Saw Stop - Oregon

[LDosser]

of the comments track remarkably with what has been said here.

[RonB]

This is absolutely frightening. That a small number of lawyers and liberal courts can make decisions like this.

Also frightening is the comment made by the high school teacher who has them in his shop.

"Two of them have been in John Stearns' woodshop class at Amity High School. Stearns applied for grants to pay for two SawStop saws in

2008, which cost $7,400, about three times the price of other brands. "I would pay twice as much for those saws to keep my kids from losing their fingers," Stearns said. "Those two kids walked away without a scratch. That's amazing. I don't know if I would go back to any other saw."

I know his intentions are good. But the kids who walk out of his shop class are not going to be scared enough. It used to piss me off when my high school shop teacher yelled about safety. I understand now.

If they start filling the schools with that technology, guess what...............

RonB

[Steve]

RonB wrote in news:cf8759ea-40db-46da-a6f0- [e-mail]:

>>> Some of the comments track remarkably with what has been said here. >

Does anyone remember the Mercedes Benz commercials about 10 to 15 years ago where an MB engineer mentions the fact that they were the ones who developed air-bag technology for their cars. He is asked why they did not patent the invention and instead shared the technology with other car manufacturers. He replies that "some inventions are too important not to share". It seems to me that the Saw Stop people could do the same by allowing their technology to be used by others at a small fixed price per unit and still make a nice return on their design.

Just wondering...

Steve

[Ed Pawlowski]

"Steve" wrote

I see the problem.

"SawStop asks for licensing fees of 3 percent of the saw's wholesale price to start. As the device becomes more widespread, the fees could increase to

8 percent. The price of table saws range from $200 to several thousand dollars."

If he was closer to the 3% than the 8% it may fly, but adding a couple hundred bucks for the actual hardware and then 8% on top, the saw becomes uncompetitive.

[Ed Pawlowski]

"RonB" wrote

So you think it is better to have a finger or two cut off to keep the kids attention up?

[Max]

"The ultimate result of shielding men from folly is to fill the world with fools." Herbert Spencer, 1891

[Morris Dovey]

Lawyers are trained to view life as a "zero sum game" - for them there is no "win-win".

[Max]

*I* think it's better if the shop teacher does a better job of instruction and supervision. He said he would pay twice as much................. If it's the school's money?

Max

[LDosser]

It never was "the school's money".

[RonB]

No. But I went through two years of high school shop and one college cabinet course where safety was stressed on a continuous basis. I never knew of a student who had a serious problem, but I know problems do happen.

My first few encounters with a Unisaw scared the hell out of me, and I believe that was a very health emotion at that point of my life. But if the kid walks up to a machine that he/she knows cannot injure, how do they learn respect? Frankly, it is difficult enough to teach some of these kids respect anyway. Some of them will learn when the walk onto a job site with a conventional machine, then their boss will get his ass sued off because they did something stupid.

Even worse, they might not learn at all. The budget crunches are making it difficult enough to keep wood technology in the school's curriculums. Our school has had a wood-shop since the early 1950's. The lone remaining, ancient Unisaw is on its last legs (I swear it is the same one I used in the late 60's). The teacher went to the board with a proposal to buy a couple of new Grizzly's that would set them back about $2,300. Guess what? The school counselor advised her to hold off because, guess what?.... the court cases regarding Saw-Stop. She said if she has to cough up $6-7K, she is going to have to shut down the wood shop and go strictly to metal fab and welding. Then they will be open to litigation when some day-dreaming kid forgets to pull the hood down and injures his or her eyes.

I just think we should LEARN safety without the government standing over us. We are becoming so regulated, a damned pocket knife will cost $3000 one of these days.

RonB

[CW]

Nice idea but remember, these are lawyers you're talking about.

[krw]

Ain't his either.

[LDosser]

Zackly!

[LDosser]

No. But I went through two years of high school shop and one college cabinet course where safety was stressed on a continuous basis. I never knew of a student who had a serious problem, but I know problems do happen.

My first few encounters with a Unisaw scared the hell out of me, and I believe that was a very health emotion at that point of my life. But if the kid walks up to a machine that he/she knows cannot injure, how do they learn respect? Frankly, it is difficult enough to teach some of these kids respect anyway. Some of them will learn when the walk onto a job site with a conventional machine, then their boss will get his ass sued off because they did something stupid.

Even worse, they might not learn at all. The budget crunches are making it difficult enough to keep wood technology in the school's curriculums. Our school has had a wood-shop since the early 1950's. The lone remaining, ancient Unisaw is on its last legs (I swear it is the same one I used in the late 60's). The teacher went to the board with a proposal to buy a couple of new Grizzly's that would set them back about $2,300. Guess what? The school counselor advised her to hold off because, guess what?.... the court cases regarding Saw-Stop. She said if she has to cough up $6-7K, she is going to have to shut down the wood shop and go strictly to metal fab and welding. Then they will be open to litigation when some day-dreaming kid forgets to pull the hood down and injures his or her eyes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The school mentioned in the article (Amity, OR) sure isn't going to come up with that kind of money either.

[Lew Hodgett]

Sorry, but as long as you are part of society, membership has a cost that is paid for by the individual.

A portion of what you pay becomes "the school's money" and is their income which allows them to function as specified by the board.

It never was an individual's money in the first place.

Lew

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:51:43 -0800 (PST), the infamous RonB scrawled the following:

They've gone up? They used to be "only" double the price of an expensive saw. That effin', greedy, bastard attorney. (Yes, I'm being redundant there.) And that brainless oaf, Stearns, playing right into the other's hands. Sickening.

All the graduates will get nicknames within 2 years. 'Lefty', 'Stubby', or 'Stumpy', I guess.

-- I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. -- John Adams

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:12:45 -0500, the infamous "Ed Pawlowski" scrawled the following:

If it keeps the rest of the class (and everyone each of them knows) safer for the rest of all their lives, HELL YES!

Tough love.

P.S: I'm still waiting for one of the punks to say "Oh, this tablesaw can't hurt me, huh? We'll see about that."

-- No matter how cynical you are, it is impossible to keep up. --Lily Tomlin

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:20:30 -0700, the infamous "Max" scrawled the following:

What is a (known liberal) teacher supposed to say, Max?

And at double Gass' prices, that's 6x the going rate for a top-notch saw. After hearing Gass discuss it in that video for the Oregonian, I see that he couldn't care less about fingers. He's simply going after (a minimum of) half the difference between the cost of a saw and the cost of an amputation repair. It's all financial to him.

Typical speaking weasel crap. A pox on all their houses.

-- No matter how cynical you are, it is impossible to keep up. --Lily Tomlin

[HeyBub]

Even before that. Ben Franklin did not patent the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, bifocals, the vehicle odometer, and, to bring it up to date, Daylight Savings Time, for exactly the same reason.

[Swingman]

Nothing more than a self serving, liberal, pouring of perfumed altruistic spin on a pile of bullshit in an attempt to mask the stink of GREED.