A safe table saw

[ric.duncan]

[Jeff Wisnia]

That system has been around for several years.

An objection to it whien it originally came out was that the wood you were cutting had to be really dry or it could have enough conductivity to trip the mechanism. Perhaps they've improved on that now somehow.

That hot dog thing reminded me of something I saw maybe 40 years ago. Our worker's compensation insurance company sent a safety guy to the plant I was working in to check the place out out and lecture us about safety issues.

He had a package of hot dogs with him and started squishing them in the die sets in punch presses and cutting them up under power shears.

I swear me and everyone watching him had our arms behind our backs with our fists clenched before he left.

Remember the joke about the guy who got his Johnson stuck in the pickle slicer? They fired him.......and that girl who sliced pickles too.

Jeff

[charlie]

it's ok, until they decided to try to get the government to regulate all other tablesaws, making it mandatory to use their product on all new products, in effect, creating a monoply.

[Stormin Mormon]

That is some seriously fascinating stuff. Wonder what happens when you hit a piece of aluminum foil that's on the wood -- same thing? Emergency shut off? Or maybe a nail.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

There is a bypass switch for cutting aluminum. I don't know about nails.

[Chris Lewis]

According to Jeff Wisnia :

Probably around 10 years in fact.

I hope so. Considering that having the thing activate requires replacing the brake and probably the blade. False positives are expensive...

[dpb]

Sawstop,

Has been active topic on rec.woodworking for ages. Last reports I recall there were that number of false positives are quite low. I seem to recall that at least at one point there was an allowance from Sawstop for a true false positive trigger event as they were most interested in following up on them to learn what caused them in the field.

The comment about a bypass is accurate -- for certain materials like wet pressure-treated construction lumber, for example -- the safety mechanism must be switched off. I don't think an individual nail for something as light as the foil-backing on insulation board is sufficient to trigger it, though.

The one comment in that regard, however, is that a false positive is still far cheaper than the emergency room bill.

There was the negative reaction to the attempt by the principals of Sawstop to make the technology mandatory by the FSC which seemed "over the top". I do not know where this stands at the moment -- I've not heard anything more about it for quite some time so I presume it's pretty much a dead issue. I know they were extremely frustrated by their inability to make licensing arrangements with the major manufacturers and I suspect that rankled enough with them to want to try to somehow get a measure of "even". While I can understand the frustration, I also understand the reluctance on the other manufacturers' part to use a licensed technology and what I think a lot of them saw was opening themselves to potential liability on the converse side of lawsuits over failure to actuate when needed (that is, Type I, not Type II error) without adequate operating data. Consequently, they ended up producing the saw themselves. By all accounts, they are building a very good quality saw and I have seen uniformly good reviews. FWW did an in-depth article some time back on it -- probably a couple of years ago now. I'm sure a search of the Taunton site would turn it up...

For a new production shop, it would be high on my list simply as a liability reduction issue (plus, it is a quality saw, there's little downside other than the cartridge cost, so it's not like one is making a sacrifice in operation). For a home shop, if were going to buy the Unisaw or Powermatic, it would be a consideration. If budget is the Grizzly or contractor saw, not in the same categories...

[Ike]

A very fair evaluation of the facts and well stated.