Sawstop Cabinet Saw

[Doug Miller]

Yes, they do, and you're not the only one to have that particular misfortune. When I was about ten years old, we had a family vacation get off to a very bad start due to an apparently bad batch of tires that Dad had bought the week before. (Seemed like a good idea at the time, of course -- two-week trip coming up, tires are getting old, looks like a good time for new ones, right?) We had a tread separation and blowout... stopped and changed the tire, and continued down the highway, hoping to find a dealer in the next city who would replace the bad tire under warranty. Got about three miles down the road, and BANG! there went another one. No spare this time, of course. :-( Thank goodness for AAA.

[CW]

Yes, Robin Lee being one of them.

[Henry St.Pierre]

"Leon" wrote in news:pWDah.18865$ [e-mail]:

After all is said and done; how do you like your Sawstop? Have you had any false triggers etc.? Does it perform (in your opinion) as a $3K saw should? Thanks, Hank

[Bill in Detroit]

playing regulatory politics.

That would change in an afternoon if the head of that organization could be coaxed into standing on the infeed side of a table saw for a couple of hours.

Even once the regulatory wheels begin to turn it will take YEARS before saw manufacturers would have to comply with tighter standards. Research. Public debate. Draft Standards. Phase-In. Then, eventually, POSSIBLE enforcement.

Ten years of toe dragging will add up to another half-million or so (reported) injuries. And who knows how many unreported ones where the victim couldn't afford medical care so no record was ever made of the injury.

And that woman doesn't even want to begin the toe-dragging part?

Bill

[Upscale]

You misunderstand. I'm not taking offence at you knowing how to be careful. I'm ridiculing you for thinking that it's impossible for you to have an accident of some type and getting hurt. It means that it will happen to you, sooner than later.

Normally, I wouldn't like to see anyone hurt, but in your case when it happens to you, it will be most appropriate. And when it comes to perfection and never making an error, the only perfection you seem to have obtained is that of being the perfect asshole.

[Joe Bemier]

Hopefully this will quell the baseless ranting of a few.

[Joe Gorman]

Interesting, she says the saw stops in 3/1000 of a second yet their main page

only promises 5/1000 of a second. Minor but not out of line for a reporter listed as 'a regulatory columnist ' rather than a woodworking writer. The overview page does mention 3 -

5/1000 so she's going with the 'better' number:-) Maybe she's done other technical articles but I didn't see an immediate link to her past work. Searching by her last name shows an interesting array of articles over the past few months. I didn't notice her mentioning hot Sawstop tried to force legislation that would make their method the only one allowed, which is what started the 'Buzz Saw of Opposition'. We'd all (well, mostly all so don't jump down my throat for this) appreciate keeping all 10 fingers, but aren't interested in the government 'helping' us by forcing it down our throat. I for one would like to know how effective it would be just to drop the blade below the table without the braking device that destructively stops the blade. The additional mass that would have to be added to let the saw survive that without requiring realignment, (it doesn't require realignment does it?) would be a plus. They don't mention it and neither does the writer but I seem to recall someone here mentioning a show where the demonstrator took a full swing at the running blade with a large salami and received only a minor cut in the salami. Joe

[Chuck Taylor]

Well, not any more, now that you've let the pushstick out of the bag. Sheesh. Thanks a lot, pal.

:-)

[Mike Marlow]

This is the aspect of these conversations that makes them so annoying. You are flat out wrong with this assertion. The field of woodworking is populated with more people who successfully made it through lifetimes of using tools without the dreaded injuries that you so adamantly promise. Safety is necessary - no one yet has suggested otherwise, but not every device out there is absolutely necessary to ensure against an inevitable incident. Sorry - contend all that you want but historical numbers are just simply against you. It is when you make ludicrous assertions like this that you do set yourself up for critical comment. Neither Brian nor anyone else has ever once suggested that it is impossible for them to have an accident of some type. This type of hyperbole does nothing to further your argument.

There you go again...

[J. Clarke]

Yeah, she might change from "toe-dragging" to "cold day in Hell".

In any case, worksite safety is OSHA's turf, not CPSC.

Most of which are minor, and many of which Sawstop would have done nothing to prevent (banged head on table while crouched under wing of saw, dropped saw on foot, got splinter in eye, etc--read the incident reports, don't just accept that they were all incidents of somebody cutting his finger off).

Personally I don't want to live in a world where the only table saws available are monsters that take a crew or a forklift to move them and cost several thousand dollars. The Sawstop saw is a heavy machine and it took two iterations before they brought it to market--perhaps you should ask yourself why--was it because they wanted to sell something equivalent to a Unisaw or was it that the first time around the cheaper, lighter saw self-destructed the third time the cartridge fired?

Has Sawstop _ever_ demonstrated it on a 400 buck jobsite saw? If not perhaps you should ask why.

[Frank Boettcher]

I read "an estimated" not reported. I discounted the article and stopped reading at that point. Did I not read far enough?

Estimated? By whom?

Frank

[Rob Lee]

Hi Rod -

Only one, that I know of...no lost work, but took two fingertips. This was a guy with decades of experience too...

Bigger issue for us is having people remove guards. No matter what your policy is, or how you train people, get caught with a missing guard, and it's very uncool...

The issue for us is really that we're large enough (say 1000 people) and have 13 - 14 saws in use that an accident starts to be likely....

The only accident rate I'm interested in is zero.

Cheers -

Rob

[Rob Lee]

Hi -

They're pretty much in every store (or will be) - we started replacing them at the rate of 1 per month, and will continue until we've replaced them all. I think every address has a spare cartridge, not necessarily every saw...

Cheers -

Rob

[Upscale]

And you misunderstand completely what I'm saying. Brian is contending that he can't have any type of accident because he's too careful. Sorry, but life just doesn't work that way. Sure, someone being careful will definitely minimize the chances of something untoward happening. But, accidents do happen, even to the most careful person. Why do you think they're called accidents? It's unintentional, but it does happen. It's sheer arrogance (and essentially a really stupid statement) to say otherwise.

Hey, he calls me a dipshit, I feel perfectly entitled to respond in kind.

[Dave Hall]

Being a commercial user with a number of units at different locations, I assume that you did some sort of internal evaluation of the probability of this company staying in business for a reasonably long period of time to provide parts and service. However, it seems to me that absent some sort of significant penetration into the other saw manufacturers, either voluntarily or by gov't force, (or via a merger/buyout) that Sawstop will find it difficult to stay in business. I don't know of any other tool manufacturer that can stay in business selling only a single (very high end) model of tablesaw and no other tools of any sort. The fact that the saw is in a price range that can't possibly generate a mass market (as mass markets are defined in a current consumer oriented world) can't help the old cash flow out either. I kind of see the current saw as a means of proving the technology both to other saw manufactureres and to government regulators more than as an actual going concern business product - but hey, I am not anywhere near in the market for a $3,000 saw that wouldn't fit in my shop and I know thjat even if mandated it can't be retrofitted to my Shopsmith, so I really have no dog in this fight.

Dave Hall

[Upscale]

Are you a commercial user with injury insurance? If so, what are you going to do if your insurance company refuses to insure you unless you buy one? Or at the very least, what will you do if your premiums are greatly increased unless you buy one?

Aside from the moral aspects of using a SawStop which goes a long way to preventing the loss of fingers, I believe Lee Valley adopted SawStops mainly for insurance reasons. If it costs a business money *not* to use a SawStop, then there's only two solutions and that's either to buy or go into a different line of business.

This is not an attack of any sort, just an observation with limited choices for choosing a business direction.

[Don Fearn]

I think it was Joe Gorman who stated:

[Brian Henderson]

I never said it was impossible. Anything is possible. I'm saying that I'm careful enough that I don't have to worry about being seriously injured because I think ahead and don't make risky moves. It's funny, just about all the old woodworkers I know who have been doing this all their lives and still have never been seriously injured would laugh at you. Sure, it'll happen to them sooner or later, I guess it just means much, much, much, much later in their case.

[Doug Miller]

Then what did you mean when you wrote " In fact, I can pretty much guarantee I'd never trip the SS, at least not the way it's supposed to be tripped." ?

You may be right. I hope you are. But have you considered the consequences if you are not?

[Brian Henderson]

Exactly. The overwhelming majority of woodworkers make it through life without losing a limb. Do we get scraped up, bang our fingers with hammers, get cut, bruised and bandaged? Of course, most of us do, but most of us never cut anything off of ourselves accidentally, especially those of us who actually know how to be careful, know what our tools can do and know how to take precautions to dramatically lessen the possibility of personal injury.

Some people want everyone else to take care of them, they're afraid of having personal responsibility for their own health, safety and wellbeing. Unfortunately, these people usually are the ones who want to mandate that everyone else do what they want as well. SawStop, as a company, is one of those groups and their apologists largely are as well. I've never said that the saw isn't well made, but for what I'd ever need, it's just not worth the pricetag and their faulty stopping technology just isn't necessary in my shop. I'll go on for another 40 years of woodworking without serious injury, without having some nanny company tell me I have to pay them to take care of me.