SawStop?

[Dave Hinz]

I'd like to see some production models and statistics before they should even bring up it being mandatory. "You must use this crap that doesn't work!" isn't a good way to build a userbase.

[Dave Hinz]

Companies have more incentive to have a safe environment than Joe Woodshop has. You've heard of OSHA, I assume? They don't put up with the crap that was going on in, say, the Triangle Shirt Factory.

That would be the PCBs that, at the time, weren't known to be a problem, that independant scientists agree are better left _undisturbed_ than stirred up, and that people who feel about things rather than think about them want dug up anyways, those PCBs?

I also notice you just morphed the issue from "employee safety" to "seeing into the future to avoid environmental problems", was that intentional?

[J]

Factories or woodshops? Legal or illegal labor? I've heard of deaths in nightclubs...

-j

[rcook5]

In a manner of speaking.

GE was using PCBs in the first place as a safety measure. They were used in electrical equipment such are large transformers and capacitors as a fire retardant. In fact they were considered such an essential safety measure that there was no market for products that didn't contain PCBs. (The modern replacements are inferior.)

Nor were PCBs generally considered a dangerous contaminant during almost all the period GE was discharging wash water with PCBs as an accidential contaminant. (AFIK there was no deliberate dumping of quantities of PCBs. At least I can't find any reference to it in a quick search of the literature.)

You're badly overstating your case.

--RC

Projects expand to fill the clamps available -- plus 20 percent

[rcook5]

Actually no. Seat belts were widely available in the aftermarket and were beginning to appear in all kinds of cars. The process was in the early stages so naturally OEM seat belts were more readily available in higher end cars. But they were easy to install as an accessory.

I don't know if you're aware of it, but you're repeating a piece of Naderite propaganda that was concocted out of the experience Ford had in 1956 when it offered seat belts and better door locks as part of a very expensive 'safety package' on its cars. Ford advertised the features heavily, but its pricing was so far out of line that the features didn't sell well. Nader and his ilk jumped on the situation and proclaimed that "safety doesn't sell" and that car makers wouldn't make safer cars

Well, not exactly. What really lowered the cost was the development of a new kind of sensor which was much, much cheaper.

And air bags are NOT cheap. Try repairing a car after the air bags deploy and you'll see what I mean. What air bags are is subject to jiggered economics that let the manufacturer push most of the cost off onto the customer who needs one replaced.

You would never get away with desiging an engine the way air bags are designed.

Nor are air bags as effective as seat belts. The whole rationale behind air bags was that they would protect the people who were too stupid to wear seat belts.

Which doesn't change the fact that SawStop is a kluge. There are undoubtedly better ways to do the same thing -- ways that don't destroy the saw blade for example. But if the government mandates SawStop, those methods will never be developed.

(And don't kid yourself about how the specification will be drawn. It may not say 'SawStop' but it will be written so only SawStop technology can meet it -- no matter how superior other approaches may be.)

--RC

Projects expand to fill the clamps available -- plus 20 percent

[rcook5]

Actually it was 1956

weren't good but this was in large part due to marketing and pricing issues.

--RC

Projects expand to fill the clamps available -- plus 20 percent

[rcook5]

The FAA did a cost-benefit study and unlike Congress, they listened to the results.

Untrue. The public had a growing demand for seatbelts, both as after market equipment and installed in cars. Later the Naderites used Ford's marketing failure to claim that people wouldn't buy safety equipment unless the government forced them to.

Ford sales went down because the 1956 and 1957 Fords were outdone by their rivals from GM. They were essentially early-50s concepts and GM had already shifted to late-50s style. Also Ford was in the middle of one of its periodic spells of ineptness. After it was all over a few people tried to excuse Ford's failures by claiming 'safety doesn't sell'. Considering what was going on at Ford this was lame at best.

They were not standard. They were options.

Later when they were mandated it put all the manufacturers on an equal footing, which was

The main benefit of the legislation was that it speeded up the general adoption of seatbelts by a few years.

I think you're generally correct there.

--RC

Projects expand to fill the clamps available -- plus 20 percent

[Larry Jaques]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 00:01:33 -0500, Hank Gillette calmly ranted:

I'll be their first thousand (or ten) replacement mechanisms go to people for false-activation (people who sawed wet wood or otherwise touched a safe part of the blade, etc.) and the lawsuits start the moment the things get into people's shops. It eats the blade and the mechanism whenever it's triggered. Tell that to the guy who accidentally loses TWO Forrest WWII blades in one day, eh? the SawStop is an almost-good idea with an expensive appetite. No thanks. I won't even be looking at them, especially at that really exhorbitant price.

[Hank Gillette]

Those would be the ones. While they may have not known that they were a problem, I doubt GE actually thought they were doing anyone a favor (other than themselves) by dumping them in the river.

As to whether they are better off left undisturbed, a cursory look on the Internet indicates that GE might have distorted the kind of dredging that would be done. The final order from the EPA came during the George W. Bush administration, and dredging was supported by Governor Pataki.

No, I didn't morph anything. I said earlier that "You really don't have to look too hard to see that employee safety and the public good are not very high on the priority list of most companies." It's just easier to point out the cases where the public good is involved, because they get more publicity.

As far as looking in the future, do you really believe that GE thought PCBs were totally benign? Or was it just cheaper for them to look the other way and dump their waste into the river as long as they could get away with it?

[Hank Gillette]

Ignoring for the moment that there's not a chance in hell that the Bush administration is going to make it a requirement, why do you believe that the regulation would be written so that only SawStop would meet the requirements? As far as I know, they don't have any friends in high places.

There may indeed be better ways to do the same thing (although stopping a 10 inch saw blade running at full speed within a fraction of a second without damaging seems to me to be a non-trivial problem), but I don't see any sign that anyone else is working on or even interested in doing it.

[Mike Marlow]

What you and I don't know though Hank, is at what cost did he offer to license it to the manufacturers? It's one thing for Gass to make that statement, but it does not tell the whole story.

[Mike Marlow]

All of them. In fact, what the Germans and the Japanese did with FM radios as standard equipement in automobiles is precisely what would have taken place with airbags and seatbelts. They would have introduced them to their "niche" crowd as standard equipement, they would have been recognized as value added, and the American automotive industry would have followed suit to remain competitive. The market would have succeeded again - without government help.

Not true. It just takes recognition that there is a market.

About as much as there is now. A good deal of what is thought of as government regulated safety is government regulated hassle. Not to scoff at safety, but the government gets a lot of credit for things it did not bring about. The government is much better at creating cumbersome regulations than it is at really effecting safety.

[Charlie Self]

don't they?

Charlie Self "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Sir Winston Churchill

[Charlie Self]

And the small commercial wood shop often uses very little in the way of safety devices. If they even have table saw guards, they have trouble finding them. Dust collection is minimal. Noise reduction is haphazard.

Sounds a lot like my non-pro shop, in fact, where OSHA doesn't reign (the oft used Oh, Shit, Here Again doesn't apply very well for small shops that often come in under regulatory radar).

Charlie Self "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Sir Winston Churchill

[J]

Because the draft proposal was clearly written so that it matched the SawStop patents. We believe it because we saw it with our own eyes. No one is making that stuff up.

-j

[rcook5]

Experience with the way government regulations are written makes me believe that. This is reinforced by the fact that the guys running SawStop are lawyers, which means they know how to influence the process -- or enough to hire lawyers who know how to influence the process.

Presumably that would be somewhat different if there was a chance the regulation would be adopted. However this isn't a matter of bribery -- exactly.

Jiggering the rules for your benefit is a complex, sophisticated process but it's a well known art. In part it depends on defining the problem to the regulators, in part it depends on the fact that the people writing the draft rules are usually surprisingly ignorant of the details of the industries they are regulating, and in part it depends on hiring the right people to argue your case for you. You can take it as given that anyone with enough sophistication to get something to the stage of drafting a proposed rule knows how to play the system like a pinball machine.

I could write a long dissertation on how it's done, based on how I've seen it done at both the state and federal level, but for now let's leave it at that.

It is a _very_ non-trivial problem. Which is why it hasn't been done before.

Because one thing SawStop is very good at is getting publicity. Things like capacitance switches and fast machine brakes aren't exactly new technology.

--RC

Projects expand to fill the clamps available -- plus 20 percent

[Doug Miller]

Their petititon requested that the regulation be written in such a manner.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com You must use your REAL email address to get a response.

[Bruce Barnett]

Good point. I'm in the "wait and see" catagory.

[Larry Jaques]

On 15 Dec 2004 13:32:47 GMT, Bruce Barnett calmly ranted:

I seem to have lost the "t" on "I'll bet" up there, haven't I? Yeah, let's pay double (triple? quadruple?) the price for a saw so a lawyer can make money.

[Grant P. Beagles]

A lot of safety issues were brought about through union demands. The government bowed down to labor and legislated safety as an afterthought. (and no! I am not a union man)

Grant

"J. Clarke" wrote: