CPSC Proposes New Safety Rule for Tablesaws

[krw]

I'd prefer to see them work on smarter people.

[krw]

I read it as the saw must only cut your weenie to a depth of 3.5mm.

[krw]

That's understandable. If there truly is a problem, insurance companies will know how to mitigate their exposure. The consumer has a choice. The problem comes when government bureaucrats make rules they have no skin in.

[Spalted Walt]

[krw]

I was going to say "more than 3.5mm" but on second thought, maybe not.

[Puckdropper]

"J. Clarke" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I put my two cents in. The site only asked for your comment and first and last name, plus simple classification so they know from whence you comment. Most of us will probably be Individual/Consumer.

Nice to see I didn't have to create an account.

Puckdropper

[Leon]

Wow Robert, you really are not familiar with the SS at all it would seem. Replacing the brake takes a couple of minutes. Have you not seen a demo? As far as not having a spare replacement brake goes, why would you not have one on hand? Would you drive out of town with out a spare tire? :-)

[DerbyDad03]

I'll take a shot at that:

Job site saws will be used by workers who may not know how to, and aren't responsible for, fixing equipment when it breaks down. The job site could be a workshop or a construction site.

In the case of a construction site, it's easy to imagine that the replacment parts and/or qualified personnel may not always be readily available.

In either case, the replacment parts had better be under lock and key or they are going to be stolen by the workers who have brake-mandated table saws at home.

[Ed Pawlowski]

You all make good points. I've seen many safety devices disconnected and procedures ignored. You may open a safety gate to slick out a piced of crap in a mold, but I've never seen anyone lock out and tag out to do that, as required. There will be a lot of problems in independent shops, but you will get good compliance in utilities and places that are hard ass on safety and compliance.

The independent shops will comply after the first saw accident, especially if OSHA is notified.

[dpb]

...[impassioned plea elided solely for brevity]...

...

...

My take is while such arguments may fill volumes of comments, CPSC has already pretty-much dismissed them if one reads the comments addressed in the submittal; they've come up with the regulator's view that the only thing that has value is additional regulation and whether the regulated are happy about or not isn't of particular concern.

The one of potential cost/downtime has at least some negative impact on the cost:benefit ratio and I'm not sure I saw that particular cost addressed altho as noted I've not gotten all the way thru the details as of yet. What would be important would be some way to have estimates on what those numbers really would turn out to be and if one could rationally make them significant-enough to help turn what they currently have as quite large positives owing, of course, to the fact that a single emergency-room visit is quite a high number and their statistics on incident numbers are quite large. (Whether those are at all realistic is another issue but I don't know there's a way to dispute them but somehow I suspect reporting isn't the best as far as relating the actual injury to the root cause).

[Leon]

First off the triggering of a SawStop brake does not require a repair. It is designed to have the brake trigger and to be removed and replaced multiple time a day. I do this on my SawStop sometimes 4 times a day.

In the case of the SawStop, brake replacement is simpler than changing the blade, AND no tools are required to replace the brake. The only tool needed is a wrench to take the nut off of the arbor to remove the blade. If your crew can't do that you have other problems.

Well, a qualified person with a SawStop could be your 10 year old daughter. If you are skilled enough to replace the blade or turn on the saw you are qualified to replace the brake. A replacement brake and maybe a blade is all you would need. If you go to a job site with out spare blades that is a problem in itself. If you use a job site saw with a replaceable brake and do not have a spare that is also a problem in itself, not a saw issue. Would you go to a job site with only one trash bag or would you carry spares? AND I wonder how many contractors carry a spare arbor nut? Those get dropped and lost more often than you think.

I can see your argument and the concerns but right now these are not issues that exist. The only saws available with safety features to stop or drop the blade are simple to perform the replace of the mechanisms.

No more likely to be stolen than any other item, like a circular saw, drill, spare blades, etc. And for that matter the brakes are quite small and can easily be hidden in a vehicle or locked in a tool box like any other tools that you don't want to walk off. The brakes for a SawStop are smaller than a small box of drill bits or two packs of cigarettes.

Now having said all of this I have 4 years experience with owning and operating a SawStop. None of these worries have been an issue. I will also say that I have triggered my dado set brake and that was my own fault, and the saw was well out of warranty. No damage was done to the dado set but SawStop replaced the brake at no cost to me anyway. I did have a spare however, now I have more spares. To detail that a bit more, I had switched from a normal blade brake to a dado set brake. The air gap needs to be set when changing from 10" to 8" blades. This is a matter of turning a hex head bolt two complete turns, that hex head bolt is painted yellow and you look right at it when you remove the table insert. I am clueless why I did not do it this time.

Yes this could happen on the job site too but that was operator error and the blade brake is intended to protect the worker from operator error. It is more likely the worker would do something to trigger the brake that would cause an injury.

And I realize that many or at least a few feel that they do not need the protection. I am not one of them, I cut half of my thumb off 28 years ago because I did not have this technology available. The accident was my fault but happened after I finished my cut and turned the saw off. The SawStop would have prevented it.

And maybe on the job site you have a trigger during a cut, and you don't have a spare brake. 99% of the time that is not going to be a big deal as missing 4-5 hours getting another brake is much better than the time spent going to the ER and later possibly rehab and certainly workmans comp going up.

Food for thought. It's 1895 and you are walking out of the general store to load your wagon with the dry goods you just purchased. As you are unhitching your horse you hear Mr. Bigshot coming down the muddy street in his new fangeled horseless carriage. Hold on to your horse so that he does not get spooked and dart out into the path of Mr. Bigshot. Damn that machine, it makes a lot of noise, belches out smoke, and does not stop short for anyone. The contraption is a menace to society.

Three years later, same circumstances, except this time Mr. Bigshot is driving his new "automobile". It is so much better than the one he was driving just a few years ago, the new one has brakes!

Imagine driving vehicles today with out brakes because some one way back when thought that they could control their vehicle and bring it to a stop with out brakes.

[Leon]

Uh Huh.

[Leon]

Maybe one of us is.

"Specifically, the proposed rule would establish a performance standard such that table saws, when powered on, must limit the depth of cut to

3.5 mm when a test probe, acting as a surrogate for a human body/finger, contacts a spinning blade at a radial approach of 1.0 m/s.

This specifically states that the limit of the cut must be limited to

3.5mm WHEN A TEST PROBE, ACTING AS A SURROGATE contacts the spinning blade.

The way you see it which is contrary to what was actually stated does make much much much more sense than the way I see it and how it was actually written.

Most likely what they meant to say was what you said, although it did not say that. LOL

I seriously thought that the power hungry committees wanted to regulate how any and all saws must be capable of being used for demonstrations vs. actually being used.

They should have said that the blade can not cut more than 3.5mm into the operator during normal use.

[Leon]

[Keith Nuttle]

If you are getting your finger in the blade four times per day triggering the saw stop, you are the person this thing is designed for. I would suggest you stop and read the safety manual and pay more attention to what you are doing when around a saw of any kind.

Most of us have been using table saws for many years, some have never got their finger in the blade. Some like me have only got a finger against the blade once in 50 years. In that case a saw stop would have only complicated the problem, as it was a STUPID mistakes. I cut the finger on the blade and did not cut it off.

[Leon]

Wow you really made me look like the town fool by taking my comment out of context.

FWIW that is when I change the brake out 4 times a day.

If you had re-posted the part where I mentioned that you have to switch brakes when changing from a 10" to 8" blade....

You would not be looking like the fool.

You said,

Most of us have been using table saws for many years, "some" have never got their finger in the blade. "Some" like you have only got a finger against the blade in 50 years.

Thank goodness the rest of the "many" did not make the mistake you made. You Sir, are a candidate for a Saw Stop. It happened once, it can happen again.

[krw]

Or their insurance cancelled.

[krw]

Typical bureaucrat's attitude - my mind is made up, facts? What are those?

Regulators don't care about (and likely don't understand) cost/benefit analysis. OTOH, insurance companies are pretty good at giving the customer the cost numbers.

I wonder what two regulations the CSPC is going to give up for this one?

[krw]

I've had a couple of nasty cuts off my saw. Of course it wasn't running either time. SS wouldn't have helped, though it wouldn't have cost a cartridge, either.

[dpb]

On 05/25/2017 11:57 AM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

Au contraire; they're required by law to perform same--

"According to section 9(f)(1) of the CPSA, before promulgating a consumer product safety rule, ..." ... "The Commission also must find that expected benefits of the rule bear a reasonable relationship to its costs and that the rule imposes the least burdensome requirements which prevent or adequately reduce the risk of injury for which the rule is being promulgated. Id.2058(f)(3)(E)&(F)."

From Section II, "Statutory Authority", pp 3ff of the CPSC [RIN 3041-AC31] Docket No. CPSC-2011-0074 Safety Standard Addressing Blade-Contact Injuries on Table Saws AGENCY: Consumer Product Safety Commission. ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking.

In the SUMMARY: section, the following is found as the conclusion of said summary--

"The proposed rule would address an estimated 54,800 medically treated blade-contact injuries annually. The Commission estimates that the proposed rule?s aggregate net benefits on an annual basis could range from about $625 million to about $2,300 million."

Now, you're going to be hard pressed to find additional cost of blades and brakes to overcome $2.3B in predicted benefits.