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

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...

SawStop - read rec.woodworking for more discussion of it.

Dreadful company. They're trying to play the liability card and hoping
for government intervention to make their frippery gadget mandatory on
all new saws.

However as any woodworker can tell you, blade+finger accidents are
rare. In Europe they're almost unheard of, because we use much better
guarding than is usual in the USA (as in we use any guards - the USA
generally doesn't).

What gets woodworkers is a "kickback" accident, where the blade picks
up the piece of timber and throws it at you. The SawStop does nothing
to avoid such accidents and it encourages a feeling of false security.
There's a simple no-moving-parts device called a "riving knife" that's
again usual practice in Europe and avoids most kickback accidents -
however they're not widely used in the USA.

I use one in my Unisaw- it's easily removable, and for most operations it's
virtually unnoticed. I cringe when I see some idiot cross-cutting plywood
against the fence (the same guys are too cool to use a splitter or a guard,
of course)