"brian roth" wrote in message
om...
FWW had a short write up about the first pre-production sawstop cabnet
saw.

More pictures at www.sawstop.com. I didn't like thier efforts to force
the technolgy on all saws, but applaud them building a better mousetrap.

For some interesting reading, look at the Power Tool Institute (industry
group) comment to the CPSC petition contained in pgs. 35-69 of this file:
http://www.cpsc.gov/LIBRARY/FOIA/FOI.../REDUCEPT2.pdf
and pgs.1-29 of this file:
http://www.cpsc.gov/LIBRARY/FOIA/FOI.../REDUCEPT3.pdf

Alot of reading, some of which is legalese, but alot of food for thought.
Some highlights:

-- Testing of a prototype Sawstop showed a very high rate of false trips
(alot of detail given in the comment)

-- The UL standard for tablesaws (UL987) is under review for addition of a
requirement for a mandatory riving knife

-- Estimated US tablesaw population is 6 million with sales of about 750k
per year. They have some back of the envelope stats that claim on a per saw
cut basis that injuries are rare. I would take that analysis with a big
grain of salt.

Personally, I think the Sawstop concept is great, but would want to see some
hard real-world data that shows it works. Even if it does, it shouldn't be
a mandated feature.

Tim