Contributor
He seeems to want to now use the courts to shove it down everyones throat. You can say it is to promote his product, but using the legal system in this manner bothers me. In my opinion, it is a bit unethics. However, if I was in his shoes, I may do something similar.Originally Posted by Bob Falk
I remember reading the articles in Wood Magazine about this design and how it would raise the price of tablesaws $150 to $200. Why are his cabinet saws selling for way more than this difference?
Thank you,
Rich Aldrich
65 miles SE of Steve Schlumpf.
"To a pessimist, the glass is half empty; to an optimist, the glass is half full; to an engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be." Unknown author
Contributor
Patent life changed a few years ago. It's now 20 years.
Member
This isn't a country where we care a lot about safety frankly. Not for its own sake anyway. Follow the money and you get the real story. I have a shop full of machines capable of eating a finger, hand, every thing below the wrist. Nobody is in a big hurry it seems to add flesh sensing technology to any of these. Ever look at the statistics on skill saw injuries? Can you imagine a $750 skill saw that weights 68# but has flesh sensing technology? I'd say that requiring each TS purchaser take a basic safety course and pass a safety test would probably eliminate better than 50% of the accidents right off the bat without installing any brakes. Prohibiting the sale of these rinky dink job site and low end contractor models would probably drop another 25%, because there is some scary stuff spinning a blade for sale out there.
Instead of designing brakes to keep your bologna from getting scars, maybe they could push for a real innovation that keeps the users hands far from danger but still allows the function we require from a "variety saw". I can imagine a small sliding saw with an integral power feeder (not an option but built in like a straight line rip saw), a tall fence that keeps your hand from being close to the blade during cuts where the blade is close to the fence, good dust collection (because who wants to die early of lung cancer with a perfectly good set of fingers?). Oh, and it has to cost less than $400 so they can sell it at Wallmart. Not likely to happen. An American cabinet saw is such a crude instrument relative to a euro slider on most levels including safety, but nobody is beating the drum to require those become the norm? And they have been around much longer. Go figure?
The thing that drives the safety discussion in Europe is labor. If you are going to PAY somebody to do work, then the tools you provide them to do that work had better be safe. So you get sliders, breaking motors, serious shaper fences, built in stock feeders, riving knives, etc. Here? Seems the lawyers are driving this discussion, not organized labor. So you get machines that allow you to do stupid things but minimize the injury when you do rather than machines that minimize the risk to begin with. Grandpa used to say keep your hands out of the blade and you wont get cut. Maybe he was on to something? Nothing wrong with the brake mind you, but its hardly the only or IMO the best way to deal with the problem.
Member
All the injuries are just Darwinism and natural selection at work...the problem with this country is that we try to coddle people along and don't let them be held accountable for their own mistakes, its always someone else's fault and there is always someone to sue.
That which does not kill you will likely raise your insurance premiums.
Contributor
I'm waiting for someone to lose a finger on a Sawstop. Then Gass better hire a bunch of lawyers, as his advertising says this can't happen, but eventually it will. Everything fails sometime. It's like seeing an acident report (motor vehicle) that says occpants weren't wearing a seat belt. Were they and seat belt latch failed instead? I know I've had more than one seat belt pop loose, even after it clicked in place, or at least it sounded like it did.
Hoping Grizzly will be the first to buy the technology and bring out a $1500 cabinet saw that is affordable. Comparing SawStop to Powermatic and Delta premium saws is appropriate, but there are a lot of very good less expensive versions out there. So for me the choices are SawStop at $3000 or a $1300 Grizzly, Jet or the like thankfully now required to have the riving knife.
In my opinion, it is a good description, he's working hard to MANDATE everyone to purchase HIS invention. He also knows time is ticking and patent is only good for so long.
See Fein and all the new triangle sanders that have appeared in the past couple of years....
Technology is good, will solve many TS related injuries, but at what cost.
And on the topic of digits lost to table saws, how many new saw users learn from the DIY channel, where I have yet to see them use a guard on a table saw even when they are ripping, which is the usual use of the saw on the home improvement shows. They even have newbies using a table saw without a guard, when they already have demonstrated that they don't even know how to use a drill. Maybe they ought to start there, policing themselves knowing that they are really teaching America how to tackle a kitchen or bath remodel. I see plenty of safety glasses, dust masks and the like, but no saw guard, go figure. And the same can be said for the woodworking teachers like David Marks. They often show warnings, but never show a guard on the saw, even when they are doing a simple rip operation that really doesn't need the visual clarity of not having a fence. The message is that if you are a real saw user, you don't need no stinking blade guard. Personally, I use mine 90% of the time, and half of the reason is just so I have a splitter to reduce the dreaded kickback.
Last edited by Ole Anderson; 02-02-2011 at 9:59 PM.
Member
Fascinating discussion as always.
On a related note, I recently posted a question (and got a prompt reply) to a post on DeWalt's support webpage re: DeWalt's plans to incorporate a similar mechanism on their tablesaws (including Unisaw).
Subject SawStop Customer By Web Form This feedback is about:So, for the foreseeable future, SawStop is likely the only option if you want a tablesaw that (probably) won't take off a finger if it happens to get into the blade.
http://support.dewalt.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4611
SawStop has been on the market for 5+ years and have a strong reputation for performance, reliability, durability and safety. When is Delta going to step up to the plate with a similar commitment to consumer safety?
Response Via Email (Jeff Xxxxx)02/01/2011 11:54 AM
At this time Delta has no plans to incorporate the SawStop technology on our table saws or Unisaws.
Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you. If your question remains unresolved or if you require additional information please update this incident.
Sincerely,
Jeff Xxxxx
01/30/2011 04:30 PM
-kg
Member
You can't wait for someone to lose a hand? Classy.
I get that you don't like the SawStop guy. But try to drag the debate out of the gutter. Hoping for another person to lose a hand just so SawStop ends up in court is lame.
Contributor
We had a SS in my last shop and it was nice machine. Went off once due to cutting a piece of styrofoam that had a thin metal layer nobody noticed. From having used one repeatedly, I would replace my own TS if I could afford it. Yes, the blade is toast and I believe the cost to replace all the parts, plus the CO2 catridge is more $69.
Also, many schools that I know have replaced all of their table saws with SS just because it makes the most sense....plus they don't want the law suites from kids losing fingers.
I am tired of the government mandating everything for us. I firmly believe in buying what I want to buy, learning how to use, than taking responsibility for what I do from there.
Member
I wonder how many hands and fingers the sawstop guy has wished upon to get his patent on every saw in the US.
Contributor
Ahh, the Lawsuit! SawStop's inventor/CEO could not have gotten better advertising if he bought a 1-minute TV ad during Super Bowl halftime. Most press coverage presents SawStop as the Savior of the Tablesaw World, and TS manufacturers as the greedy Villain. Suffice it to say, the issue is not that simple. Factor in inexperienced, undertrained, unsupervised individuals, using abused or misaligned equipment. I will stop there.
Public pressure has already seen replacement of perfectly good, top-of-the-line 10" tablesaws in school shops and commercial shops with the SawStop. Better to be safe than sorry! Right? Soon enough, insurance companies will jump on the bandwagon, penalizing those not using the SS technology.
I just recently got a great bargain on a gently-used 1988 PM66 because an Omaha NE school district implimented new SawStops in school shops. Yea! SawStop! Friends of the school district are happy; I'm Happy! That PM66 may one day become unusable (insurance-wise or OSHA-wise) IF I were to add employees to a small business cabinet shop--who knows! But, as long as I work alone, my gold Powermatic stands head and shoulders above a black SawStop.
Last edited by Chip Lindley; 02-02-2011 at 11:20 PM.
[/SIGPIC]Necessisity is the Mother of Invention, But If it Ain't Broke don't Fix It !!
Contributor
I believe the current law in the US is that the term of a patent is 20 years from the earliest application filed with the PTO. It takes quite a while for a patent to issue - three years is not uncommon - so the economic life is 20 years minus the time it took to issue. So for many patents you can collect on them for about 17 years. Note: you can't collect before the patent issues.
And one thing you can't do is make an agreement with someone that you'll license your patent to them, but they'll have to keep paying you even after the patent term expires. The law does not allow agreements of that sort.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
Contributor
Wood Magazine did a series of tests of the SawStop brake with hot dogs and they posted the videos. In several, they whipped the hot dog as fast as they could down onto the blade. There was a nick where the tooth dug into the hot dog, but the blade drops below the table so fast that it can't cut the dog.
I just tried the bookmark to the videos and they are no longer at that link..joe
Last edited by Joe Jensen; 02-02-2011 at 11:36 PM.
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