I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

Thanks,
Howard

Got the money? Get the saw. Maybe a little overpriced till you need that
instant stop!!! It is a very nice saw. Hopefully you'll never need the stop
but it's there for piece of mind.

Tim

"Howard Swope" wrote in message
news:Yh29i.3763$jW6.287@trnddc01...
I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

Thanks,
Howard

Got the money? Get the saw. Maybe a little overpriced till you need that
instant stop!!! It is a very nice saw. Hopefully you'll never need the stop
but it's there for piece of mind.

Tim

"Howard Swope" wrote in message
news:Yh29i.3763$jW6.287@trnddc01...
I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

Thanks,
Howard

"Howard Swope" wrote in message
news:Yh29i.3763$jW6.287@trnddc01...
I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

Thanks,
Howard


As many would attest, I would strongly recommend it if you can afford it.
Having lost half of my thumb 18 years ago on a TS that I had turned off,
you can not be too careful.
From most reports, everyone is happy with their purchase of the SawStop and
it appears to be a top quality product.

"Howard Swope" wrote in message
news:Yh29i.3763$jW6.287@trnddc01...
I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

Damn, but that's the question of the century!
I thought only an idiot could put their hand into a TS; then I nearly cut my
finger off on a BS last year. Now I am not sure.
(It has healed cosmetically perfectly, but still hurts at times.)

I think that all woodworking tools are dangerous. The solution is to be
really careful using all of them; not to spend $2000 to make one safer. For
instance, I now use push blocks when routing a rabbet on a picture frame,
when a year ago I would have used my hands.

"Toller" wrote in message
...


Damn, but that's the question of the century!
I thought only an idiot could put their hand into a TS; then I nearly cut
my finger off on a BS last year. Now I am not sure.
(It has healed cosmetically perfectly, but still hurts at times.)

Actually only an idiot thinks that it cannot happen to them.


I think that all woodworking tools are dangerous. The solution is to be
really careful using all of them; not to spend $2000 to make one safer.
For instance, I now use push blocks when routing a rabbet on a picture
frame, when a year ago I would have used my hands.


And that is a good upgrade in the thought process of operating procedures
but accidents often happen when there is no wood being processed. And I
thought only an idiot could cut half their thumb off when not cutting wood.
;~)

"Leon" wrote in message
et...

And that is a good upgrade in the thought process of operating procedures
but accidents often happen when there is no wood being processed. And I
thought only an idiot could cut half their thumb off when not cutting
wood. ;~)
Me too. I put a "to-the-bone" notch in the end of a finger a few years ago
with the saw's motor off. I flipped the switch off, started to walk away,
and realized I had left a cut-off piece on the table. I carelessly
overreached the still spinning blade and "bang"!

That's a hard hit when bone is involved. Very painful, but an invaluable
lesson in safety. I am lucky, and a much more careful woodworker for it.

RonB

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?

Thanks,
Howard

I've read some of the reviews on the SawStop, and as others say, its a
good quality saw. You could argue about how much extra the safety
feature is costing compared to the extra quality you are purchasing.
With fence, table, 5 hp motor, you are about $3600. About $1000 or so
more than a similar Powermatic 66. Is that too much to pay?

If I were looking to spend $3600 or so for a table saw, I would not
buy a SawStop. I would look at one of the European sliding tablesaw
models. Might have to pay a bit more than $3600, but I think you get
a far more useful saw with the built in next to the blade sliding
table. And the sliding table adds considerable safety. And the
European saws also come with a riving knife like the SawStop. The
cabinet saw (Unisaw) is a product of the 1930s. I can understand why
SawStop chose to make a cabinet saw with their safety feature since
that is the only kind of saw Americans know and buy. But I think they
missed the boat by not putting their safety feature into a far more
usreful, modern sliding table saw.

If the sawstop TS was available when I bought my TS I would have spent the
money. Think about it the extra cost over the life of the saw, which is
likely a minimum of twenty years. Take the extra cost and divide by twenty.
Still sound like a lot of money. If you need something to push you over
the edge here it is. "Do you ever have children in the house? " Anyone who
thinks they can keep an eye on a kid all the time is a fool. Accident
prevention is the cheapest when done before the accident. Last but not
least ask someone who has lost a body part in a accident if they would
prefer it never happened. Never meet someone who would say no.

Paul

"Howard Swope" wrote in message
news:Yh29i.3763$jW6.287@trnddc01...
I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

Thanks,
Howard

wrote in message
I can understand why
SawStop chose to make a cabinet saw with their safety feature since
that is the only kind of saw Americans know and buy. But I think they
missed the boat by not putting their safety feature into a far more
usreful, modern sliding table saw.


They didn't miss the boat as it is still on the way over from Europe. Fact
is, a slider would not sell well here. Be it right or wrong, that is a fact
of life and they want to make money so they went for a saw that will have
higher potential sales volume.

On Jun 4, 8:40 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?

Thanks,
Howard

I've had 8 1/2 fingers for thirteen yrs now. That experience makes
your question easy for me. Oh and by the way, as far as I can tell,
you can't get around paying at least a $400 s&h fee on top of that
$3600 someone else mentioned. Still worth every penny to me.

"RonB" wrote in message
...

"Leon" wrote in message
et...

And that is a good upgrade in the thought process of operating procedures
but accidents often happen when there is no wood being processed. And I
thought only an idiot could cut half their thumb off when not cutting
wood. ;~)
Me too. I put a "to-the-bone" notch in the end of a finger a few years
ago with the saw's motor off. I flipped the switch off, started to walk
away, and realized I had left a cut-off piece on the table. I carelessly
overreached the still spinning blade and "bang"!

That's a hard hit when bone is involved. Very painful, but an invaluable
lesson in safety. I am lucky, and a much more careful woodworker for it.

RonB

Yeah, the bone being hit is pretty violent. I still remember how my whole
hand shook as I cut it away from the tip of my thumb between the nail and
the finger print up to the first joint. I also remember the nurse at the ER
commenting "Knarly".

Unfortunately I was clueless what happened. I initially thought I had a
kick back until I opened up my hand that was clutching my left thumb. I
never could figure out what happened until I almost did it again about 1
year later. One year later I did the same thing, I finished cutting a
through dado and turned the saw off. Then I reached with my left hand to
the far end of the rip fence to lift it up and off the table top. This time
however I felt the wind coming off of the dado set. Fortunately this time
my thumb was too short to come in contact with the blade. Now I watch the
blade come to a complete stop before making any adjustments.

"Howard Swope" wrote in message
news:Yh29i.3763$jW6.287@trnddc01...
I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

Thanks,
Howard

My answer would be that only you can answer that question. The good thing
is, if you decide to spend the money, you're not compromising on the saw
from everything I've read. I'm a Kelly Mehler disciple and believe that a
person cannot be 100% focused on using proper technique 100% of the time
over the course of their working life. And even when using proper
technique, accidents happen. Sometimes it results in a part flying across a
room (done that), sometimes it results in a kickback (see Stoutman's recent
experience), sometime it results in a finger getting nicked, and sometimes
much worse. In my opinion, if I had the money available, I'd spend the
extra $$ to get the SawStop.

todd

On Jun 4, 10:17 pm, "Leon" wrote:

This time however I felt the wind coming off of the dado set.
Fortunately this time my thumb was too short to come in contact with the blade.

Damnit Leon... talk about wry and dry. "Fortunately this time my
thumb was too short to come in contact with the blade."

I laughed so hard I almost fell out of the chair!

Thank Gawd you cut half your finger off long before so you were
actually safe. It's a good thing; you coulda been hurt!!!!

Talk about being grateful for small favors...

Take 'em where you can get 'em, eh buddy?

I'm still laughing.

Robert

wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jun 4, 10:17 pm, "Leon" wrote:

This time however I felt the wind coming off of the dado set.
Fortunately this time my thumb was too short to come in contact with the
blade.

Damnit Leon... talk about wry and dry. "Fortunately this time my
thumb was too short to come in contact with the blade."

I laughed so hard I almost fell out of the chair!

Thank Gawd you cut half your finger off long before so you were
actually safe. It's a good thing; you coulda been hurt!!!!

Talk about being grateful for small favors...

Take 'em where you can get 'em, eh buddy?

I'm still laughing.

Robert



Yeah, yeah, that's uh, that's right. ;~)

No sense in grieving about what's done, might as well look on the bright
side.

Leon wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jun 4, 10:17 pm, "Leon" wrote:

This time however I felt the wind coming off of the dado set.
Fortunately this time my thumb was too short to come in contact with the
blade.
Damnit Leon... talk about wry and dry. "Fortunately this time my
thumb was too short to come in contact with the blade."

I laughed so hard I almost fell out of the chair!

Thank Gawd you cut half your finger off long before so you were
actually safe. It's a good thing; you coulda been hurt!!!!
[snip]
Yeah, yeah, that's uh, that's right. ;~)

No sense in grieving about what's done, might as well look on the bright
side.

Not to mention those great deals on factory reject gloves! g

"Leon" wrote in message

And that is a good upgrade in the thought process of operating procedures
but accidents often happen when there is no wood being processed. And I
thought only an idiot could cut half their thumb off when not cutting
wood.
;~)

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.

The E-room logged me in as a "table saw accident" ... though I doubt that I
skewed the statistic by much.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 6/1/07
KarlC@ (the obvious)

"Swingman" wrote in message
...
"Leon" wrote in message

And that is a good upgrade in the thought process of operating procedures
but accidents often happen when there is no wood being processed. And I
thought only an idiot could cut half their thumb off when not cutting
wood.
;~)

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.

The E-room logged me in as a "table saw accident" ... though I doubt that
I
skewed the statistic by much.


It's getting pretty bad then the safety device is the part of the saw that
gets you. ;~)

"Leon" wrote in message

It's getting pretty bad then the safety device is the part of the saw that
gets you. ;~)

Pretty much my usual run of luck ... if you haven't noticed.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 6/1/07
KarlC@ (the obvious)

Howard Swope wrote:
I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

Thanks,
Howard


When common sense and caution fail us, as they do all of us at one point
or another, the safety device would be nice to have.

I however can't get over the greedy inventor's attempt to legislate his
device into every saw in the US. When his invention wasn't snapped up by
all of the major manufacturers as he assumed it would, he lobbied to
make it illegal to manufacture or import saws without a safety device
(his being the only one that would meet the requirements) installed.

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

--

"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

On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:40:24 GMT, "Howard Swope"
wrote:

I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

I'd like to see how much the contractor saw version ends up costing,
now due out at the end of the year according to their website. Plenty
of saw for a home shop so long as it has a good fence on it.


-Leuf

Have you ever seen a sawstop on the used market? They don't have
any dissatisfied customers that I've ever heard of. If you can
afford to pay the extra, you're right -- one injury prevented will
make it worth all the additional cost and more.

Howard Swope wrote:
I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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?

Thanks,
Howard

We've all heard this anecdotally. How much direct knowledge do you
really have of the inventor's greed and disdain for humanity?
Even if he lobbied to have the device made mandatory, maybe it
was because of his own blood-draining experience and was completely
altruistic.

Meanwhile, manufacturers of everything we consume lobby AGAINST
consumer safety, encouraging the government to let them use more
dangerous components and make more wasteful products. Do you have
a car or truck? How altruistic do you think the vehicle manufacturers
are?

Russ wrote:

I however can't get over the greedy inventor's attempt to legislate his
device into every saw in the US. When his invention wasn't snapped up by
all of the major manufacturers as he assumed it would, he lobbied to
make it illegal to manufacture or import saws without a safety device
(his being the only one that would meet the requirements) installed.

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

Well, we could certainly debate this ad nauseam. Please note that I did
not say that he had disdain for humanity, and if you choose to believe
that his motives for having his device mandated by law were completely
altruistic, perhaps you might consider that he did not offer to give it
away; he offered to license it.
Suffice it to say that I personally am tired of having new laws passed
every time some special interest decides something is in their or
everyone else's best interest.


Mike Berger wrote:
We've all heard this anecdotally. How much direct knowledge do you
really have of the inventor's greed and disdain for humanity?
Even if he lobbied to have the device made mandatory, maybe it
was because of his own blood-draining experience and was completely
altruistic.

Meanwhile, manufacturers of everything we consume lobby AGAINST
consumer safety, encouraging the government to let them use more
dangerous components and make more wasteful products. Do you have
a car or truck? How altruistic do you think the vehicle manufacturers
are?

Russ wrote:

I however can't get over the greedy inventor's attempt to legislate
his device into every saw in the US. When his invention wasn't snapped
up by all of the major manufacturers as he assumed it would, he
lobbied to make it illegal to manufacture or import saws without a
safety device (his being the only one that would meet the
requirements) installed.

On Jun 5, 11:30 am, Mike Berger wrote:

....top posting repaired...

Russ wrote:
I however can't get over the greedy inventor's attempt to legislate his
device into every saw in the US. When his invention wasn't snapped up by
all of the major manufacturers as he assumed it would, he lobbied to
make it illegal to manufacture or import saws without a safety device
(his being the only one that would meet the requirements) installed.

We've all heard this anecdotally. How much direct knowledge do you
really have of the inventor's greed and disdain for humanity?
Even if he lobbied to have the device made mandatory, maybe it
was because of his own blood-draining experience and was completely
altruistic.

Meanwhile, manufacturers of everything we consume lobby AGAINST
consumer safety, encouraging the government to let them use more
dangerous components and make more wasteful products. Do you have
a car or truck? How altruistic do you think the vehicle manufacturers
are?

I have read a summary by a reviewer of what was reported as a summary
of an hour-long telephone interview w/ the inventor/principal of
SawStop which essentially recounts his/their supreme disappointment w/
the failure to achieve a licensing arrangement w/ any of the existing
vendors. Unfortunately, what wasn't revealed was any of the details
behind the position or requirements of the licensing to allow for any
judgement of greed or any other motive other than to know that no
agreement came to fruition. There was, apparently, an agreement w/
one manufacturer that led to a signed a document but something (also
undisclosed) caused that agreement to also fall through. It is open
record of the petition filed subsequently (still unacted upon but not
rejected as I understand it). One can not, of course, unerringly
abscribe motive to action, but certainly it appears at least
superficially as though a business plan was to try to force
accepatance rather than enter into production independently.

As for the red herring of the automakers, it isn't their job to be
altruistic--they're a business who's objective is to provide a product
attractive enough to find a market and to be able to do so at a
profit. That, of course, is SawStop's objective, too.

--

Mike Berger wrote:
We've all heard this anecdotally. How much direct knowledge do you
really have of the inventor's greed and disdain for humanity?
Even if he lobbied to have the device made mandatory,

In April 2003, sawstop filed a petition with the Consumer Product Safety
Commission to make SawStop-like technology standard on all table saws.
If adopted by the CPSC, this ruling would carry the weight of law, and
make illegal the sale or manufacture of any new table saws without this
patented technology.

On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:40:24 GMT, "Howard Swope"
wrote:

I am getting ready to make a table saw purchase. I have pretty much decided
on getting the SawStop http://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.

The quality of the saw is excellent, you won't be sorry having it as a
saw. As far as the safety mechanism, there's always a lot of
discussion on how necessary and/or worthwhile it is. Someone who
practices safety to begin with should never need the SawStop mechanism
because their fingers will never be anywhere that they could be
harmed. Further, lots of people have reported false trips of the
mechanism and at about $200 per trip, that can add up since you have
to replace the cartridge and blade. If you don't have an extra on
hand, you're out work time as well.

In the end, if it's worth it to you for the peace of mind, then do it,
you'll be happy with the quality of the saw and hopefully, you'll
never need the SawStop mechanism. 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.

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
...


The quality of the saw is excellent, you won't be sorry having it as a
saw. As far as the safety mechanism, there's always a lot of
discussion on how necessary and/or worthwhile it is. Someone who
practices safety to begin with should never need the SawStop mechanism
because their fingers will never be anywhere that they could be
harmed. Further, lots of people have reported false trips of the
mechanism and at about $200 per trip, that can add up since you have
to replace the cartridge and blade. If you don't have an extra on
hand, you're out work time as well.

"If" the device works correctly only 1 time, you could have an additional
100 false trips and the extra expense would still be well worth the extra
cost. $200 per trip is an assumption. If you are using an inexpensive
blade the trip is closer to $100 or less including the new cartridge. A
majority of the triggers save thousands of dollars in medical costs. Most
all that have reported false triggers have been compensated in some way by
SawStop and have been assisted in determining a reason and remedy for the
false trip.

In the end, if it's worth it to you for the peace of mind, then do it,
you'll be happy with the quality of the saw and hopefully, you'll
never need the SawStop mechanism. 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.

Accidents happen whether you practice safety or not. NO ONE is 100%
incapable of having an accident. To think otherwise is pretty naive.

"Upscale" wrote in message
...

The Sawstop is not for people who are prone to accidents, it's for those
times when the unexpected happens and it happens to everybody, except
Brian
Henderson of course. He's just too perfect in everything he does to have
some type of accident.



It would probably be a sure bet that the inventor had this particular
personality in mind when he came up with the idea.

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
harmed. Further, lots of people have reported false trips of the
mechanism and at about $200 per trip, that can add up since you have

Define "lots". Instead of expressing your slanted imagination, try
presenting a real life figure such as percentage of owners who have
experience misfires during *proper* usage and not when someone is screwing
around that causes a misfire. Until you do that, your "lots" only adds up to
your own faulty preceptions.

never need the SawStop mechanism. 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.

And of course, you're one of those people who have never had an accident
because you're just to perfect in absolutely everything you do.

The Sawstop is not for people who are prone to accidents, it's for those
times when the unexpected happens and it happens to everybody, except Brian
Henderson of course. He's just too perfect in everything he does to have
some type of accident.

RonB wrote:


Me too. I put a "to-the-bone" notch in the end of a finger a few years ago
with the saw's motor off. I flipped the switch off, started to walk away,
and realized I had left a cut-off piece on the table. I carelessly
overreached the still spinning blade and "bang"!

That's a hard hit when bone is involved. Very painful, but an invaluable
lesson in safety. I am lucky, and a much more careful woodworker for it.

RonB



Is the SawStop's safety mechanism is still active when the saw is shut
off and the blade is coasting to a stop?

--
Jack Novak
Buffalo, NY - USA

On Jun 5, 3:22 pm, Brian Henderson
wrote:
....
... lots of people have reported false trips of the mechanism ...

Citation/statistics? I've seen nothing about excessively high Type I
errors...

--

"Nova" wrote in message
news:nVl9i.6989$Uy4.5414@trndny09...
RonB wrote:


Is the SawStop's safety mechanism is still active when the saw is shut off
and the blade is coasting to a stop?


Yes, I asked the inventor that several years ago. That's the scenario
that I was in when I got cut.

Russ writes:

In April 2003, sawstop filed a petition with the Consumer Product
Safety Commission to make SawStop-like technology standard on all
table saws.
If adopted by the CPSC, this ruling would carry the weight of law, and
make illegal the sale or manufacture of any new table saws without
this patented technology.

And if this happened, the cheapest table saw you could buy might sell
for about $2500.

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

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.

Load shifts resulting in slack in the line? I'd imagine any siuation
with multiple cranes if that is happening you're pretty much screwed
regardless. Maybe even better off if it does slip off. One less
crane destroyed and able to start picking up the mess.

But in theory if there's no pressure on you to use the thing then
there's no pressure going back to the manufacturer from you to make
something that actually works.


-Leuf

On Jun 5, 8:22 pm, Maxwell Lol wrote:
Russ writes:
In April 2003, sawstop filed a petition with the Consumer Product
Safety Commission to make SawStop-like technology standard on all
table saws.
If adopted by the CPSC, this ruling would carry the weight of law, and
make illegal the sale or manufacture of any new table saws without
this patented technology.

And if this happened, the cheapest table saw you could buy might sell
for about $2500.

And I wonder if the recreational woodworker might be better off. In
the good old days people love to talk about, there were basically only
good tools. No cheap imported junk. If you wanted, needed, a tool to
do a job, you paid for it and got a quality tool. The tool had to pay
for itself because it was not cheap, like all the imported junk today
seems to be. You would end up with fewer, but much higher quality
tools. And you might learn to use those fewer tools more. Which is
more productive: four $2500 tools that work, or twenty $500 tools
that don't work?

I have a range of tools. And for the most part the higher priced,
quality tools work well and I am happy to use them. The lower priced,
imported from SE Asia tools don't work as well and I am always
thinking about replacing them. Maybe if the cheap imported tools did
not exist, I would be saved from myself.

wrote in message
You would end up with fewer, but much higher quality
tools. And you might learn to use those fewer tools more. Which is
more productive: four $2500 tools that work, or twenty $500 tools
that don't work?

I have a range of tools. And for the most part the higher priced,
quality tools work well and I am happy to use them. The lower priced,
imported from SE Asia tools don't work as well and I am always
thinking about replacing them. Maybe if the cheap imported tools did
not exist, I would be saved from myself.


Hard to say. Your example of four $2500 versus twenty $500 is a bit extreme
perhaps, and somewhere in between lies the truth. If all the tools were the
same quality and adjusted price as in the good old days, I wonder how many
of us could not afford to be in this hobby at all. I started out with a
cheap benchtop saw, later upgraded to a Delta contractor saw If I had to
start off with a $2500 saw from the start, there would never have been a
start.
--
Ed
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/