Last person I knew that had an accident in a commercial shop without sawstops was the last one. Owner replaced the saws in the shop, it was cheaper than the insurance claims.
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Last person I knew that had an accident in a commercial shop without sawstops was the last one. Owner replaced the saws in the shop, it was cheaper than the insurance claims.
~mike
happy in my mud hut
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Sawstop alleged that Bosch violated 6 of their patents. Of those 6, two allegations were withdrawn by Sawstop before adjudication, 2 were judged not to be violated by the Bosch system, and 2 were judged to be violated. The last two, however have since expired. The two that were ruled not to be violated by Bosch's system expire in 2024 and 2026, but obviously aren't a firm impediment to building an effective blade stopping system.Originally Posted by mike stenson
If you take all that, and the fact that it will take months to a year or more to write and publish a rule, and that the rule would then set a future date after which saws must comply, I think the patent story is largely over on this one. Manufacturer's can start designing systems today with reasonable confidence that if they need to have them in the market in the US in the future, they won't be impeded by Festools patents.
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Before I run out of popcorn, let me say this. I had a serious accident on my previous table saw, which I still own and use on occasion. This prompted me to buy a Sawstop. I have been using my ICS professionally for over 14 years. Taking the safety aspects of the saw out of the equation, what saw on the market is substantially better in performance as well as customer service in the same price range. When I bought my Sawstop, the only saws in a similar price range were Asian imports of various badging (yeah, I know Sawstop is manufactured in Taiwan), Delta (where are they now and try to get parts now), and Powermatic (also imported). There may be more, but I think I've made my point. Any yet, in addition, Sawstop offers their safety technology.
We are always going to have those individuals who don't feel they should be subjected to government regulations regarding safety. It's exhausting hearing the same droning "don't step on my freedom" crap. As far as I am concerned, if you don't want to participate in using a safer saw, go for it. But in doing so, the least you can do is sign and notarize a document that says in the event of an accident, you take full responsibility for any and all damages and medical care. I am no fan of insurance companies and feel that my rates shouldn't increase to cover the cost of treating an avoidable accident because the injured party felt that using a safer tool compromised their freedom.
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...people love the used market.
~mike
happy in my mud hut
Contributor
Living is Dangerous,
the only way to be safe is to die, dead people wont get injured, all the rest of us are at risk, of sickness, injury and death. you want to ban all things that could possible injure someone, and dictate that people can only do things that are Safe. I would like that list. Everything you do has risk, from drinking a glass of water, breathing, swimming, taking a walk, jogging, riding a bike driving a car, don't even mentions sports or hobbies, or doughnuts or coffee, or god forbid, beer!
Get my point?
Member
On a purely selfish note think of the huge number of high end table saws and sliding table saws that would be available to hobbyists if OSHA required businesses to acquire blade stopping technology!
Air bags and shoulder belts have been required for decades... neither my 67 F100 or my 76 Scout have them. My 45 Ford Jeep didn't even have a seat belt when I bought it. I did put a seat belt into it though.
Member
My friend that works in the local ER says that they get hundreds of broken bones and mangled joints a year from the local ski slopes each of which will incur tens of thousands of dollars in treatment. Should we shut down the ski slope, require skiers to pay a higher premium or require them to sign a waiver that any injuries incurred while skiing should will not be covered by insurance?
I don't now how the rest of the world works but I know fellow employees that smoke don't pay higher premiums than I do because of their hazardous life choices.
Compared to smoking and skiing the cost of treating severed appendages has got to be miniscule on a nation wide basis. A couple of stiches and send them home.
Last edited by Michael Schuch; 01-26-2024 at 12:38 AM.
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Here's another recap of this, that also contains some additional interesting details.
https://toolguyd.com/sawstop-table-s...update-012024/
Most interestingly, SawStop has already licensed their tech to others, they would consider using favorable terms for licensing if it did become "mandatory", and they actually came to an agreement with Bosch in 2018 that would have allowed Bosch to sell the Reaxxx saw in the US.
Member
Do modern cabinet shops still use table saws? I mean cabinet shops that are bigger than a one man shop?
The last custom cabinet shop that I toured didn't have any table saws that I could see. Everything was cut on a computer controlled bridge saw and this was 20 years ago. Hands couldn't get anywhere close to a spinning blade. The owner told me the choice is to either automate everything possible or go out of business. This was the company: https://lanzcabinets.com/facilities/factories/ When I worked on their computer systems 20 years ago they had one factory in Eugene OR, it appears they own 5 factories up and down the west coast now.
I am asking because I really don't know how many cabinet shops are out there that do things the old fashioned way of pushing sheets through a spinning blade manually?
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I take woodworking classes 2 nights a week, 4 hours per class. The classes are offered through the local Comm. college, but are held in high school wood shops.
My classes are in 2 different school districts.
The Tues class is in a shop that uses only SS Table Saws, 4 of them. The Wed Class is in a shop that has one SS and one huge industrial size Powermatic TS.
The Tues classroom did have some non-SS Saws until a [day class] kid hurt himself. The injury wasn't too serious (I don't know the details), but the kid also admitted that he was at fault, doing something he shouldn't have been doing.
So right after the "investigation" that particular School District mandated that all Tables Saws had to be Saw Stops.
The other class in the other school district? .....No changes (so far).
Last edited by Lee Schierer; 01-26-2024 at 8:37 AM.
"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.”
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I own a SawStop because, quite frankly, even as a serious hobbyist it wasn’t worth the risk to my livelihood. I’m a programmer and networking hardware designer that needs all fingers.
On that topic, my company owns and licenses many patents in order to have a high degree of reliability and interoperability across a number of standards. It may seem weird to think your dewalt could have a Bosch or sawstop cartridge, but this is common place in other industries, it just hasn’t made its way to woodworking tools. These things can be good for the consumer; standardized parts, safety metrics, interoperability (e.g. one battery standard) but at least in the short term unfortunately costs will go up. Sometimes prices stabilize or even go down relative to other markets, but that takes time and is dependent upon longer term metrics.
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From what I understand if something becomes mandatory then the patent owning company is restricted on how much they can get in licensing fees. With them expiring it probably doesn't matter. My guess is the timing of this is because the patents are expiring so every company selling a TS will include it without having to deal with patents. The real question is will our inept government decide that all saws with round blades and a flat table be required to have this. If so then sliding saws will need it as well. Possibly including the scoring blade.
Last edited by Alex Zeller; 01-26-2024 at 2:59 AM.
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As a Radiologist I'd like to never see another Xray of someone missing fingers from a table saw accident. We all grind our teeth over government mandates but they can have a positive impact on our lives sometimes.
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I believe I can safely predict what will happen if the proposed law goes into effect.
After the initial run on existing stock is finished, there will be a new product available...accessory saw tables made to fit SkilSaws and other circ saws.
That will give the bureaucrats something to spend another decade gathering facts on.
Rick Potter
DIY journeyman,
FWW wannabe.
AKA Village Idiot.
Contributor
I thought about that.... it being a requirement on sliders.
Will be interesting watching this play out (if it should become a legislated matter)
Last edited by Lee Schierer; 01-26-2024 at 8:36 AM.
"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.”
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