Sawstop on slashdot

[Chris Friesen]

Yes. They want 8% of the full retail cost of the saw in royalties.

Chris

[Leon]

Fein could look into this. They manufacture the Multimaster. It can use a circular blade that cuts through stationary objects but does not spin. Because it does not spin it will not cut your finger. The blade oscillates in a shorter distance than you skin will move. The blade simply vibrates you skin. It would have a long way to go but it has its potential. No kick backs.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Ouch, that sound rather pricey just for a license. That would probably add a minimum of 20% to the cost of a cabinet saw between the device and the royalty. Higher percentage on a contractor model.

[Leon]

Higher yes but I suspect that you get a much better saw in the long run. The $600 TS with a 20% mark up is now the $720 TS with a more robust trunion and arbor. It would have to be built better to withstand the shock of stopping the blade. Given that however, I think the cost may be higher depending on what grade you buy or sell. IIRC SawStop said that it adds some where in the $250 range to the actual cost of a saw. Retrofitting if possible would be much more expensive. A $1000 saw would go for $1350 including the 8% royalty. A $2000 saw would be slightly better at $2430 including the 8%. That's now. If every one added the feature I suspect that prices would settle back down to what they are now or the equivalent considering current dollar value after the competition becomes competitive.

If you wait 5 years the saws will likely go up 20% in price anyway without improvements. I paid $1300 for my Jet cabinet saw 7 years ago. I bet I would have to pay more than 25% extra today.

[Larry Bud]

So let's get down to business: Have you shelled out the bucks for SawStop? No? Why not? You want to mandate something for everyone else which you haven't adopted yourself?

[Leon]

As a side note, because the government no longer regulates electricity prices in Houston and much of Texas I now pay 50% more for electricity this year than I did last year. I get no added benefits. At least with the increase in price of the TS you get some added benefit. ;~)

A bit farther OT but maybe something you might want to consider since all of us buy electricity. For years the local electric company said to raise you thermostat in the summer and lower it in the winter to save electricity. That certainly does make sense. Because I work out side in the garage I would set my thermostat on 86 degrees during the day and 78 in the evening.

86 degrees feels good compared to 95 outside so I tolerated it. Starting in April this year I started setting my thermostat on 82 during the day and left the 78 alone for the evenings. From mid April till now compared to the same period last summer I have used 26 less kilowatt hours electricity. A neighbor who owns an AC business told me that the more often a compressor cycles and shorter the cycle period of an AC compressor the more efficient it becomes. My AC is now 11 years old and has used less electricity this summer than it has since 2000 and my house is 4 degrees cooler during the day. No refrigerant has been added since it was installed 11 years ago.

[Leon]

Just as easy to ask, Have you shelled out the bucks for a SawStop? You do not want every one to benefit from something because you have not tested it your self?

I am entitled to my opinion as are you.

[Joe Bemier]

Thanks Chris - I looked and could not find this important info. Thats a margin breaker...likely to be something like 30% of the cost breakdown. It would be my opinion that we should not disillusion ourselves that the inventor cares about saving fingers. Its all about the $$. IMO, in his victory he saw money not safety. Thats not to say I blame him but lets call a spade a spade.

[Prometheus]

While I appreciate his concern, I have a bit of concern myself when I think about one of my $100 blades being welded into an aluminum block. Granted, it's cheaper than reattaching a finger, but if it has a misfire even once a year, the cost of that saw is way too high in the long run. I've been doing construction for a little under a decade, and I could count the number of guys I've met with missing fingers on one hand- and that would still be true even if I had cut a few of those fingers off... which I haven't. Grandpa lost a few fingers, but that was in a press at a tire factory. My dad lost a foot, but that was on a hay elevator on a farm. Never met a guy who lost a body part woodworking, though there are plenty of scars around, usually from chisels, pealed fingers (from hitting them with a waffle headed hammer) and nails sticking out of boards. Saws of any type are more likely to cut their own cords off than take off your fingers, if observation is worth anything.

Given that obsevation, I still feel just fine using my tools even without a blade stopper. I'd prefer to see good riving knives as standard equipment on table saws, rather than the crappy lexan shields that never want to stay aligned properly.

All that being said, I did cut one of my fingers pretty severely with a saw once... but it was a handsaw, and I was pruning a bush. Too bad there wasn't a saw stop that time. :)

[Leon]

LOL... All manufacturers are in it for the MONEY. This one just happens to be offering additional safety that others feel is not important.

[Joe Bemier]

Agreed. But if you read this thread thoroughly you'll find some statements that make it seem as though this guy is doing it to save fingers - maybe so, but that is not his primary goal, in my opinion. If it were he could offer the license for a more reasonable price. So to repeat myself its about calling a spade a spade.

[BB]

Actually it is based on your sample of "one" which is not statistically valid. . .

Yes I would like insurance premiums to decrease but to do that we need to get rid of all the lawyers. Do you know how much of the price of a ladder is due to the liability insurance the manufacturer has to pay?

I do know that using it safely will reduce the chance of injury but not necessarily remove it entirely. But life is full of risks - I could slip in the shower, get hit walking to the mailbox, get struck by lightening, shot is a drive by shooting. . . et al. I refuse to become paranoid about "something that MIGHT happen to me".

The guard was a POS and was removed. Even use of a (good) guard does not remove all danger.

interfeering

I feel that government is too intrusive. I am not a socialist - history shows that it is ultimately unworkable. You seem to have a belief that government can solve all the problems. The recent fiasco with the TSA and operating from fear not logic is getting a bit old.

If you cannot get it then doubt it would do much good to explain. . .

BB

[BB]

This is onerous since usual royalties for IP are in the .5-2% range. Also in a manufacturing environment that translates into a 16-20% of the manufacturers cost to build. Hardly a commercial viable proposition.

BB

[BB]

Adding the $250 required to as the feature PLUS the royalty is a deal buster since it mean they would be getting $20 per saw just from the $250 in additional parts cost. Good the see that the Sawstop boys are not greedy or anything. Plus I am willing to bet that even though you license the technology they assume no liability for injuries from it failing to operate properly.

It seems quite clear that the reason the saw makers decided not to use it was due to that fact that it made NO SENSE financially.

BB

[BB]

Agreed

BB

[Dave Hall]

People on this group tend to discuss the sawstop safety feature with larger, expensive tablesaws in mind. However, if mandated, the sawstop device would be required on all saws, from the $99 benchtop to the $100,000 GEEWHIZBANG Commercial model. Now I don't care how many are made, the cost of the sawstop will never get below a lowend tablesaw cost and the structure required to simply put this type of feature on a saw is way beyond the structure of a benchtop saw. Therefore any such requirement simply eliminates the whole lowend market, which in reality is probably a major part if mot the majority of the market in terms of units sold. I dare say that if air bags and seatbelts doubled or tripled the cost of the average car and virtually eliminated the ability to make and sell anything smaller or less costly than higher end 4 door sedans, there is no way they would have become required equipment on cars, regardless of their life saving potential.

BTW I cannot concieve of any way that you could redesign my saw, a Shopsmith, to accept such a device and Shopsmith (already a very niche market company with financial issues) would simply go out of business. Dayton Ohio would lose jobs.

Dave Hall

[Leon]

Perhaps a deal breaker for you, but not of others.

Good the see that the Sawstop boys are not greedy or

Yeah, the deal seems reasonable to me.

Plus I am willing to bet that even though you license the

It could tahe that path or maybe not.

And that very well may be their problem. Most every one does not like the path that Delta is being taken down.

[Leon]

Actually it is based on your sample of "one" which is not statistically

Say what you want. It is a real statistic compared to all of your assumbtions.

The cost if every thing is affect by something. You either agree to pay or you don't.

So you own absolutely no health home or auto insurance?

Did you chang you mind? First you refuse to allow the government to tell you what kind of saw to buy, next you let some things through as acknowledged by the fact that you bought a saw with a required guard. I agree that nothing is going to cover all instances regarding safety.

I do not seem to think that government can solve all things. I simply think that of all the things that the government gets involved in, this particular situation is a good one.

Well certainly you are not suggesting that the government get involved with practicing medicine.

[Leon]

1973 The 4 function electronic calculator came to market from TI. Retail price, $129.00 1975 The electronic calculator with memory and square root functions could be bought for $14.95

If Shopsmith is already in financial trouble then the writing is on the wall. The threat of the SawStop technology is not at fault.

[Dave Hall]

I'm sorry, but WTF does this have to do with the discussion? The calculator is an elctronic device almost in its entirety and the cost came down because of the ability to produce semiconductor chips at etrememly low cost per unit. If memory serves, TI didn't have a monopoly or charge a significant royalty either. They certainly did not attempt to have anyone in government say you were no longer allowed to buy adding machines or comptrometers. In any case, the sawstop device is mostly mechanical with a little electronic sensing technology thrown in. There will certainly be some economies of scale and from improvements in design and manufacturing, but nothing that is even in the realm of electronics industry from the 1970s to present.The costs of the electronics has already benefited from the radical decline in semiconductor costs, but the springs, aluminum blocks, and heavy steel components of the sawstop device will not presumably see such cost reductions. Nor, I presume, will the costs of the blades and other consumable aspects of the unit. With even a cheap blade and assuming some fairly high unit cost reduction due to higher production volumes on the aluminum blocks, triggering the system will likely cost at least half as much as the saw.

I think I said "financial issues" not "in financial trouble". They have had financial issues for the last 15 to 20 years with few profitable years in that time and they have shrunk (try to find a Shopsmith retail store - they don't exist anymore except for the factory store in Dayton). However, they have stayed in business and have provided jobs in Dayton (and a few traveling sales/demonstration people) for all of those years. I am sure that those employees will be happy that you wrote off their livelyhood so cavalierly.

My bottom line point was that there are many considerations before mandating costly safety requirements and you can't simply consider the commercial or high end part of the market. Again, if automobile safety devices such as seatbelts and airbags had eliminated large segments of the market they would not have been required. I am not against resonable safety requirements. I don't support eliminating guards, (or seat belts for that matter) but it can go too far and in my opinion mandating sawstop technology is really going too far. Safety advocates that get silly with their rules and requirements can easily screw up real safety programs by making safety so onerous and silly that nobody complies and once non-complince becomes routine, even rational and effective safety considerations get ignored.

Dave Hall