I'm not asking for political comment here about wether or not sawstop should be doing what they are doing.
What I am wondering if the device actually works as well as they say it does. So the real question is, Has anyone actually installed one of these and had it prevent an injury yet (or know of anyone who has)?
To my knowledge, there are no saws in production that have this feature. No manufacturer has agreed to include the technology on their saws, and SawStop themselves is taking pre-orders but (again to my knowledge) has yet to deliver a saw to a consumer. So, for now, the only person saved so far is Oscar Mayer.
I thought they offered it as a kit at first (still?) where you could retrofit your existing saw. Maybe my memory is failing, but I am pretty sure Sawstop was around for awhile before they decided to bring out thier own line of tablesaws.
That was a major consensus on this ng a year ago, Blue. Can you imagine a 3 h.p. TS (or a 5!?!) coming to a dead stop in that time frame? IIRC - it's like an airbag - costly to use a second time and you can forget any decent bearings or assemblage after the stop. (Alignment isn't even a mentionable factor here.) :-) I believe all our digits are important and I still believe that personal shop safety and awareness are the key elements to keeping them.
You say in jest Oscar Mayer was the only person saved. Just remember this the next time you carelessly get your wiener in the spinning blade of your table saw. You will wish you had a saw stop.
I understand that the test wieners of the world are protesting being used as test meat for the Saw Stop. Their spokeswiener was quoted as saying, "We are not just going to sit on our BUNS and let this happen. Our right have been lagging behind other meats and we have to KETCHUP before we end up sitting in a pot of beans. We RELISH the thought of protesting with all the efforts we can MUSTARD."
Well, I'm no expert on SawStop, but my recollection of their business activities is thus:
Step 1: Offer the product to saw manufacturers as an option on saws. Apparently, this didn't go as well as SawStop would have liked. Step 2: SawStop decides to make their own saws, or at least pictures of their own saws. They take preorders on these saws, but haven't delivered one yet (AFAIK). Step 3: Apparently, not satisfied with Steps 1 and 2, they decided to petition the CPSC to mandate inclusion of a SawStop-like device on future saws. They are doing this strictly as a public service. If they are forced to make $100 per saw in the process, that's a risk they're willing to take. Oh, sure, they're all for competition, but anyone who has ever worked in product development knows that most of the time, the person who is first makes the lion's share of the profits. There are, of course, notable examples of where this has not been the case, but I'm sure SawStop is going with the odds on this one. Besides, what do they have to lose? They sure aren't making the cash flow as it is.
Oh, and I'm a big fan of hot dogs. Now Randall Simon (Pirates first baseman) is another story. He must have been beaten up by an Italian sausage as a child. But I digress. I'm just pointing out that to date, a wiener is the only thing saved by SawStop (insert joke here).
Here in Chicago, they would also PEPPER them with questions. (Sorry, I can't think of anything funny with cucumbers, tomatoes and onions. And ketchup goes on a burger, not a dog).
I'm totally STEAMED over all the GRILLING this topic has taken. You guys are waaay out of the BALLPARK with this one. I'm totally SAUERED over it all -
I'm so lost, I'm going to have ask LOML to re-read all this and see if she can make any sense of it all. Now please excuse me while I go "OSCAR!"
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