Greetings and Salutations.

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 22:13:08 GMT, jim wrote:

Andy Dingley wrote:
*snip*
about 6 months ago there was a show on tv that showed a new circular saw
that was being sold that the operator held a hot dog by the blade.. when
the blade hit the hot dog it quit and the electric brake went on and the
hot dog just had a little nick in it... unlike a finger that might have
been cut off with an older saw(one without this new brake)..... i never
did see them hit the market.. like the $35 plastic circular saws of now
would have to cost about $140 or more... $35 for the saw and $110 for
the new brake??????
Yea, that system, called "the Saw Stop", has been quite a
point of discussion over on the woodworking newsgroup. Seems that
the manufacturer/inventor did all these demos (about a year or so
ago, actually), and tried to sell it to the manufacturers as a
safety device. However, they could not sell it, because of several
problems - including the fact that it would have added $200 or so to
the cost of the saw. It also has a fairly expensive ($50 or so)
cartridge that needs replacing when the thing triggers. Finally
(at least in my mind) there was the question of long-term reliability.
After all, if one of these things fails and a consumer's body gets
chewed up, the liability lawyers would have a field day.
Alternatively, if age causes it to misfire at random moments,
it will be an expensive add-on for the consumer - not to mention
the annoyance of being half-way through a project on a Saturday
night, and NOT being able to get the saw back up and running.
Another problem is that this is not an "add-on". It has to be
engineered into the saw itself, so is a major re-design.
Well, a few months ago, the creator of the system, in the
spirit of the automobile insurance industry and a number of other
annoying scams, tried to make an end-run around the lack of consumer
support by getting a bill through Congress that would have mandated
the system on all table saws sold in the USA. I believe that, after
a great outcry, the bill was quietly dropped. However, it was
pretty danged annoying as it was such a blatant attempt to force
money out of our pockets for a bit of technology that was
problematical at best.
Oh yea...the lack of consumer appeal was proved by the fact
that although they DO "offer" the saws on their website
(www.sawstop.com), there is no evidence that any of these saws
exist or have been sold, in spite of being "available" for a year
or more.
Regards
Dave Mundt