hot dog demo

[Arthur 51]

Table saw available in usa only, as far as I know.

[Bob Mannix]

Brilliant! Now that's what I call an useful invention.

[Andy Burns]

Surely it's easier to remove remove skin from a hot-dog by nicking it with a stanley knife :-P

Actually I think that's done the rounds here a while back, but last time it didn't show the internal workings, looks like it has some explosive charge to drive the jammer into the teeth? Presumably not cheap to reset after "use", but cheaper than microsurgery eh?

[Andy Hall]

Yes, I've seen this demonstrated in the U.S. It did work as shown although wrecks part of the mechanism in the process.

Someone in the audience asked him whether he had complete confidence in his product, and he replied that he did. He was invited to prove this by using "a part of his anatomy" for the next demo. Without missing a beat, the salesman replied that he had already been circumcised.

[Bob Mannix]

According to the one of the videos you just replace the blade and the aluminium (sorry, aluminum as its a Merkin thing) jamming mechanism which is a replaceable cartridge which takes about 5 minutes. The "exposive" doesn't drive but releases the catch - the jammer is held back against a strong spring in use. The angular momentum transfers to the blade arm assembly instantly as well, so the whole thing has no choice but to swing down.

My worry from the employer's point of view is that, should one fail to operate and a finger is lost, the employer would then be liable as the safety device was expected to be there, rather than if it were not fitted. Still 60,0000 table saw accidents a year is a lot of fingers!

[John Rumm]

According to the FWW write up, about $80 for the cartridge.

[dom]

Was that 60 thousand or 600 thousand?

Can you quote a source for that figure - both sound remarakably high?

[John Rumm]

The sawstop site (text and videos) make the 60K claim. Most of those will probably be kickback accidents though rather than blade contact ones.

[dom]

AIUI SawStop are in the process of licensing their technology to other tablesaw manufacturers.

They do seem to do things somewhat differently in the US, with splitters instead of riving knives - and it does seem very common to leave the crown guard off there.

In the UK (and I believe the rest of Europe) properly adjusted riving knives and closely fitted crown guards are mandatory in the workplace

- along with a ban on dado sets and severe restrictions on deep sawing

- makes the chances of a finger/blade interaction very much lower.

It doesn't eliminate risks here - and if could buy sawstop built in or have it retrofitted at a reasonable price, I'd buy it- but I'd be interested to know the relative frequency and severity of tablesaw accidents in the US compared to the UK.

[Andy Hall]

Don't believe everything that you see done in the woodworking shows on the TV.

The requirement is that the tooling can be stopped in under 10 seconds and that it is properly guarded.

Many older machines are incapable of doing this.

I wouldn't. This is not a substitute for proper guarding, just a last ditch stand for when all else has failed.

Yes that would be interesting.

One other factor is that machines used in professional and workshop situations in the U.S. tend to be fitted with more bells and whistles such as motorised platforms, power feeders etc. partly on the argument that hands then don't need to go near the business areas.

[dom]

Hmmm - they've just belittled themselves in my eyes with misleading marketing spin. Had they quoted "rotating sawblade contact injuries" we would have a greater idea of teh value of their technology.

[dom]

I'm basing it on this

on what've read on rec.woodworking - it would be rare to hear of UK woodworkers disregarding crown guards, but I hear it over and over again form US woodworkers.

Yep, my apologies - what I said is only code of practice:

older machines that can't meet the guarding and 10 second rule (in the workplace) have to be modified or replaced as various aspects of the legislation cuts in (can't quite remember where we're up to - not sure if the 10 second rule applies to all machines yet)

Absolutely. Safety is about safe working practices (aka accident avoidance/primary safety). And last ditch (aka secondary safety/ minimising the consequences of an accident) features when the day comes I or someone else makes a very bad mistake - so I have no objections to hardhats, RCD's and airbags in cars either.

I wonder if sawstop technology could be adapted for spindle moulders - as they have an even more fearsome reputation for stealing fingers (even with the new limited tooling)?

[John Rumm]

Well - it was my assumption that kickback is included in the 60K - however it may be that the 60K really are just the blade contact injuries, and the kickback ones need to be added on top!

(they do however make a point of highlighting their saw also has a proper riving knife - something many US ones seem to lack)

[Andy Hall]

In principle I don't see why not, although the range of tooling and weight involved is rather broader than for a saw normally, so it may be harder to implement.