It's not because of the device. I like it. I was wishing them success. They appeared to be going down the right path. Then they just had to try for government regulation to get what they can't get on their own.
I stopped over at the saw stop site and took a look at their products. Interesting little gizmo, expensive, but very interesting.
I think if you're looking for an absolutely safe saw (from the blade anyway) this puppy just might be the ticket... Though I didn't see saftey bumpers on the corners, soft side cushions on the case, or an airbag type appliance incase of kick backs. And WHAT ABOUT THOSE BLASTED SPINTERS??
Ok I'll be serious for a moment, well as serious as I can be anyway... It looks like somebody put a lot of thought into this and if it works as claimed will save many a person from having to answer questions from their grandkids about why they have to take their shoes off to count to ten. However, with all new technology it's expensive. And anytime you ask a typical woodworker to lay out more cash...Well, let's just say it's not a good thing and leave it at that.
As for mandating that it be installed on all saws. That's an entirely different thing. Now you're encroaching on our rights to injure and maim ourselves in creative and painful ways as we see fit. I agree with everybody above who says "if it's that good a system, it will sell it's self and everybody will install it" The price will come down and like also stated above it will be just like any other feature "standard" on the saws.
Trying to mandate something in the US does tend to raise most folks hackles, we're a bit stiff necked about things when somebody comes up and says "This is how you're gonna do this, by the way you don't have a choice". Even if it's for our own good, we tend to be stuborn types.
I am kinda curious about a few technical aspects of the system. Not everybody keeps their shop in absolute perfect condition, some aren't weather tight, some are damp basements... How does this system handle adverse conditions. If it's relying on monitoring an electrical current through the blade will rust effect it?
What about nails? (I realize we should inspect our wood etc, but it does happen) Will hitting a nail in a piece of wood cause the safety to trip? I'm thinking hitting metal will cause a rather abrupt spike in conductivity and there by blow the stop. A block of aluminum hitting a spinning blade means that blade is toast, at $70 a reload plus $50 (or more) for a new blade, that's an expensive mistake. Does the saw function if you don't reload the cartridge?
For industry I'm thinking they're doomed to have to incorporate it. Insurance companies will make it happen if nobody else does. As with all things it will eventually trickle down to consumer level products. But just like the gaurds that are supposed to be on our saws now, how many are actually in place? I think that that will be the fate of this device as well for most of them.
My humbe two pennies worth of rambling... Take it as you will. :-)
Snip of views that you and I totally agree with.
Well, Mr. Gass did not just now decide to try and make this manditory on every saw. This was going on 3 or 4 years ago.
Well we partially agree here. I too do not want government to get involved in every thing, however you have to admit that in the real world this is not possible. The government is going to get involved, Period, I hate the thought of affirmative action, I hate that I have to buy insurance for me and the other guy to be able to drive and yet the guy that runs in to you has no insurance. My point of view is simple, of all the things that people have convinced the government to require and cram down my throat the SawStop is more palitable. I am not going to change my openion because of the way it is being or not being brought to market. Basically I am not going to cut my nose off to spite my face. I still make my judgement in the value of the product for what it is and not how it was brought to be.
George, read my other response to you. We probably agree more than disagree. I made some comments about my point of view.
I can't say I know everyone where I work, but I know 5 people have one, counting me. And then there's relatives that own one, so yeah, there's probably a lot of table saws out there.
Agreed! But I see this (the meeting) as the necessary political fluff. The collective lobby of the major mfg's will almost certainly water down what comes out of these panel diiscussions.
We'll see what happens when they get their contractor saw version out. I think I read something in the $750-800 range. $3000 for the cabinet version is pretty tough to take when you're using a $550 saw now. An extra $200 doesn't seem like very much for what you're getting.
But you can bet this is spurring every saw manufacturer to have their R&D department working on ways to do it while gettng around the guy's patent. They'll promise they're going to do it themselves without the law.
Once everyone is doing it I don't think it will be adding more than $100 to the cost
-Leuf
I don't think I will need your product. I already have one incorporated into my shop. Every time I come into the house with a new bruise, cut, bang or make to much noise in the shop SWMBO gives me the lecture.
Yeah, I know. I read the story in Design News today. Probably read some of the same stuff I'd read before but forgot. He definitely has an adversarial relationship with the tool makers.
BTW, aside from the tool industry being in opposition to this, Underwriters Laboratory (UL) is also in opposition to the CPSC filing. I'm taking that to mean that there's likely more to this than money or legal issues.
I'm thinking reliability and the possible issue of false triggering. Personally, I'd really hate to wreck a Forrest WW2 that way.
And now the matter of government regulation.
I don't know that we're going to completely agree on this. Here's where I am: Consider airbags in cars: I don't see the Saw Stop as a device of similar importance. There are far more cars than saws and the cost of injurys due to automobiles is surely far greater.
Where would you draw the line? Do you not already know that *all* the tools in your shop that have an edge can cut and injure? Are you careless with their use? I'll bet you and I already know the answers to those.
We're not talking cars, or building codes for bridges or space shuttles. We're talking table saws. Something that everyone knows can cut and maim if not outright kill. The rules of operation are clear. This is a cold piece of metal that has no feeling and simply cuts (or tries to) whatever contacts the blade.
So yes, this is where I draw the line. Enough is enough. The TS is NOT unreasonably dangerous. It does exactly what is required. It has sharp teeth, it cuts wood. It would cut my hand off too if I let it. You know that, I know that.
If it's o.k. to regulate a TS, then what? Your jointer? Planer? Bandsaw? What about the lathe? I've had chunks come flying off the chuck. Should there be a government rule for that?
I'm serious - where does it end?
Oh yeah, one other thing.
FWW did a report on tablesaws not long ago where the Saw Stop was favorable reviewed. Impressive.
I've also been to their website looking at their machine. Again, very nice. My personal preference in fences is a Biesemeyer, but I'll bet Delta isn't making a retrofit model for the Saw Stop. ;) hahaha
This came up on the first page-
While this is but one case, it shows that accidents do happen when proper procedure is not followed.
Tablesaw Accident - I'm an idiot OK... It's official.... I'm an IDIOT and my left thumb is almost a
1/2" shorter to prove it. This happened last Saturday, March 11.What was I thinking when I was....
- running a tablesaw when my mind was pre-occupied on another matter. (Biggest Mistake!!!!!)
- running a tablesaw without my blade gaurd in place
- running a tablesaw without using my push sticks.
Answer: I wasn't thinking at all.
Anyway.. not paying attention, I reached for the cut off material and put my thumb right into the blade. Cut the tip off instantly. Calmly shut everything down, walked upstairs squeezing my thumb and told my wife we had to go to the hospital. After her initial shock when I told her not to look at it and just get me a clean wet rag, we headed for the hospital.
I received great treatment by 2 orthapedic surgeons (one was in training). They took x-rays, saw that I cut a through the tip of the bone and also cracked it. After they numbed me up, we were all joking about it as they went to work. Snip some bone here, fold some skin there, put some stitches here... I was all patched up.
The Doc asked my wife how much she was selling my tablesaw for and she told him it was free... and to come get it if he was interested. Obviously, I failed to see the humor in that.
Anyway, the moral of the story is to have your mind on your work and tools and use common sense... which... obviously... I lack.
The longer you have to think about a $2000 upgrade, the easier that pill is to swallow. Had my TV broken down 2 years ago it would have been repaired. Since I had been looking at $2500 for a new one for the last 2 years the one I bought 2 weeks ago for $2000 was much easier to swallow. LOL
I hope you are correct about others coming up with other ways to add serious safety improvements as this is the first step taken in many many years towards user safety.
Finding the keyboard operational George Max entered:
Now that is just uncalled for. Do you know the OP? Then why do you attempt to discredit his statements this way. You only make your postings meaningless because of your attitude. Bob
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-- Coffee worth staying up for - NY Times
Yeah, LOL They are afraid of him, guaranteed.
A similar story, when I was 29 I worked for an Oldsmobile dealership in Houston. I was the service sales manager and during one of our weekly meetings with the owner he informed us on how a meeting went with all the area Old's dealers that took him to lunch and bought him drinks. Our franchise was only about 1 year old and the dealers wanted to tell our boss how " It worked". Our dealer decided to not have car salesmen and instead soaped the bottom sell price on the wind shield of each car. The customer paid that price, period. That price did not allow enough profit for a salesman and or his comission. The other dealers were loosing sales to us in a serious way and they did not like it. That workded very well for many years.
Sounds like it.
As would I however I enjoy or don't enjoy the value of actual experience and have a different view on that subject. I was not too big on the saw either until I learned from SawStop many years ago that the cartridge works when a dado blade is installed and when the saw is turned OFF. My accident involved both and was not during the normal operation of the saw. I certainly would have rather lost a blade than half of my thumb. Additionally I had the same view as most others here, I am too careful for this to happen to me. My friends and relatives could not believe that this happend to me, of all people. I had no idea what happeded until 1 year later when It almost happened again. Accidents happen whether you are prepaired or not. Thinking you are safe and thinking you are doing everything safely does not always work.
My line moves a lot. As I learn and become more experienced my line goes farther towards more safety. I already know that the tools in my shop can harm me with out being turned on. Its the ability to help prevent a more serious unexpected injury that concerns me more. Common injuries are easier to prevent. It's the injury that you have never heard of or dreamed about that is the one you cannot normally guard against.
I bet Steve Irwin never dreamed of what happened to him in the last couple of days. He seemed careless to many but obviousely he was no novice. Unfortunately he did not know all the possibilities and this possibility was the one that got him.
Should progress ever end??? What would be wrong with a safer jointer, or planer, or bandsaw? Most everything is expensive when first introduced but becomes cheaper to manufacture in quantity.
If government has to or does intervien for our safety, blame the tool manufacturers for maintaining status quo. The companies that we give our money to should have more interest in our safety than our government.
I hope safety advancements never end and I hope the manufacturers will learn to consider our safety before they are forced to do so by the government. The problem is that we have become lazy and too acceptable of the same ole same ole. Like it or not SawStop has brought a breath of fresh air to the tool industry.
Finding the keyboard operational George Max entered:
let me explain. First of all this is not going to lead to SawStop being mandated. It may lead to more tablesaw safety which is a good thing for all of us. This was an open meeting. Do you think that saw and other safety equipment manufacturers. weren't there? Do you think that someone else may be working on another method to prevent table saw injuries? None of this is occuring in a vacumm and in the long run will save all of us money. For every worker that gets injured there is a very real possibility that the cost of insurance will increase. This will be passed down to the consumer as higher prices of course. As insurance prices go up, some Mfrs will have to close their doors. More likely ship their manufacturing overseas. More unemployment, another ding in your paycheck. Remember the poor guy who got cut? Could be that he's hurt bad enough that when his disability runs out, he's going on Social Security Disability. Guess who pays for that. Oh, don't forget the food stamps.
Now for all you young people who weren't around in the early 60's, nothing that has been said about the government forcing something down your throat wasn't said back then about seatbelts. At the time, seatbelts were adding about $50.00 to the cost of the car. Go to the NTSB site and look up how many lives seatbelts have saved.
Bob
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-- Coffee worth staying up for - NY Times
Great post Bob, Its nice to enjoy a comment from some one that has an open mind about the big picture and not just about how something will affect you personally.
Yeah, but $50 on a $10000 car is a bit different than $400 on a $2000 saw.
(Remember, currently Sawstop has multiple patents on the concept, and wants 8% of the purchase price in royalties on top of the added cost of the mechanism.)
Chris
Great post Chris, Its nice to enjoy a comment from someone that has an open mind about the big picture.
I'm not opposed to safety features but I agree with those that say, "hey a tablesaw is dangerous watch what you're doing". A TS is not nearly as common as a CMS or a sawzall. To me a sawzall is far more dangerous than any TS.
And here is my anecdotal CMS story. Buddy of mine had to replace the gears in his saw and reached around to turn it on. Allen wrench ended up completely embedded in the palm of his hand with about 1/2" of the long end visible. Ambulance ride, X-rays, local anistetic (sp?) and the doc just pulled it out with a twist. No permanent damage except his pride.
There are plenty of tools a lot more common than the TS that can hurt people except nobody has figured out a way to patent a feature to make money from govt. mandate. If I remember correctly Volvo has many of the automotive safety patents and didn't/doesn't charge the other manufacturers to use them. Pretty sure their seatbelt mechanism is the one still used today. If this guy is really all about safety he could let the other companies use his patents gratis...
Look up Reahard v (Lee County Florida et al). That case went all the way to the supreme court who let the lower court ruling stand. Reahard won about $22 million dollars for the "taking" of 40 acres in Bonita Spirngs Florida (wetlands). There are some rules but if you bought the property and it was OK for development at that time, they have to pay you if they "take" that right away by declaring it a wetland. If you actually have someone who is being screwed have their lawyer look up "Reahard". I am not sure who was still fighting Richard Reahard by the time it got to the US court of appeals. There were several government agencies involved
Also not accurate. There have been at least 2 amnesties that allowed you to add a legally owned machine gun to the "registry" alas if you didn't do it by 1986 it can't be added. They cut off new machine gun additions then. Any machine gun that is in the registry can be bought and sold with the purchase of a $200 tax stamp and the OK from BATF, FBI and your local chief law enforcement official. (assmung there are no state/local laws against owning one). Check out subguns.com to see some that are for sale. If you are in a blue state it probably won't be OK with your local CLEO
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