On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 07:42:19 -0500, dpb wrote:

And, if you'll read Sawstop's literature, you'll note it specifically
points out the technology does NOT prevent accidents, it merely limits
the consequences of one...that can't be all bad.

Which is why they originally wanted to require all saw manufacturers
to license their technology, right? I'm not saying you can't buy a
SawStop if you want, it's fine with me if you have that kind of money
to throw around and want to feel safer, I just worry that feeling
safer makes people less careful and less prone to practice safe
techniques.

You should be relying on yourself, not on your tools, to keep yourself
from being injured.

On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 09:56:21 -0500, "Leon"
wrote:

Like most people know, looking down the barrel of a loaded gun is not going
to save your butt if you pull the trigger and the safety is not engaged and
whether the safety is engaged or not it is a dangerous move. I think it
goes with out saying that most mature people realize that nothing is fool
proof and that placing a body part near a blade spinning at 100 mph is still
going to instill a sense of fear regardless if the operator knows that the
safety device will prevent injury 99.99% of the time.

No, most people know that standing in front of a loaded gun is stupid,
safety or no safety, just like reaching across a running sawblade
without a guard is stupid. It isn't any less stupid because you stick
a SawStop on it. Nothing is foolproof, it doesn't matter that you've
got a riving knife and anti-kickback pawls, you don't go standing in
the line of fire because that wood could come shooting back at you.
But you know, it isn't the safety equipment that makes you safe, it's
the techniquest that you use. Certainly the safety equipment can help
but it can never replace just being careful and thinking about what
you're doing.

It's funny, just about everyone I know who has had an accident has
said "I should have known better". Yes, they should have. Accidents
don't just magically happen, they are a failure on some level of the
operator or the equipment.

Brian Henderson wrote:
On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 07:42:19 -0500, dpb wrote:

And, if you'll read Sawstop's literature, you'll note it specifically
points out the technology does NOT prevent accidents, it merely limits
the consequences of one...that can't be all bad.

Which is why they originally wanted to require all saw manufacturers
to license their technology, right? ...

I don't think that follows directly, no. Why they wanted manufacturers
to license their product was they had a large investment in a product
which they thought marketable and had an (initial) business plan that
didn't include making the saw themselves.

Their technology was/is certainly clever, innovative, and successful in
addressing a market niche, but that's required of almost any product to
be successful.

You should be relying on yourself, not on your tools, to keep yourself
from being injured.

It's not a zero-sum game, though. Again, to reiterate, Sawstop does
nothing to _prevent_ an accident; in fact, an accident has to happen for
it to have any effect (neglecting the Type II error). It will almost
certainly mitigate the effects of that accident, however.

Safety is dependent on a combination of all the things that goes into
the operation from the design and manufacture of the tool to the music
blaring in the background. Operator attention and proper usage is
surely a major factor but as others have noted, the unexpected is often
the culprit.

And, as my final word, again from my experiences w/ accident analysis, I
can't number the times I've heard the expression of "I've _always_ done
it that way!" or "It seemed safe to me!". And, of course, those stories
were told by those that survived to tell their tale... It is
certainly fortunate that the most severe of woodworking incidents are
not likely to be fatal.

--

Brian Henderson wrote:
....

...Accidents don't just magically happen, they are a failure on some level of the
operator or the equipment.

There's one nugget w/ which I agree. Of course, I had to take it out of
context to _fully_ agree, but, hey, you take what you can get...

I said I wasn't going to add more, but hadn't seen this response at the
time and this was too good an opportunity to waste...

BUT, the above truism said, your emphasis would say the punchpress the
previous respondent talked about would be perfectly safe if it were
designed originally to be operated as he described the jury-rigged
operation -- after all, all it takes is the operator not failing...

Simply for your consideration of the position of safety-related design
and equipment in the equation...

--

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 09:56:21 -0500, "Leon"
wrote:


No, most people know that standing in front of a loaded gun is stupid,

People think that they will not get hurt on a TS are stupid. Equil logic
used here.




It's funny, just about everyone I know who has had an accident has
said "I should have known better". Yes, they should have.

Which just proves that they too ar human and had a lapse in judgement.


Accidents don't just magically happen, they are a failure on some level of
the
operator or the equipment.

Now you are getting the picture. Call it what you like practicing safety
does not prevent all accidents.

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:45:32 -0500, Frank Boettcher
wrote:

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:39:16 -0500, Leuf
wrote:

On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:20:48 -0500, Frank Boettcher
wrote:

So how many people should it take to get hurt using an ill advised
"safety" device before either OSHA or the manufacturer would be moved
to specify or make something that works?

Well ideally there would be enough pressure for your company to be
going straight to the manufacturer saying your latch doesn't work for
us, on one side of me I've got my guys bitching they get hurt if they
use it and on the other I've got OSHA bitching if I don't use it. Do
something. But yes in reality it's just easier to pay the fine and
nothing changes until somebody gets killed.

With your last sentence, you must be assumming that there is an
inherent danger without the latches, and that somebody is more likely
to get killed with them removed. Certainly, my opinion would not be
the same. Maybe I don't share your confidence that the bureaucrat who
wrote the regulation was competent to do so.

No the last sentence I was talking more in general, that the status
quo gets maintained until something terrible happens and then everyone
wonders why no one did anything about it.

But you can imagine a situation where the latches were removed and an
accident happened that had nothing to do with the latches not being
there, but the media would get a hold of OSHA citing you for not
having them and be all over it but have lost interest in the story by
the time anyone actually figured out what really happened.

But my point is just that if the regulation says you gotta have the
latch but there are no serious repurcussions for ignoring the
regulation then there is no reason for anyone to either fix the
regulation or the device.


-Leuf

"Leon" wrote in message

I do not know your arrangement but rather than modify a saw to be lower,
could you modify or build up the floor around the saw? If you have a
wooden floor could you cut a hole in it and install a lower surface to set
the saw into? Or perhaps build up the floor around equipment that is or
is
marginally too tall?

Yes, raising the floor around the saw is usually a first suggestion, but it
comes with it's own set of unique problems.

It virtually eliminates putting any tools so organized on mobile bases.
That's a big problem unless one has a large shop to play with. Many cabinet
table saws I've looked also have some type of mechanical component like a
dust port near the base of the saw. In all fairness, there could be some
advantages to a raised floor too, such as running dust collector tubing
under a raised floor. Occasionally, I have been on raised wooded floors and
truthfully, it's irritating. I feel the vibrations from rolling on such a
floor whereas I'm infinitely more comfortable rolling on a flat, solid, hard
unforgiving surface. I'm sure I'd feel much different if I was walking on
these surfaces, but I'm not and never will be.

However, these things are not my biggest concern and that is the fact that
I'd be rolling up and down little ramps depending where I was going and what
I was doing. In 1987, I rolled down an 8" ramp with an elevation of 3" and
tipped my wheelchair over. I broke both legs. To this day, I can remember
the pain and months of aggravation from being in a wheelchair with casts on
my legs. Ever since then I've always been terrified of doing the same thing
again. Obviously, it's a personal paranoia that I have to deal with, so I
intend to mitigate it by lowering a table saw rather than raising myself.

That's my explanation and I'm sticking to it.

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message

Which is why they originally wanted to require all saw manufacturers
to license their technology, right? I'm not saying you can't buy a
SawStop if you want, it's fine with me if you have that kind of money
to throw around and want to feel safer, I just worry that feeling
safer makes people less careful and less prone to practice safe
techniques.

You should be relying on yourself, not on your tools, to keep yourself
from being injured.

You do have a good point. If seatbelts and airbags were removed from cars,
people would pay more attention to driving and the accident rate would
plummet. For the few that do die, that is just "thinning the herd".

Think of the money to be saved by ditching head restraints, ABS, and
collapsible steering columns. A section of 1" pip can to the same think,
lots cheaper. People have just become to complacent.

I'm surprised that no one hear has realized the solution. The expanded foam
tablesaw blade. Easily fitable to any saw and would render it totally safe.
What an idea. I could make millions.

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
et...

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message

Which is why they originally wanted to require all saw manufacturers
to license their technology, right? I'm not saying you can't buy a
SawStop if you want, it's fine with me if you have that kind of money
to throw around and want to feel safer, I just worry that feeling
safer makes people less careful and less prone to practice safe
techniques.

You should be relying on yourself, not on your tools, to keep yourself
from being injured.

You do have a good point. If seatbelts and airbags were removed from cars,
people would pay more attention to driving and the accident rate would
plummet. For the few that do die, that is just "thinning the herd".

Think of the money to be saved by ditching head restraints, ABS, and
collapsible steering columns. A section of 1" pip can to the same think,
lots cheaper. People have just become to complacent.

CW wrote:
I'm surprised that no one hear has realized the solution. The
expanded foam tablesaw blade. Easily fitable to any saw and would
render it totally safe. What an idea. I could make millions.


Wishful thinking...Your financial windfall and then some would be swallowed
up in lawsuits.......Do you realize what kind of "rug burn" you can get from
a spinning wheel of expanded foam? Rod

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 04:46:32 GMT, "CW" wrote:

I'm surprised that no one hear has realized the solution. The expanded foam
tablesaw blade. Easily fitable to any saw and would render it totally safe.
What an idea. I could make millions.

You had to post it... Some politician is probably already drafting a
law! They can sell them next to the low flush toilets and V-chips.

Pssssst... wanna' buy a METAL saw blade?

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 23:58:57 GMT, "Leon"
wrote:

People think that they will not get hurt on a TS are stupid. Equil logic
used here.

But millions of people do not get hurt on a TS every year, it is only
a tiny percentage that ever sustain serious injury.

Now you are getting the picture. Call it what you like practicing safety
does not prevent all accidents.

It prevents the overwhelming majority of them and vastly minimizes the
damage if one ever does occur. If you are never standing in the line
of fire from a kickback, you will never get hit by one. If you
practice good tablesaw safety, it should take extraordinary
circumstances to ever get seriously injured by one. That's just a
fact of life.

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 04:46:32 GMT, "CW" wrote:

I'm surprised that no one hear has realized the solution. The expanded foam
tablesaw blade. Easily fitable to any saw and would render it totally safe.
What an idea. I could make millions.

Now try to require that the entire tablesaw industry use your, and
only your blades. Heck, they tried it with SawStop.

"CW" wrote in message
nk.net...
I'm surprised that no one hear has realized the solution. The expanded
foam
tablesaw blade. Easily fitable to any saw and would render it totally
safe.
What an idea. I could make millions.


Get started on the tooling; a four cavity would be nice. I have the machine
time to make them.

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
....

You should be relying on yourself, not on your tools, to keep yourself
from being injured.

You do have a good point. If seatbelts and airbags were removed from cars,
people would pay more attention to driving and the accident rate would
plummet. For the few that do die, that is just "thinning the herd".



Nicely put, Edwin...

--

CW wrote:
...The expanded foam tablesaw blade...would render it totally safe.
....

Not hardly -- the eye injuries from radial disintegration would have it
off the market in a week...

--

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 04:31:26 -0500, "Upscale"
wrote:

Whether he actually owns one is mostly irrelevent in this case. As well,
there can be other reasons why a proponent of Sawstop safety might not own
one. Leon is arguing the benefits of the Sawstop in this case against
Brian's "impossible for me to get hurt" responses.

No one has ever said it's impossible to get hurt, but the reason I
haven't gotten hurt isn't because I've got the
safety-equipment-from-hell, it's because I know how to work safely.
Is it possible I might get seriously hurt someday? Sure, anything is
possible. Am I going to be paranoid about it? Nope.

We see far too many people who rely on technology to keep them safe
and just don't bother actually learning how to *BE* safe in the first
place. That's the objection.

I'll tag onto Brian's comment with a bit of reinforcement. I believe he's
right in that look how often we see posts here about accidents happening to
folks with all sorts of safety equipment on their tools. Yet, somehow the
accidents happen. Brian isn't arguing against safety equipment, he's
arguing in favor of the most fundamental of all safety equipment -
awareness. Wait long enough and a post will appear about someone who
whacked off a couple of fingers on a SawStop saw, just like we read about
kickback and fingers in blades with splitters and push sticks and...

--

-Mike-

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 23:58:57 GMT, "Leon"


If you are never standing in the line
of fire from a kickback, you will never get hit by one. If you
practice good tablesaw safety, it should take extraordinary
circumstances to ever get seriously injured by one. That's just a
fact of life.


BS!

This is simply another example of you not knowing even the more common of
situations of what can happen during a kick back.

Kick backs do not always go straight back. They can and do go all
directions back from the blade. Standing any where in the correct position
is always in the line of possible fire from a possible kick back.

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
. net...

"CW" wrote in message
nk.net...
I'm surprised that no one hear has realized the solution. The expanded
foam
tablesaw blade. Easily fitable to any saw and would render it totally
safe.
What an idea. I could make millions.


Get started on the tooling; a four cavity would be nice. I have the
machine
time to make them.


So do I.

On Sat, 9 Jun 2007 13:58:30 -0400, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:

I'll tag onto Brian's comment with a bit of reinforcement. I believe he's
right in that look how often we see posts here about accidents happening to
folks with all sorts of safety equipment on their tools. Yet, somehow the
accidents happen. Brian isn't arguing against safety equipment, he's
arguing in favor of the most fundamental of all safety equipment -
awareness. Wait long enough and a post will appear about someone who
whacked off a couple of fingers on a SawStop saw, just like we read about
kickback and fingers in blades with splitters and push sticks and...

That's absolutely true. I've already said that I think the SawStop is
a fine machine, at least from what I've heard and read in reviews, but
it is expensive, simply because it has a piece of technology on it
that doesn't stop accidents (like a blade guard, splitters, etc), it
just stops you, in theory, from getting injured in an accident. I'm
not saying that there's anything wrong with that, but the way to avoid
injury isn't to stick another piece of nanny technology on your saw,
it's to be more careful to begin with.

This isn't even like automotive safety equipment. In a car, you can
still have some other idiot run into you and cause you damage, but a
tablesaw is pretty much a solo piece of equipment. You're not going
to get sideswiped by someone else driving their tablesaw through your
shop. The cause of just about every tablesaw injury is user error,
using it while tired or impaired, not practicing sensible safety
precautions, making dangerous cuts, not waiting until the saw blade
has stopped, etc. *ALL* of these are completely avoidable. You'll
never need the SawStop if you never put your fingers into the blade,
as an overwhelming majority of woodworkers manage never to do.

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 18:04:24 GMT, "Leon"
wrote:

Kick backs do not always go straight back. They can and do go all
directions back from the blade. Standing any where in the correct position
is always in the line of possible fire from a possible kick back.

Oh sure, they can get you in the next room, around the corner too!
Some have even been known to lie in wait and ambush you when you're
least expecting it.

"Mike Marlow" wrote in message
...

I'll tag onto Brian's comment with a bit of reinforcement. I believe he's
right in that look how often we see posts here about accidents happening
to folks with all sorts of safety equipment on their tools. Yet, somehow
the accidents happen. Brian isn't arguing against safety equipment, he's
arguing in favor of the most fundamental of all safety equipment -
awareness. Wait long enough and a post will appear about someone who
whacked off a couple of fingers on a SawStop saw, just like we read about
kickback and fingers in blades with splitters and push sticks and...


I'll restate that you have to be blind to not be intimidated by a blade
spinning at 100 mph whether you know it is not going to cut you or not.

Brian however started this all off with the statement,,

Lots of us though have been doing this for decades and still have all our
fingers and toes, just because
we know what we're doing.

WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP.

People that know what they are doing, make mistakes and get hurt.

Slowly Brian has changed his comments that align a bit more with more
sensible comments.

Brian Henderson wrote:
On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 18:04:24 GMT, "Leon"
wrote:

Kick backs ...
....
...been known to lie in wait and ambush you when you're
least expecting it.

Those, in fact, are the most common kind...

--

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
The cause of just about every tablesaw injury is user error,
using it while tired or impaired, not practicing sensible safety
precautions, making dangerous cuts, not waiting until the saw blade
has stopped, etc. *ALL* of these are completely avoidable. You'll
never need the SawStop if you never put your fingers into the blade,
as an overwhelming majority of woodworkers manage never to do.

Yes, they are all preventable. The real problem is human error. Aside from
you, the rest of us have made errors at times with varying consequences. I
certainly try my best to avoid accidents with tools, but if it does happen,
it would be nice to be able to have a method of making it less serious. We
have a choice available. We have the freedom to decide if we want to buy
that equipment.

Eye protection, hearing protection, its all a choice in a home shop.

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 22:02:11 -0500, Leuf
wrote:

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:45:32 -0500, Frank Boettcher
wrote:

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:39:16 -0500, Leuf
wrote:

On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:20:48 -0500, Frank Boettcher
wrote:

So how many people should it take to get hurt using an ill advised
"safety" device before either OSHA or the manufacturer would be moved
to specify or make something that works?

Well ideally there would be enough pressure for your company to be
going straight to the manufacturer saying your latch doesn't work for
us, on one side of me I've got my guys bitching they get hurt if they
use it and on the other I've got OSHA bitching if I don't use it. Do
something. But yes in reality it's just easier to pay the fine and
nothing changes until somebody gets killed.

With your last sentence, you must be assumming that there is an
inherent danger without the latches, and that somebody is more likely
to get killed with them removed. Certainly, my opinion would not be
the same. Maybe I don't share your confidence that the bureaucrat who
wrote the regulation was competent to do so.

No the last sentence I was talking more in general, that the status
quo gets maintained until something terrible happens and then everyone
wonders why no one did anything about it.

But you can imagine a situation where the latches were removed and an
accident happened that had nothing to do with the latches not being
there, but the media would get a hold of OSHA citing you for not
having them and be all over it but have lost interest in the story by
the time anyone actually figured out what really happened.

But my point is just that if the regulation says you gotta have the
latch but there are no serious repurcussions for ignoring the
regulation then there is no reason for anyone to either fix the
regulation or the device.


Valid points.

Frank

-Leuf

"Leon" wrote in message
BS!

This is simply another example of you not knowing even the more common of
situations of what can happen during a kick back.

Give it up Leon. It's obvious that he's trolling just to get some attention.

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 19:13:08 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski"
wrote:

We have the freedom to decide if we want to buy that equipment.

Indeed we do, at least since they laughed at the idea of requiring it
on all saws.

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 18:27:14 GMT, "Leon"
wrote:

Brian however started this all off with the statement,,

Lots of us though have been doing this for decades and still have all our
fingers and toes, just because
we know what we're doing.

WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP.

That's why people like Norm and David Marks still have their fingers
and toes, right? Neither of them uses a SawStop, do they?

Yes, what a load of crap. Gotcha.

Brian Henderson wrote:
On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 19:13:08 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski"
wrote:

We have the freedom to decide if we want to buy that equipment.

Indeed we do, at least since they laughed at the idea of requiring it
on all saws.
Actually, the CPSC responded favorably, the position paper they wrote is
available by googling their site, but the other saw manufacturers filed
their own brief in opposition. It's still under consideration.

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 19:13:08 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski"
wrote:

We have the freedom to decide if we want to buy that equipment.

Indeed we do, at least since they laughed at the idea of requiring it
on all saws.


Who exactly is "they" that laughed? You must be a drama student as ALL of
your statements have lot'sa drama. How's that working out for you in real
life? You really need not answer that question.

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 18:27:14 GMT, "Leon"
wrote:

Brian however started this all off with the statement,,

Lots of us though have been doing this for decades and still have all our
fingers and toes, just because
we know what we're doing.

WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP.

That's why people like Norm and David Marks still have their fingers
and toes, right? Neither of them uses a SawStop, do they?

Yes, what a load of crap. Gotcha.


You got squat.

What is the price of a finger ??

Jr

http://community.webtv.net/awoodbutcher/THENORTHCOASTPT

Jerry - OHIO wrote:

What is the price of a finger ??

Jr

http://community.webtv.net/awoodbutcher/THENORTHCOASTPT


It looks like somewhere around $2,500:

http://www.usatf.org/membership/bene...pInsurance.asp

--
Jack Novak
Buffalo, NY - USA

wrote:
Howard,

I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much
decided on getting the SawStophttp://www.sawstop.com/. It looks like
a high quality saw and the safety features can't be beat. It is
about double what I had
..... Thoughts, comments, advice?


Just heard from a local HS shop teacher - he's getting two of them. He
gets a kickback accident ever so often (more rarely, due to his
teaching
skills and the many eyes in the back of his head, I'm sure), but
he simply can not afford a possibility of an amputation accident.

In a high school shop I can imagine the "bad boy" touching the edge of
the blade, thereby triggering the Sawstop and using up a cartridge and a
blade just to disrupt the class.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:54:28 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

wrote:
Howard,

I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much
decided on getting the SawStophttp://www.sawstop.com/. It looks like
a high quality saw and the safety features can't be beat. It is
about double what I had
..... Thoughts, comments, advice?


Just heard from a local HS shop teacher - he's getting two of them. He
gets a kickback accident ever so often (more rarely, due to his
teaching
skills and the many eyes in the back of his head, I'm sure), but
he simply can not afford a possibility of an amputation accident.

In a high school shop I can imagine the "bad boy" touching the edge of
the blade, thereby triggering the Sawstop and using up a cartridge and a
blade just to disrupt the class.

--
More likely he will "accidently" touch it with a piece of metal or
wet wood. A couple of those a week and the entire shop program will
again learn the use of a hand saw as the shop budgets won't buy many
cartidges and blades.

Dave Hall

J. Clarke, wrote the following at or about 6/13/2007 1:54 PM:

Just heard from a local HS shop teacher - he's getting two of them. He
gets a kickback accident ever so often (more rarely, due to his
teaching
skills and the many eyes in the back of his head, I'm sure), but
he simply can not afford a possibility of an amputation accident.

In a high school shop I can imagine the "bad boy" touching the edge of
the blade, thereby triggering the Sawstop and using up a cartridge and a
blade just to disrupt the class.

Just need a bit of rewiring with a randomized timer AND a large sign
which reads:

"USE EXTREME CAUTION! This SawStop saw is equipped with an intermittent
safety device which has the safety feature fully enabled 90% of the
time. Do you feel lucky?"

Unquestionably Confused wrote:
J. Clarke, wrote the following at or about 6/13/2007 1:54 PM:

Just heard from a local HS shop teacher - he's getting two of them.
He gets a kickback accident ever so often (more rarely, due to his
teaching
skills and the many eyes in the back of his head, I'm sure), but
he simply can not afford a possibility of an amputation accident.

In a high school shop I can imagine the "bad boy" touching the edge
of the blade, thereby triggering the Sawstop and using up a
cartridge and a blade just to disrupt the class.

Just need a bit of rewiring with a randomized timer AND a large sign
which reads:

"USE EXTREME CAUTION! This SawStop saw is equipped with an
intermittent safety device which has the safety feature fully enabled
90% of the time. Do you feel lucky?"

Won't stop him. You don't have to touch the teeth to trigger the
cartridge. Touch anywhere on the blade and it goes. And if he touches
it and it _doesn't_ go then it's lawyer city. Understand, the objective
is not to see if the stop works, it's to disrupt the class.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

In article , J. Clarke
wrote:

wrote:
Howard,

I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much
decided on getting the SawStophttp://www.sawstop.com/. It looks like
a high quality saw and the safety features can't be beat. It is
about double what I had
..... Thoughts, comments, advice?


Just heard from a local HS shop teacher - he's getting two of them. He
gets a kickback accident ever so often (more rarely, due to his
teaching
skills and the many eyes in the back of his head, I'm sure), but
he simply can not afford a possibility of an amputation accident.

In a high school shop I can imagine the "bad boy" touching the edge of
the blade, thereby triggering the Sawstop and using up a cartridge and a
blade just to disrupt the class.

CAUTION: the parents of any student triggering the safety mechanism
will be charged the cost of the replacement cartridge plus labor. This
will be approximately $200.00.

--
Vince Heuring To email, remove the Vince.

On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 07:01:14 -0700, dpb wrote:

On Jun 4, 7:40 pm, "Howard Swope" wrote:
I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStophttp://www.sawstop.com/. It looks like a high quality
saw and the safety features can't be beat. It is about double what I had
originally wanted to spend. My thought was that if it prevents one injury it
has easily paid for itself. An extra 2 grand seems like a lot of money until
you weight it against the loss of a finger(s), and then that 2 grand seems
like nothing.

Thoughts, comments, advice?

The cost/risk analysis is certainly weighed heavily in the favor of
prevention by the high cost of a single incident...

My thought is if I were buying for a commercial shop and certainly if
I either were going to have employee(s) or others besides myself using
it I'd consider it almost a given.

For home shop it gets more subjective -- usage typically is way down,
time pressure of production, etc., are generally far less, etc., so
risks _should_ be lower. OTOH, there's the possibility of less
experience/familiarity, may be more likely rather than less to make a
poor choice of operation or how to most safely perform a given
operation, so risk _might_ be as high or even higher...

All in all, if have the budget, from what I've seen of the saw at a
single show and from reviews, seems hard to say you could go wrong
with going that way. The only negative I've ever heard (other than
the diatribe kind of stuff) was one reviewer a couple of years ago
commented that his test machine turned off on its own a couple of
times while using it--not a hard-stop false firing, simply the on/off
switch dropped out. One would presume this was either an isolated
faulty switch or the problem has been resolved by SawStop by now--I've
certainly heard no more about it.

IMO, $0.02, ymmv, etc., etc., ...

- dpb

Those False Stops could be tough! I was told that replacing the module
after a STOP runs about $65,00 and I'm sure there is shipping and tax
added to that. BUT then I did see a live demo and sure looked like it
would be hard to find that "smarter idiot" to defeat it.
(from an idiot that filleted a finger tip himself)
My .02 worth

On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:58:58 -0500, Frank Boettcher
wrote:

On Tue, 5 Jun 2007 10:21:52 -0400, "Lee Michaels"
wrote:


"Swingman" wrote

Unfortunately, I can do one better for a "table saw accident" when not
cutting wood. I "filleted" a thumb, to the tune of 13 stitches, on a TS
with
the blade off and not even plugged in!

Always endeavoring to be safety conscious, and taking advantage of all
opportunities to further that goal, I was installing an overhead blade
guard, and, in the process, created a perfectly functioning guillotine.


Oh the irony, the irony.

I can think of a couple safety phobic folks I knew who would point to this
incident as "proof" that safety procedures and devices just don't "work".
LOL


Sometimes they don't.

In an earlier life I was a welder making offshore oil platforms and
deck sections. These things were loaded on barges using two bridge
cranes that had two hoists each at 250 tons capacity each so 1000 tons
total capacity The hooks were very large as were the cables that
attached to them.

Crane hooks are required by OSHA to have spring loaded safty latches,
that is they spring out of the way when you push on the cable loop and
spring back when you get the cable on. Picture cables as large as your
upper arm with a swedged loop that required two men to lift onto the
hook. The hook latches were so large the spring back was mashing
peoples hands. So we took the latches off. Got cited by OSHA. Asked
the OSHA inspector to demonstrate how to get the cables on with the
saftey latches without getting hurt. He declined, admitted that
logically we were right, but had to cite us anyway "got to go by the
book". We also were curious as to how a crane hook loaded to 250 tons
could have a cable slip off the hook if there were no latch. Our
limited knowledge of physics could not fathom that happening. He
declined to explain or to cite any specific statistics.

Overhead blade guards, however, are very good safety devices (provided
you can get them on without getting hurt in the first place).

Frank

OSHA is one of the greatest BS components of the government today! AND
the principle reasons for companies to outsource!!
I was charged 3500.00 when my people were taking down a tower of
scaffolding FROM a sissor lift and one stepped out on the scaffold to
pick up a walk board. OSHA sent me a picture and the charge for "no
hand rails". We had the best safety record in the industry according
to my insurance co. Our country is destroying itself with political
correctness and lack of personal responsibility.