SawStop Test

CALA Workshop · 2005-02-01T20:14:22+00:00

THE TEST:SawStop provided us with a demo cartridge and we tested the SawStop on Thursday, January 13th.I cut a variety of materials such as: wood, plywood, melamine, acrylic, mdf. etc. I enabled the bypass and cut aluminum, green treated and stapled pine. When in bypass mode you will get a code in flashing lights indicating whether the SawStop would have triggered. The lights indicated that the SawStop WOULD NOT have been triggered by cutting the green treated or the stapled pine, so I proceeded to cut them with the SawStop on.I then got out the drumsticks and cut one in bypass mode. It's amazing how easy it is to cut through a drumstick, pretty gory and except for the lack of blood, not unlike a shop accident. I've always thought of doing this during shop orientations, but decided that it could encourage sophomoric actions (the last thing they need is encouragement).I'd been asked by some rec.woodworkers to push the stock rapidly into the blade in order to get an idea how much damage would be done in the case of a slip or similar accident.So to test the SawStop I jammed the drumstick into the blade nearly as fast is I could, the blade promptly disappeared and with virtually no resistance I proceeded to IMPALE the chicken leg onto the riving knife (oh the shame).RESULTS:SawStop works: the blade definitely stopped and definitely dropped (observers indicated that this happened too fast to discern). Since the drumstick was impaled on the riving knife, I have NO IDEA, how much damage the drumstick sustained from the blade before it's encounter with the riving knife. As you can imagine this was a little embarrassing. Here we've spent $6000 on saws that "save fingers", and I've got a chicken leg skewered by a chunk of steel, not so impressive.Coincidentally, the SawStop went off again the first time we tilted the blade as we had neglected to provide adequate clearance for the aluminum fence on the sliding table. DOH!!! Steven and/or David: any chance of getting...

Feb 01, 2005 61 Replies

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Dave Hinz 21 years ago

Good point, but why lose it's impact by posting it anonymously?

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Leon 21 years ago

Like using Dave Hinz would in any way add impact?

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