it is spinning.
First question, “Is what I’m about to do dangerous? What is the nature of the risk and how do I mitigate it?” If you can’t instantly answer those questions, you should stop work until you can.
FWIW In 1973 I walked 12” I beams on the I-40 “De Soto” bridge at Memphis for $2.57/hr. No safety gear at all. There were 4 of us who moved the scaffolds and netting for the safety of the rest of the crew. You never look past your feet when moving. Despite that experience, I never stand close to the edge of a cliff. I lie down and crawl to the edge to look down where there are no railings.
Safety mechanisms often exist to protect people who don’t have the mental capacity to model hypotheticals like “Is what I’m about to do dangerous? What is the nature of the risk and how do I mitigate it?”
Way more people than you’d be comfortable with literally can’t do that, they don’t have the hardware… Whether or not it’s a good idea to keep them out of Darwin traps is a different question entirely that probably wouldn’t be allowed to play out
I am in a woodworking school and we are taught very strictly in safety. Yet I see classmates holding workpieces in an unsafe way at the router table. When I pointed out what he did he replied “I will remove my hand before I’m there” then the next pass I see him put his hand very close to the bit. Some people indeed don’t see it.
On the other hand, I just almost broke my arm … by falling down the stairs.
In a school setting, sawstop makes the most sense. I do not believe Reg’s statement that people would get careless when sawstop is put an a saw. Circular saws are still scary things. The problem here is that some people simply do not recognize the danger at all. I also needed a few “near accidents” to learn myself to unlearn unsafe practices.
In a school setting, I think it makes sense to put a webcam on the circular saw and simply have it recording all the time. Video can be analyzed after the fact, and “near” accidents even shown to the whole class as to grow awareness of the limit between safe and unsafe practices. I guess that kickback may even be a bigger problem then sawing off fingers. There are already some quite educational video’s on youtube with close calls.
In my experience, that’s a dangerous oversimplification. Beginners who don’t know much about table saws are obviously high risk cases – but do you know what group comes next? It’s the VERY experienced.
I’m talking about careful, conscientious, savvy folks who temporarily lose the plot simply because they’ve been doing the work for so many years that they’re on autopilot without even realizing it. So that “mental capacity to model hypotheticals” is often situational rather than inherent. That means that we’re all likely to fall into that category at least sometimes, regardless of intelligence, conscientiousness, and diligence. That’s not a Darwin trap – it’s just the nature of the beast.
I’m in the slightly safer UNcomfortable middle – I mostly know what I’m doing but I’m always just a bit nervous when using a table saw. I constantly assess the risk of what I’m about to do, and do my best to make sure I’m doing it safely. I take nothing for granted. Am I out of the way of a kickback? Will my position or my planned movements put my hands close to the blade if something unexpected happens, or perhaps compromise my balance? Is my workpiece rocking or shifting, necessitating a different approach? And that’s not to say that I never do anything dangerous, because I’m far from perfect. That “far from perfect” is another thing that’s constantly in my mind when I’m working with a table saw.
All of the things I just listed, and more, are likely to be missed by a beginner. And the “edge” – that extra bit of adrenaline-fueled awareness – tends to disappear when you’ve been doing the work frequently over a period of years.
I don’t like SawStop’s territoriality, but I’m glad their safety innovation exits. I wish it was available on a much wider variety of saws of different brands, because competition would make the technology better and would bring prices down.
Totally unrelated to SawStop – NEVER make through-cuts without a riving knife. A little splitter in the throat plate is better than nothing, but it’s no substitute for a fin that rises with the blade and extends to the top of it or beyond. And no, it’s not just for wood which might otherwise pinch the blade and cause kickback. It even offers protection while cutting stable woods such as flat plywood. Whenever you’re using the rip fence, controlling the wood on the outfeed side is critical, and not controlling it is asking for grief.
My routine is to check wether I did things thoughtless I considered risky earlier. If so, I check if the risk really disappeared, and if not (or even slightly in doubt), I take this as a near miss and a red flag for safety. I’m not old enough to be one of the very experienced yet, but I hope to feed the good routines (see and handle common dangers) and starve the bad routines (ignoring dangers that didn’t cause accidents for a long time). Additionally I think about what happens if I’m wrong about one of my assumptions and tend to choose the option more agnostic to that case.
Guards and such are valuable to help hapless individuals who end up working in places where such things are left in place but the rest of the safety culture is summed up with a shrug.
“Nor do I reach over the blade when it is spinning:”
Nor do I. Anymore.
I had a cheap Harbor Freight tools table saw a number of years ago. I also was running it without a guard. I went to reach over the blade, and my right thumb was nicked… it made the most horrid sound and quite frankly was expecting it to fly over my shoulder.
I learned two lessons that day.
– The make sure the blade is stopped thing you mentioned
– And to use the damn guard whenever possible.
I have a former boss, who never got near the blade unless it was stopped, until the wood did it for him. He got part of his thumb back but it doesn’t bend. I asked him what he did wrong and he said he couldn’t put his finger on it (or any finger for that matter) anymore.
Yeah like inattentive car drivers in USA in the 70s, they all earned to die or paralyse/similar.
We all have the illusion of superiority until the reality hits hard. And the consequences are costly both financially and humanely.
If you look it through EU regulation perspective the type of saw would be completely illegal and would not pass majority of machine directive requirements. Just like chainsaws. But because those were prior inventions, there are additional allowances for those types of machines.
And just like chainsaws can be supplemented with protective gear there is no sane argument pro large rotating sawblade being able to rip and tear through any body part touching it.
The easiest option to make things more secure would be to figure out different work methods where the obvious risks can be skipped completely. But that would be painfully expensive at first. But looking at 5+ year perspective is it actually when compared to cost of using sawstop and couple activations of the safety mechanism?
Think about it this way, say you’re Mr. Perfect, never had a bad day, never made a mistake, and you’ve got the safest habits so you are never at fault in a car accident. Now some jerk swerves into you at high speed, do you want to be caught by airbags or the seatbelt, or do you want to fly through the window or get impaled on the steering column?
“Learning safe work habits is far more valuable than expensive “safety features””
True but those safety features are supposed to be on top of your habits not instead of them. It also take time to build a habit. Not to mention that you might have iron habits but someone may walk behind you and accidentally push you (or surprise), you might be tired, upset, ill, stressed, work under pressure of time or out of your usual routine.
“Devices like the SawStop are more likely to lead people to be careless and inattentive when they encounter dangers because they assume they are “protected” and don’t even consider the hazards”
I dare to claim that people got injured more often before we invented safety barriers. This is why we have all those safety harness, steel toe shoes, helmets and gloves. But I am too lazy to check statistics.
It’s usually the older guys with plenty of experience that set the Saw stop cartridge off. The new individuals are still terrified of the machine despite the safety features.
TTS/SawStop released its patent to the public last February – is this the same one?
https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Commissioner/Richard-Trumka/Statement/SawStop-Dedicates-Its-Patent-for-Public-Use-Boosting-CPSC-Rule-to-End-Table-Saw-Amputations
Rewritten to make the qualifier more apparent.
Once a CPSC rule takes effect, ensuring that no patents will prevent active injury mitigation (AIM) technologies on saw blades”
Not actually released as CPSC hasn’t made a rule or an effective one.
https://www.sawstop.com/news/sawstop-to-dedicate-key-u-s-patent-to-the-public-upon-the-effective-date-of-a-rule-requiring-safety-technology-on-all-table-saws/
“Although such a rule is likely many years away from an effective date, we at SawStop are determined to seek a win-win balance between our mission and our business responsibilities.”
He apparently misunderstood. They didn’t release any patents. They claimed that they would release a single patent (#9,724,840) if the law passed. All talk, no actions.
I wonder how many TS injuries are construction workers using jobsite saws–I’ve seen some stupid stuff in that environment. That said, if I ever had to replace my 25 yo 3HP Unisaw, it wouldn’t be with a SawStop. Even if “safety” was my overriding concern, I’d spend the same money and get a European slider. Takes more room, but it is a better design and fixing the workpiece gets you 99% of the way to the SawStop benefits without the downsides. And, for the record, I’ll say I’m a lot more scared of my 3HP shaper than my TS.
Slider, I’ve never heard the term but I certainly get the idea. A panel saw can have the stock stand on its side and take much less space than the required start and run-off space and table or roller that’s needed to get a sheet into and off of a table saw. I’ve seen these panel saws in big box hardware stores run by salespeople. That TS safety zone space is often a stumble away from a botch. The zone is 4 sheets of clutter free floor space!
Better to buy this design than something from the era of overhead shaft and belts or big heavy induction motors in stationary bases. That’s history. A guy I knew back about 1980 ran a moving saw on a giant table grid in a small prefab house factory. A foot pedal drove a clutch to the cable drive to move the saw. He did all the panel cutting for the whole operation.
Hackers! It’s time to hack a good hand held circular saw into a CNC type of moving the saw instead of the whole rest of the world (it’s all relative) panel. At the very least a line the mark up on laser line-clamp-and-cut hands free. I know of rails, channels, and guides and they are far better than fingers against a fence.
Many of these hand mauling events probably are small work where a band saw or even hand tools and a vise are called for. Oh it’s quicker this wawwoooppss!
I personally like the saw stop. I’ve never heard of one triggering “randomly”, only when someone made a mistake like cutting styrofoam insulation with an aluminum backing. Furthermore I distinctly remember going to church as a kid and noticing how several of the older men were missing fingers. The fact is that the table saw is probably the most dangerous tool in the woodshop. The sawstop makes it safer, for the price of only a minor inconvenience. I would never support legally mandating it, but I will certainly buy one myself if I buy my own table saw some day (and I can afford it).
My parents had a carpenter make a table for them, he missed 2 fingers. We asked what happened. He had played with fireworks as a kid, then decided now he was safe to become a carpenter as he can’t cut those two fingers off!
The larger Sawstop saws are very nice and a great option for those that have both the extra money (3x the price of a decent name brand saw) and want the added safety features. If the law passes and somehow the patent is actually released (and not heavily licensed) 2 things are going to happen:
People are going to make a killing restoring old saws and selling them.
The #1 search term involving Sawstop will start with “how to disable”
Saw stop cabinet saws are not three times the price of a decent cabinet saw. That end of the price range is where saw stop is the closest in price to its competitors. It’s at the bottom end where the difference is greatest. You can buy a job site saw that Will cut wood for less than $200 . The saw stop job site saw is close to $1000. You can get a decent contractor style saw for $700 at Lowe’s – the comparable saw stop model with a comparable fence (and shipping) is going to cost you over $2000
Regarding “no one is stopping you from making your own saw with whatever safety systems you like”… This is an absolutely terrible suggestion. Sorry for being a pessimist, but when it comes to safety systems, an extensively tested, commercial product is dramatically more reliable than, generously, the worst 25% of DIY projects. Sure, go ahead and build yourself a table-saw, but don’t rely on it to save your fingers. Meanwhile, lobby your congressional representative for saw safety legislation. Or start a volunteer tool training organization!
I think the most dangerous tool, though not as popular as they once were, is the radial arm saw, and by a very large fraction. Our makerspace has a table saw and they make a big deal out of safety and training. I think honestly, if you have the space for a cabinet saw, and you are a “public” multi user space you would be better off getting a cnc router that can take full sheets of plywood etc. Everybody can buy their own cutter for it. It would be neat in a space like that to have a virtual table saw mode, that has a square corner to put a piece in and you can tell it how wide you want your piece and how long the cut has to be, and it just indexes over and does a straight cut, w/o any “cnc” orr CAD for the end user. The only price you pay is it is slower and has a wider kerf, and if that is a problem, you can go and buy your own table saw. I think the router would be much more utile in the same amount of space. The only thing a simple router lacks is the ability to cut an an angle but someone must make one that has a head like a sliding miter saw, that you can unlock and manually rotate.
FWIW I am not a fan of a lot of modern safety stuff. The sooner you realize that yea the blade will take your fingers off the more you will respect it. Like people should not be told not to reach under a running lawn mower. When does this just become pandering to the really stupid?
When I was in high school, I had wood class and also participated in home building. So many table saws around. The invention of saw stop or similar technology was a few more years away.
When my wood teacher was explaining how to use table saw and the safety, he mentioned someone got careless without a block to push small piece of wood back after the cut was complete. The small piece twisted and got caught on the blade and was launched through the shop’s window. No one was hurt fortunately.
In the home building class, unfortunately someone, my teacher, did get hurt. I wasn’t in the area to witness the accident, only the aftermath but the table saw was covered in blood and the person ran out in pain and was quickly taken to the hospital. My school counselor just happened to be visiting and checking on the progress so that saved a few minutes from waiting on an ambulance.
His hand was cut side way, severing the middle, ring, and little metacarpal. He didn’t come back for a few months and his hand was in a type of sling to help tendons reconnect properly. Saw stop could have spared him the pain if it was invented a few years sooner
I saw an incident where someone didn’t use a pusher stick and cut the small part between the blade and the fence.
The blade caught the small piece (less than an inch wide, maybe six inches long) and threw it across the shop. It caught the shop teacher square in the ass – WHOP! Lucky for him, he had a really big wallet in his pocket. The wood piece slammed into the wallet instead of just his butt. It was loud and startling, but nobody got hurt. Tony (the kid at the table saw) got yelled at, and we all got a refresher on using the table saw.
Don’t stick your finger in the saw. It’s not hard. We don’t need more “mandates”.
Table saws are dangerous. So aren’t band saws and chainsaws and … I wonder if the stats are misinterpreted due to the ubiquitous nature of table saws, non Saw stop models for us po folk. There’s one in every garage, almost.
If radial arm saws were still sold today, I’d bet they’d out danger table saws easily. A sliding miter saw is it’s safer descendant, but still dangerous.
From a business owner’s perspective I can totally see the mandate for something like this. When I was at a small startup lab we kinda did the math and figured ONE person injured on the job and the workers comp would mean the entire startup would fail.
For the cost of one hand injury to a worker you could buy like a dozen saw stop cartridges or whatever they are called. And not have a mangled hand to boot.
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I’ve seen a live demo of it at a woodworking store, using a hot dog, and it is impressive. When I eventually get a table saw I’ll get a saw stop. I’m confident with my current dedication to safety but random things like the dog running into you or even let’s be honest one tiny moment of inattention when you are ripping the 20th strip of molding or whatever…and there goes my entire livelihood and ability to work.
.
No thanks.
You nailed it. A number of the individuals setting off our spaces Sawstop had plenty of experience on a few different table saws. A combination of confidence doing repetitive work gets them. I’ve spent 10 years getting to learn the value of a Sawstop. It might not be for everyone and every situation, but I’m happy I haven’t had to put someone’s finger on ice in a cooler, or clean up the blood, or deal with insurance, or check in on them after the fact….
Saw Stop really nailed it with this design and we should have mandated it immediately. Safety gear should be unobtrosive, effective, impossible to forget or disable, and not interfere with the work, and this design manages almost all of it.
At the same time: “stupid ought to hurt.” having to replace a chunk of machined aluminum and blade is a good reminder to be careful, without all the blood and lawsuits.
To all the commenters decrying the presence of safety guards: humans make mistakes, it happens, even to the most highly skilled professionals. Good design (products and procedures) either makes it harder to make mistakes or to minimize the harm from one occurring. With tools this powerful the difference between a productive day and months of rehab is about the same amount of misdirected force or lack of focus as it takes to spill a beverage.
Humans have ten fingers for a reason. You’ll still be able to do your job if you lose a few, but you’ll be more careful this time.
I just bought one. I was imagining my future 9-fingered self scolding me for not spending the extra $200…
In my opinion, the most dangerous tool in the shop is a bench grinder. Seemingly harmless, but will grab a part and sling it at you at remarkable speed. It can suck in a part or grab your glove too. Love them but I hate them too.
BTW. For safety cutting, a bandsaw can’t be beat. Very controllable and holds the stock on the table for you. Never kicks back. Just can’t cut panels.
I have wondered why table saws are still manual feed. Why have you hands near the blade. Should like a planer, get the wood started machine does the rest.
Since the track saw switch, haven’t looked back.
I wish someone would release an alternative that could be retrofitted onto simpler table saws. I hate to admit it, but I got sloppy and nearly lost the end of my finger. Fortunately I reacted fast enough, the cut didn’t even reach the bone.
SawStop is impossible to get in Europe … because it can take Dados and those are too dangerous for us Europeans! What a world ;)
i think the comments here bracketed the issue pretty well, and showed the flaw in this line from the article: “The opponents talk about free markets and government interference in your shop”.
that does happen but my objections are all practical. i don’t care one way or the other about free as in markets but my table saw is free as in beer. i use it only once or twice a year so i’m not about to spend $900 for the cheapest sawstop unit. and if it false triggers, i’m not gonna have a spare of a $100 cartridge sitting around so that’s a big nuissance for my work.
i’m honestly a little more afraid of kickback than chopping my fingers off. i wish i could easily upgrade my saw to have one of those “riving knives” to prevent kickback. i don’t use my saw often enough to really keep track of the scenarios that make kickback more likely.
otoh, i’m pretty satisfied with my safety protocols…i’m afraid of it! i keep my fingers away from the moving blade, and i use a few geometric mnemonics to prevent carelessness (“do-not-cross” lines enforced by some vertical beams in my basement). and i try to stand to the side so if it does kick back, most likely it will just fly by beside me (but i suppose my hand and arm are inevitably still at risk).
the best that could happen is it could be like LED lights. if there is a government mandate, hopefully some competition will resolve the price / convenience issues pretty quickly. i know for sure i bought some LEDs before the mandate and they had all sorts of problems but since the mandate they have improved tremendously.
anyways, on the bright side, if you do chop your finger off, consider a new career path as 9-fingered shop teacher! i don’t know about you all but my school had one of them and man that’s a good way to keep people scared! :)
I haven’t got this tech, but I’ve used it and support it. I don’t think a table saw without it is really the least safe thing anyone uses- a circular saw or an angle grinder or a chainsaw is in your hands and hopefully doesn’t leave your hands, but it is often used in not-so-safe ways in reality. At least a table saw is nice and stable and most of the time you can avoid both the blade and the path that wood might be thrown.
It is my firm belief that the drill press is the power tool most likely to cause injuries in the shop. Not because it is intrinsically unsafe, but because it doesn’t seem unsafe. But it can grab work and tear off your finger or fling something into you just as effectively as a more scary-looking tool.
The table saw, angle grinder, chainsaw, lathe, etc. look scary, so you automatically are more aware and attuned to the danger. The drill press makes it easy to let your guard down and get complacent.
Patents themselves are part of the problem. They are far too broad in their scope. There are patents for things like “potato with an analog clock in it” and with that simple approved patent a company can sue anyone who makes such a thing.
If the patent for saw stop is “mechanism that stops saw blade when contacted by operator or others who are in range of the blade” that’s bullcrap. It should have to go into detail about how their design works. Not only in how it detects the contact, but how it stops the blade.
If the contact is detected using a known principle of electrical theory, and a competitor can detect that same contact using a different principle, and stop or drop the blade via a different method, SawStop should not be allowed to defend their patent. Because the stopping of a saw blade should not be what is protected. It should be the mechanisms that are used to do the work. Then let the market decide which product is more effective in cost and operation.
The way they do patents you would expect that every time somebody in a bar says “wouldn’t it be cool if we could go to the moon?” that consumer of adult beverages should be allowed to sue NASA.
Watching Shark Tank completely soured me on patents. Some of the products that get patents are inane.
Then when I was doing research for a device for work I came across what looked like a great product. It was a stakeholder patent for something that would never exist because if a manufacturer made it they’d have to pay some bozo that just filled out paperwork and said “wouldn’t it be really cool if you could do this like that? If you do build it, pay me, because I thought it up and filled in the paperwork first.
Patents should be abolished. We shouldn’t reward people for just being an “idea guy”. If you want money from making a product you should have to do physical work.
Patents themselves are part of the problem. They are far too broad in their scope. There are patents for things like “potato with an analog clock in it” and with that simple approved patent a company can sue anyone who makes such a thing.
If the patent for saw stop is “mechanism that stops saw blade when contacted by operator or others who are in range of the blade” that’s bullcrap. It should have to go into detail about how their design works. Not only in how it detects the contact, but how it stops the blade.
If the contact is detected using a known principle of electrical theory, and a competitor can detect that same contact using a different principle, and stop or drop the blade via a different method, SawStop should not be allowed to defend their patent. Because the stopping of a saw blade should not be what is protected. It should be the mechanisms that are used to do the work. Then let the market decide which product is more effective in cost and operation.
The way they do patents you would expect that every time somebody in a bar says “wouldn’t it be cool if we could go to the moon?” that consumer of adult beverages should be allowed to sue NASA.
Watching Shark Tank completely soured me on patents. Some of the products that get patents are inane.
Then when I was doing research for a device for work I came across what looked like a great product. It was a stakeholder patent for something that would never exist because if a manufacturer made it they’d have to pay some bozo that just filled out paperwork and said “wouldn’t it be really cool if you could do this like that? If you do build it, pay me, because I thought it up and filled in the paperwork first.