All table saws to be SawStops?

[Kevin Jenness]

Do modern cabinet shops still use table saws? I mean cabinet shops that are bigger than a one man shop?

Of course they do. It's the rare cnc shop that doesn't have a variety saw in a corner for odd jobs. I can't think of a commercial shop around here that doesn't have a table saw of some kind. I once toured a production shop with nothing more than a beam saw, point-to-point cnc, construction drill, edgebander and case clamp but all they did was commercial casework like point-of-sale stations. The custom division of that company next door had a cnc, several sliding tablesaws and a full set of classical machinery including variety saws as well as a straight line ripsaw, moulder, etc.

[Alan Lightstone]

I own a SawStop, and I'm not going to get into a safety/personal choice argument here.

I'm just a little confused by the proposed regulation. A saw that will cause a maximum of a 3.5mm cut when fed at 1m/sec??? Isn't 1m/sec an incredibly fast speed to feed wood into a table saw?

I also guessing that 3.5mm is so that it will only penetrate skin, not deeper, but I have no clue what the average thickness of skin on a hand is. (OK, just googled it - 1.5mm on the palm, <1mm on fingers, so why that number? Still can do some real damage, I'd imagine, at 3.5mm. Perhaps not completely amputate a finger, but still...) Some WAG thrown out by a bureaucrat?

OK, I just read the Federal Register report (I need to get a life). The UL has identified a 4 mm cut from the surface of the skin as the quantitative threshold separating simple and complex lacerations in a human finger.

"The Commission recognizes there may be some scenarios, such as kickback, which can cause the operator's hand to be pulled into the blade at a high rate of speed or lead the operator to reach as fast as possible for a falling workpiece. In these and other scenarios, the speed of the operator's hand or finger may exceed 1 m/s when it contacts the saw blade. At approach speeds greater than 1 m/s, AIM system performance may not be sufficient to prevent injuries that require extensive medical attention. The use of AIM technology may, however, limit injuries where an incident otherwise would have resulted in an amputation or involved injury to several digits or a wider area, to permit instead microsurgical repair of nerves, blood vessels, and tendons. Thus, the Commission concludes that nearly all operator blade-contact injuries from table saws would be eliminated or mitigated by the proposed performance requirement."

There are actually real thoughtful arguments, debate, comments from consumers/companies and conclusions in that report. It's an interesting read, again if you need to get a life. So rare for our government these days. They are proposing 36 month delay instead of the usual 180 day maximum for implementation to allow other manufacturers to design and implement AIM systems.

So there's that...

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Alan, I doubt it’s a “WAG thrown out by some bureaucrat”, those are generally engineering decisions.

Yes, 1 m/s is fast, which is why it was chosen along with 3.5mm.

At normal hand fed speeds, which I find is around .1 m/s the injury depth would be much smaller.

The reaction time of the blade safety mechanism is fixed, the faster you feed, the deeper the cut will be, hence a speed of approach and an injury depth have to be specified to correctly compare systems and performance.

1 m/s looks more like slipping or kickback type scenarios to me, the most difficult to guard against.

Regards, Rod

P.S. Please disregard my post Allan, you edited yours while I was typing��

[Justin Rapp]

I own a SawStop, and I'm not going to get into a safety/personal choice argument here.

I'm just a little confused by the proposed regulation. A saw that will cause a maximum of a 3.5mm cut when fed at 1m/sec??? Isn't 1m/sec an incredibly fast speed to feed wood into a table saw?

I also guessing that 3.5mm is so that it will only penetrate skin, not deeper, but I have no clue what the average thickness of skin on a hand is. (OK, just googled it - 1.5mm on the palm, <1mm on fingers, so why that number? Still can do some real damage, I'd imagine, at 3.5mm. Perhaps not completely amputate a finger, but still...) Some WAG thrown out by a bureaucrat?

I was thinking the same exact thing - 3.5mm is pretty deep and while I didn't look up the thickness of skin (thank you for that), I was thinking on a finger it would already be cutting into tendons and ligaments. So, while 3.5mm is far better than a more series injury, it could still do some bad damage.

I am on my 3rd table saw and it's a Sawstop. I was thinking about it for far to many years to replace my old JET contractor saw with a PCS, not only for the blade stop tech, but also to have a saw with a riving knife. My final trigger to upgrade from the JET was kickback that luckily was just a little broke skin and a massive bruise on my stomach where it made impact. While I know I could have gone with any new saw with a riving knife, as long as I was upgrading, I was going for the additional safety feature of the brake.

If it comes to a point where all saws will be required to have blade stop that will result in a cut 3.5mm deep, if I was in the market for a saw at that point and had a choice of barely a scrape or a 3.5mm gash, I am going for the tool that has the best technology at the time, be it Sawstop or one of the other well known brands.

BTW - when it comes to insurance and safety, many schools insurance companies required any workshop with a tablesaw to be replaced with a Sawstop. I also heard the same about woodworking clubs workshop insurance requiring the same.

[James Jayko]

Should the insurance pool have to bear the cost of surgery, physical therapy, etc. when an individual declines the safety feature and then suffers a preventable injury? Should any and every safety feature be mandated regardless of how small the benefit?

Issues like this that seem, on the surface, to be simple matters of personal choice are rarely so simple.

No. Responsible people who pay for insurance shouldn't be required to subsidize stubborn / ignorant people who refuse to accept that keeping all your digits is important, and that mistakes happen. They NEVER happen to me, until they do. Keep your Unisaw from 1971, but don't expect the insurance pool to reimburse you for being stubborn. Pay that $20k to reattach your digit out of pocket. Or just go with 9, not my problem, and saves your 'personal choice.' All the 'personal responsibility' rhetoric came out of the tobacco industry in the 1950s...that doesn't seem to be the side I'd rather be on.

For the record, I'm a registered libertarian, but I also pay $Texas for insurance, and would rather pay 0.5 * $Texas.

[James Jayko]

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?

Not all risks NEED to be taken or provide any benefit to the person who takes them. Like, say, driving without a seatbelt.

[mike stenson]

Not all risks NEED to be taken or provide any benefit to the person who takes them. Like, say, driving without a seatbelt.

I ride a mountain bike downhill. This is inherently dangerous. Yet, I still wear a helmet, and appropriate pads (why do injuries seem to just hurt more in your 50s anyway?). When I was a younger man, I climbed.. and used a harness and a rope. I agree, it's all about risk mitigation. I don't understand the issue.. as long as USING the safety devices aren't onerous.

[Jim Becker]

... they won't be impeded by Festools patents.

Festool does not own the patents. Their parent company does with their ownership of Sawstop in the same way they own Festool, Tanos, etc.

[jack duren]

As I mentioned I was hurt on a table saw in 1985. My brother told me to quit and find another career.. I ignored him and continued on. 2002…. First time have a Sawstop.used the saw 7 years while still working. I don’t think about the operation of the Sawstop or the safety devices except when running metal jigs, etc. I operate the Sawstop like a Unisaw, Powermatic, etc. Nothing changed for me because of the safety device..There ain’t nothing worse than an accident.

[Mike Cutler]

Should the insurance pool have to bear the cost of surgery, physical therapy, etc. when an individual declines the safety feature and then suffers a preventable injury? Should any and every safety feature be mandated regardless of how small the benefit?

Issues like this that seem, on the surface, to be simple matters of personal choice are rarely so simple.

Christopher

We do everyday. I own a house that will never be destroyed by any type of a natural event, but I pay into a "pool" for people to keep building houses in flood, and hurricane zones.
I live in a state where it legal to operate a motorcycle without a helmet. Someone want to become a veg-head, guess who pays.
We all live in states where it's legal to buy cigarettes, or alcohol, and eat whatever kinds of food we want that leads to way to many long tern, known medical conditions that will pay out more in a calendar quarter, than all of the accidents that could possibly occur from a table saw.
We both live in states where we have to drive in conditions that someone in Texas will never know, and both states have completely absolved themselves of any responsibility if you, or I, drive in the snow.
You live in a state that sells recreational dope legally for 18 cents on every dollar spent. Who bears that responsibility? Everyone in New England.
Bottom line. We all pay into risk pools that someone else will bear the cost for by increased premiums. That the way it works.

[George Yetka]

What about every other tool?

[Stan Calow]

There are actually real thoughtful arguments, debate, comments from consumers/companies and conclusions in that report. It's an interesting read, again if you need to get a life. So rare for our government these days. They are proposing 36 month delay instead of the usual 180 day maximum for implementation to allow other manufacturers to design and implement AIM systems.

So there's that...

It doesnt come out of the blue - the CPSC's mission is to find reasonable opportunity to make the life safer. For everyone opposed to it, there are likely just as many or more who are in favor of it. A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is just that - a proposal. It's a public request for comment and input from anybody who has something to say about it. So anyone opposed to a rule has a chance to have their say. A comment that says "Im against it" goes in one pile. A comment that says "I'm against it, and here's why" is another pile. And "I'm against it, here's why and here's a better solution" is even better. Suggesting that there should be exceptions to an all-out rule would be an option.

I dont like mandates either, but I also don't like my insurance going up to pay for other people's accidents.

[mike stenson]

What about every other tool?

like double-insulated hand-held power tools? Yea, waste of time that was.

[Bryan Hall]

As long as the sawstop patents are expiring, this isn't as big of a concern for me. I expect most major companies have had their eye on developing and implementing the technology for years. The only thing holding the safety back was sawstop itself.

Apparently said by a patent lawyer:
"For what's actually been invented, the number of SawStop patents is absurd... but if an inventor wants to spend all that money on fees to file continuations for every conceivable iteration of the product, that's his right."

I don't desire the sawstop at all. My experience with them was horrible customer service and a saw that had terrible kickback issues. I even saw the same issue pop up with sawstop on a dedicated social media persons page when their sawstop started having kickbacks. However, if I have the option to put the flesh sensing tech in a future sliding table saw, I wouldn't turn it away.

[jack duren]

I’ve not exoerienced any of that..If you having a bunch of kickbacks, you would have them on all of them.