Comparing thoughts on SawStop

[JOSEPH GOVEA]

Hello to everyone who has posted regarding this thread,

I have been into woodworking for a little less than a year. But I consider myself a little more along since I do have some carpenter experience & have been in the collision repair business since I was twleve. As Per had noted that his father had realized the cabinet saw industry had made a safety improvement to the saw industry. I too have seen improvments automotive and machine wise, I know there are some people who do not like change and that some will embrace it. I have yet to hear someone complain to me about an airbag saving there life. Though some have come out of an accident with minor abrasions/bruises they are still fortinate to live another day. I have looked/ researched other saws and found them to be very high quality saws, as noted in numerous others threads and forums you can't go wrong with any of the top cabinet saws. Its pretty much you're color prefrence. As for someone in the market for a cabinet saw I am glad to have had the option to purchase this saw w/the safety technology. There are some who feel they do not need this technology and all I can say is more power to you. I would like to thank Dave Wright on his breakdown of the Sawstop, Also Ken Waag for posting your thread.

[Greg Mann]

I have actually read all ( most all ) the words here. I was wondering if anyone knew the actual breakdown of wood shop related injuries and how many were something that the saw stop would have prevented.

lou

That is a legitimate question to a point, Lou, but does it really matter? If the system only prevents 10% of table saw accidents I would consider it a success. Seat belts have not eliminated traffic deaths but only the most devoted Luddite would claim they have had no positive impact. This is about continuous improvement in the safety of one type of tool that has recognizable dangers associated with its use. In my mind it does not matter if the device works perfectly every time, yet. It represents an effort towards a legitimate goal; to make the workshop safer.

Greg

[Keith Christopher]

I think the point here is missing. Is this a good tablesaw ? Does it have the features/performance/durability you look for in a good tool ? if it does then it's not different than buying a powermatic or unisaw -fill in saw name here- It seems everyone is focusing on the fact it has a blade stopping brake safety feature. so the question I have is:


Is it a good saw ?

If it is then the brake is just icing on the cake as I see it. I'd pay the price for it simply because it's a good saw. The brake seems pointless to argue, because HOPEFULLY it'll never have to activate.

Good saw ?
easy to true up ?
durable ?
have options ?

[Roy Wall]

I think the point here is missing. Is this a good tablesaw ? Does it have the features/performance/durability you look for in a good tool ? if it does then it's not different than buying a powermatic or unisaw -fill in saw name here- It seems everyone is focusing on the fact it has a blade stopping brake safety feature. so the question I have is:


Is it a good saw ?

If it is then the brake is just icing on the cake as I see it. I'd pay the price for it simply because it's a good saw. The brake seems pointless to argue, because HOPEFULLY it'll never have to activate.

Good saw ?
easy to true up ?
durable ?
have options ?

Precisely!!

Their website makes comparisons to the PM66 and the Unisaw -- so it is marketed to be those types of saws AND EVEN BETTER! PM66 goes for $2100 basically, this saw is $2500.

I would be interested in the contractor type with cast wings....

[Dev Emch]

For those wondering, what I have seen is that the most dangerous per capita machine in the shop is the radial arm saw. This is esp. true when used for ripping. FWW did have some info on this a while back. In terms of out right accidents, the table saw is the king. Please dont quote me on this as I only lightly remember these figures. Its something on the order of 25,000 to 30,000 accidents present at the ER per year with table saw related injury. What was notable; however, was that the vast majority of these were from desk top, toy table saws. What do you guys call these? Their the ones with a glorified, universal motor circular saw bolted to the bottom of an aluminium or plastic top with a plastic base. I used to have one of these made by Makita and it used a 7 or 8 inch blade. When you remove these makita, ridgid, delta, ryobie desk top related injuries, the next largest single group is the radial arm saw. The cabinet saw related injuries were down the list. Contractors were somewhere between the RAS and the cabinets.

Have I ever been injured? YUP! But here is the ultimate laugh. There was no motor attached to the culprit. I was trimming out a door on a rental property and was using a "cigar chomper". This one was a relatively new LION trimmer. New meaning not one of the older, 100 year old oliver or american or fox trimmers. This was the tiny one made by Lion and sold by outfits like woodcraft and garret wade. For those who are not familar with this, its a lever operated mitre trimmer with two razor shop blades that move left and right. I was holding it by wraping one hand around the top frame and moving the blade in the opposite direction to do my precision mitre trim cut. But the two blades are mounted opposing each other and on the return path, the *OTHER* blade shaved off the tip of my thumb. Well, not really. This nice fillet of meat was still attached at the end and was flopping like it was on a hinge. Blood everywhere! The cut was so precise and accurate that the doctors were able to reattach this chunk of meat. Darn. Now they can still take my finger prints off that thumb Jokes aside, who is watching out for me when we use these cigar chompers? If you have ever done picture framing or other super precise trim work with mitre angles, then you know how nice these tools can be. With all the heavy iron I have, I thought it would be the shaper that takes a part of me... not an 18th century type picture frame trimmer operated by human power. Oh well, now at least I know better.

As for the SawStop saw. Well, that saw is only the first saw to incorporate this feature. After being turned down by each and every saw builder including delta, powermatic, northfield, jet, and who knows how many others, these guys went out and built their own table saw company. So in the engineering business, we used to call this a "proof of concept" device. In other words, the saw's engineering was more focused around this safety system than the actual process of table sawing wood products. Put another way, they took a saw stop device and built a table saw around it. Naturally it uses a 10 inch blade and a format familar to most woodworkers who have used unisaws and powermatic 66 table saws. It fits that demographic. But over the last few years, I have seen the jet xtra saw really come up and challenge the unisaw for market domination. Today, given the choice, I would buy the Jet because it is a slightly better made machine than today's version of the unisaw. Sorry Guys. Jet improved quality and Delta let quality slip. But the jet, unisaw and PM66 are so darn close to each other that its hard to differentiate on significant points other than color. One is white, one is gold and one is gray. But its the PM66 and the unisaw who have really been hit by this market errosion. Well see how well this saw stop saw holds up in actual trials where you have to 1). actually cut wood, and 2). see who makes the bling bling add ons. With the unisaw or PM66 or jet, I can almost be assured that any bling bling add on will be available.

I cannot stop nor do I wish to stop this saw stop saw from being made. After all, its not me who has to front a ton of start up capital nor is it me who is going to loose it all. Quite likely, I will sniff out the auction to see if there is any decent metalworking machines to be had.

But the bigger point is not whether the saw stop table saw is good or bad but rather that this concept begins to invade other makers like northfield or martin. If the saw stop company were to succeed and only the saw stop saw were to use this idea, i would be happy as a clam and tickled pink. This way, everyone gets what they are looking for. I get my martin with no saw stop and you guys get your saw stop saw with the saw stop. That is ideal and that is what I want. I am happy and you are happy. That is also the capitalist way in that we all have choice.

[Ken Waag]

I have actually read all ( most all ) the words here. I was wondering if anyone knew the actual breakdown of wood shop related injuries and how many were something that the saw stop would have prevented.

lou

Lou,

I recently read an article online adressing that very issue. If I can find it again, I'll definitely post it.

If my memory serves, Dev Emch is correct. Approx 30,000 ER visits for the year reported, related to TS. Mechanism varied of course, so some were blade related, some kick back etc. The author of the article I mentioned tried to break it down with regards to the Sawstop.

And the RAS is per machine the worst offender. Fortunately there are far fewer of them in use. (no offense to RAS users, but DO BE CAREFUL)

P.S. here is a tidbit from Sawstop's site with some numbers:
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that there were approximately 33,000 injuries from table and bench saws in 1998 that were sufficiently serious to require a hospital visit. Of these injuries, approximately 95% were hand and finger injuries, with approximately 3000 amputations of one or more fingers.

[Dev Emch]

Talking about finger accidents. Back in high school, we had a votech accident that got all the red lights flashing. I was not votech so I did not see what happened but I heard from it from my shop teacher. Yes, I am one of those super lucky, super fortunate kids who not only took wood shop in school, but get this, **WAS REQUIRED** to take wood shop to graduate.

In any event, this feller was cutting a dado groove on a board using the table saw. It was to accept a single sheet of glass so it only a single blade or so wide in terms of kerf thickness. The board was thin and slightly bowed. The guy tossed the board up there, measured the height of the blade against the side of the board and went on with his business. As he cut the dado, he pushed down on the board as it was fed through thereby flattening it and taking out the bow. His hand was right over the blade when he felt a strange sensation.

He picked up his hand and looked at it and it did not look any different than before. As he turned his hand over to look at the palm side, four of his fingers flopped over and were hanging on meat hinges. The saw had cut right through the bone but left the top meat and skin in place. About this time, PANIC and PANDAMONEUM! Blood Everywhere. Call the police. Call the ambulance. Call the parents. In the end, the fingers were not saved. Maybe today they could have saved the fingers... who knows. But each time i run a large chunk of wood through the saw in a similar dado operation, this accident comes to mind and reminds me to make double sure that I dont run my hand accross the blade plane no matter what. Use a chicken stick or push guide. There are plenty of macho guys out there with fewer than 10 digits. I am not one of these. But I do not have any chicken sticks that dont have cuts and marks left over from errant blade contact.

As for kick backs. The biggest error or mistake anyone makes is that kick backs are caused by binding fences. And of course, I have heard that sickening argument about left tilt versus right tilt until I need to vommit.

Have you guys ever seen what a true kick back is like when a 7.5 Horse Power, 3600 RPM Louis Allis motor spinning a 16 inch, 30 tooth deep gullet blade throws something back at you? Its like a cannon. Get hit in the belly with this one and you will regret it. Chunks of wood can be left impaled into the wall.

That is a lot of kinetic engergy being released! Where did it come from? Just coming in contact with the sides of the saw blade during a bind up? Before you answer this, think about it. You have one side of the blade moving upwards toward the roof and the opposite side diving down into the table. Its only the tangent of the top arc of the blade where the tangent velocity vector is pointing to you or the wall.

So here is the secret of the kick back. Numerous factors can contribute to the wood "riding up" on the blade in the front or face of the kerf during the cut. This will cause one to three teeth to get a good bite into the wood without actually cutting it. Now, as these teeth move backwards toward you, they fling the board with 80 or so percent energy conversion efficiency toward you. So that is an energy transfer driven by 7.5 HP of instantly delieverable energy or impluse.

So yes, if your fence is not accurate, it can cause you to push the board into the blade and cause it to burn and finally ride up on the blade. So as long as your fence is spot on accurate relative to the blade plane, you will be O.K.

But regardless of fence or left tilt versus right tilt, there are two things you can do to prevent kick back. Simple Things. First, always maintain a constant and assertive down pressure on the board being run through the saw. if you take the down force off, you run the risk of kick back. This happens often when your repositioning yourself during a rip cut and you take the down force off your chicken stick. The second thing is to always use a splitter when possible. Now your splitter can be as simple as a small section of veneer glued inline with the blade on your insert or as fancy as a crank up/crank down shark's fin or riving knife. They both work. Its sole purpose in life is to keep the board from yawing over and riding up on the kerf face thereby setting you up for a kick back.

Here again, these safety tips are based on prevention. If you prevent the reason for an accident, you dont have the consequences of the accident for it never happened. Same is true with errant fingers getting removed. If you use and set up your guard correctly, you will prevent yourself from sticking your finger in the blade. If I cant get my finger into the path of the blade, then there will never be an opportunity to fire a saw stop. I have seen the pictures of the saw stop using hot dogs. If you look closely, you will notice a nice little knick in the hot dog. So yes, you may have saved your finger, but its going to hurt! I am much more comfortable in just using the guard and chicken sticks and push sticks.

[Alan See]

Keith, You asked if it was a good saw. Yes! Even if you pulled out the braking system and bypassed the electronics associated with it, you would still have a 10" NA style table saw to rival all others. Beefy, accurate, stable and safe. Will it last for 50 years? I won't know for a long, long time, but I think it will. Everything about this saw appears to be well thought out, and well built. I am one of the people who signed up to pre-order this saw along, long time ago. After a year of design and production delays, I almost gave up on Sawstop. I spent a lot of time in the local Woodcraft store fondling their tricked-out PM66, and lusted after it with all my heart. Now that I have the Sawstop, I am very glad I waited. If any one lives in the Dallas, Texas area and wants to take a look at one, send me a message. I won't be doing the hotdog test though.

The Sawstop cabinet saw is quite a step up from my first saw - a Ryobi BT3000 - and is really more saw than I will ever need. Do you know how much flak I took from SWMBO when I told her I had ordered a new $3K-ish shop toy? NONE! She immediately agreed that investing in a blade brake system was a no-brainer. Confidentially, I'm glad that Sawstop focused first on cabinet saw production instead of contractor's saws. If the Sawstop contractor saw had been available, It would have been much more difficult to talk her in to popping for the Cab saw .

[Mark Singer]

Dev,

I must say I read your description of the injuries a few times! It is a good thing for all of us to remember these machines are dangerous! It is also good to understand the physics of the machine , the board and how the accident develops. We should never get overly confident on a tablesaw...or be afraid of it either. Instead try to understand it thouroughly....your descriptions and analysis is very informative. There have been some close calls since I have been on SMC and I have tried to explain these things as well.

[Dev Emch]

Thanks Mark... There is not a day or two that these accidents dont inhabit some part of my mind when I run the heavy iron. As dumb as it sounds, always ask yourself "O.K. Where is the blade?" just before you begin to cut. This is esp. true when running heavy duty shaper cutters. A couple of years ago, I saw a tenoner used for doing tenons on timber frames. Holly Cow! If you didnt have religion before you used this, you would afterwards! I think the thing has four circular saw blades. You clamp it onto your timber and then run one lever which pushes two parallel blades downwards to cut the tenon faces. These are sping loaded so the blades come up when done. Then you run the second set which have two blades whose axis is 90 degrees to the first two blades. These two blades then complete the tenon by cutting the cheeks. The guys using these would cut these enormous tenons in mere seconds. All those blades made it look like a midevil torture device. It is possible that this gizzmo ran all four blades down on a single pass of a lever. I was just amazed by how much blade area was freely exposed! It was hard to fathom where all the blades were at any time.

My point about writing all this stuff for this thread is more about us realizing that these machines are about as dangerous as they come. And often, its the machine we think of as the least dangerous, like my Lion Trimmer, that causes the most damage in the shadow of ignorent bliss. One of us will read this, go out and buy a saw stop saw and then get his finger turned into apple sauce with a router table on a quickie project to get something done for his daughter's school play which starts in 20 minutes. This is the anatomy of an accident. Accidents dont just happen. They are a sequential series of tiny, minor little events that compound one another and evolve into a disaster. Any one of which in isolation can be dealt with and difused quickly. But taken together and in sequence, LOOK OUT!

[Bill Neely]

I don't think airbags vs sawstop is really an apt comparison. I wonder how many blade contact injuries were fatal? I think it's a great tool for those who want it but I really have a problem with sawstop's self serving lawsuit. My 2 centavos.

[lou sansone]

That is a legitimate question to a point, Lou, but does it really matter? If the system only prevents 10% of table saw accidents I would consider it a success. Seat belts have not eliminated traffic deaths but only the most devoted Luddite would claim they have had no positive impact. This is about continuous improvement in the safety of one type of tool that has recognizable dangers associated with its use. In my mind it does not matter if the device works perfectly every time, yet. It represents an effort towards a legitimate goal; to make the workshop safer.

Greg

I am not advocating one way or the other, I was simply asking a question on the magnitude of the problem.
lou

[Dave Wright #2]

Bill,

Airbags add $100 - $200 to the cost of the car, are "invisible" until needed, use sensors and modern electronics to differentiate between accidents and normal operation, act with astonishing speed, and save lives. The SawStop has 5 of these 6 characteristics, which is close enough for me to consider them comparable.

Edit: On the other hand, SawStop cannot be bought at a car dealership, does not use chemical reactions, can be easily replaced by the owner, and does not call On-Star when activated. Maybe it's not comparable. But seriously, if one were to compare SawStop to something, what would be a better choice than airbags? I'm open to suggestions.

Regards, Dave

[Dev Emch]

Point taken. But on the other hand, I drive a Dodge Cummins. Hey I have to compensate somehow dont I I "turned" off my air bags when I found out how expenisive they are. The driver side is also a partial safety issue. The air bag interferes with my blowing my horn. I have to really pound the streering wheel to get the stock horn to work. I fixed that also by adding a concealed Hadley which runs off the 12 volt compressor. I put in a surplus MAC truck pneumatic accumulator along with a 12 VDC compressor to run the horn and a limited number of air tools if I need them. I am now installing a Muncie PTO with a Munci hydraulic pump on the transmission. This is to run my new trailer which has a hydraulic bed that goes all the way to the ground for loading and moving heavy iron. Sorta a trailer and fork lift in one. My own design and construction. But that is another post or possibley OT. My biggest fear are the idiots who drive tiny cars and cut you off when you have two or three olivers on a trailer comming into Las Vegas like last summer. My motor is an inline 6 diesel that weighs close to 1000 pounds. If I cannot stop and hit you with that, I will knock you into the next county so you you better hope you have air bags! The same applies to many many woodworking accidents. They are more often the result of bad practice and taking short cuts that one ought not be taking. So please guys, practice safe table saw operations and keep your paws away from the blades!!!!!!!!

[Ken Salisbury]

OK Folks --- we are straying off the original subject of the thread and into general product safety issues which can be better discussed in a seperate thread in the Off Topic Forum.