Saw Stop

If a kick back takes your hand into the blade, you're feeding from the wrong end of the saw.

I was speaking of the irony of using a saw stop equipped saw but not taking the simple safety precaution of removing a watch.

This seems unlikely, to say the least -- since kickback moves *away* from the blade.

If that were possible, yes it would. The blade does not really care from what direction it is touched to transfer the signal to engage the Stop.

Ooooohhhh..

Not yet, but my work is in the risk management field. It is close to being a metaphysical certainty that the insurers will do this as soon as they realize that there is an option.

The cost of replacing a table saw with a saw stop is trivial, $3500 is nothing compared to the cost of a negligence lawsuit. The risk of injury is clearly very high, the cost of the injury anywhere up to a million dollars or so (kid loses hand).

If you want to make something happen fast there are two ways to do it, either you make it an audit requirement or you make it an insurance requirement.

"Phillip Hallam-Baker" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

What would more likely happen in our district is that they would simply close down the remaining shop programs, and retire the few shop teachers still active.

A shame, too.

Patriarch

According to an article I read the classic injury pattern is that the material being kicked back strikes the operator on the left hand side of their torso causing them to pivot about their right foot bringing their right hand forward and across the blade.

If the object hits you square in the chest then maybe you go backwards. But a glancing blow is going to send you spinning and even if your center of mass is going backwards your body is still moving forwardsl.

You're right - I've heard that tune before

I think some of the concerns folks have relate to it providing a false sense of security. You still need to treat with the same respect as any other tablesaw. It can, and will, kickback with some impressive force. It's like airbags in a car. You still need a seatbelt. You still need to drive safely.

People that don't fasten their seatbelts because, "I've got airbags," or are careless with their table saw because, "It's a SawStop," are just accidents waiting to happen. Like Ron White says: "You can't fix stupid."

That said, I've been running one for about 6 months now and have had no misfires to date. I consider it a worthwhile investment on 2 fronts:

One parting FYI, SawStop and Freud dados reportedly do not play well together. Something like the Freud being a bit smaller than 8" and not supplying a strong enough signal to prevent false positives. The SawStop rep said the Forrester dado was known to work, so I went with that instead of the Freud. This may have been fixed by now, but as I have a working dado, I have no inclination to persue it.

dcm

The SawStop rep said the Forrester dado was known to work, so I went with

Subaru makes dado blades now? :~)

Thanks very much, Devon - high value info.

In other words "no". I suspect that any insurance company that told a school district to replace a power tool with another one that was more costly and didn't work any better would be told that their services would no longer be required.

This assumes of course that they do not self-insure already.

If that's the case, insurance companies would have mandated air bags in cars, no smoking in homes, etc.

A drum set falls down the hill -- barump bum.

Yeah, my bad, that should have been Forrest as in Forrest Dado King, not Forrester as in 4-wheel drive.

dcm

Well, there are discounts for both however insurance companies cannot require you to do business with them. Air bags pay for themselves in insurance premium discounts.

Why would an insurance company give a discount for a piece of equipment that is required by law to be present?

In a school or training environment, I could probably be persuaded that this was a good idea. But once the insurance companies "realize that there is an option" it's not too far a stretch to see that other tools could utilize this same technology. What happens when insurers mandate that everything from tablesaws to grinders to routers and circular saws are equipped with similar mechanisms? That $3500 multiplied by X might not be so trivial after all.

It is still quite possible to buy a used car that is not equipped with air bags, or even seat belts for that matter. AFAIK there is no jurisdiction in the country that has required retrofitting either.