Table saw accidents

[Jeff Fritzson]

Everytime you buy a tool or anything else for that matter these four items will always come into play. The first thing is usually how much money can I spend and what do I need.

You start to figure out your budget and your needs. This could take 5 seconds or 5 months or more but eventually you decide on a budget and the needs you require. You will then start looking at different machines. You are looking to find the machine that matches your need for the right price. As you go through this, your needs and budgets can fluctuate.

I think this is where you are John. It doesn't really matter what any of us has to say except for providing you with good information. It is really how you decide what weight each of your needs has for you and the budget you have set.

Based on my limited knowledge of what you are asking and your special circumstance of being a surgeon, my guess is safety is a very high priority, followed closely by performance. I have no idea what your budget is but I break down tablesaws into four categories:
Contractor(300-1k), Cabinet(750-4k), Euro sliders(4k-10k), combos (7.5K - ??). They also go up in price accordingly.

If you are looking for safety, I think (strictly my opinion) the best you will get is the Euro sliders. Your hands are no where near the blades and the nature of the machanics greatly decreases kickback. The next safest is probably the Sawstop. I am not looking at adding additional machines such as a power feeder but that is yet another consideration. Of course this is always assuming you use safe and proper techniques for each machine. Even with all the proper and safe techniques, accidents do happen.

As you move closer to a buying decision you are going to rethink the costs, the risks and what you really need. For me, I started with a contractor saw (first tool on a budget.) I have since upgraded and I always thought I would wait and upgrade to a Sawstop but budget just didn't allow. I now have a left tilt Unisaw (with some incentives it was a third of the price of a Sawstop.) When (notice not if) I upgrade again I will have to re-evaluate my needs (have I gone into semi retirement and am now building furniture, or small boxes or turning more pieces) and make a decision. The decision may be to stay with what I have............nah If I had unlimited space and budget I would be shopping for sliders and or combos.

I hope this helps. Gather the information and make the right decision for you.

Regards,
Jeff

[Charles Wade]

No brainer. The Sawstop is the one substantial investment you can make which makes your shop safer when your fingers get near the blade. It offers protection NOW when that 1 in 1000 accident situation arises. Nothing else can do this. Losing your fingers would make a disastrous change in your career. It might get even safer if you added a slider (another thread in today's Creek) bit it makes your shop safer. Do it.

[Allen Bookout]

I guess that I am going to have to see a live demo of the Sawstop. I just cannot believe that anything could stop a blade turning at that speed fast enough to keep it from cutting off your finger if you get it in there. And also is it going to work every time? And like all electronics, for how long?

I am just a little leary.

Anyone out there brave enought to stick your finger in there and give it a try?

I am not for or against but these are just thoughs that go throught my head everytime that this subject comes up.

Allen

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

If you can afford it look long and hard at the Euro Sliders. You almost have to plan your injury days in advance they are so safe.
And you get a slider.
There is nothing on gods green earth so nice as a slider.

Look at Felder, & MiniMax,
Martins are nice if you are willing to pay over $20 Grand.

[Lee DeRaud]

And also is it going to work every time?

It doesn't have to work "every time", it only has to work once: when it triggers, it trashes the brake module (and the blade) and you start over with a new one. And the saw is dead in the meantime, so you have plenty of time to think about whatever stupid thing you did to make it trip in the first place.

Of course the downside of that is that you can't really test it.

[Vaughn McMillan]

I guess that I am going to have to see a live demo of the Sawstop. I just cannot believe that anything could stop a blade turning at that speed fast enough to keep it from cutting off your finger if you get it in there. ...

Allen, if you haven't seen it, you should check out the "hot dog demo" video on the Sawstop site:

http://sawstop.com/

- Vaughn

[jack duren]

A SawStop,slider nor powerfeed are going to eliminate an accident. If a person tries hard enough he/she is going to get hurt. I've seen employees hurt on sliders and powerfeeds. SawStop is pretty new so dont know about it but I dont think I'd turn my back on an opportunity to own and use one if the chance came up.

I dont see the point of the arguements of improving safety. Just ignorance...Jack

[Joe Jensen]

john, at the risk of being redundant, please give a serious look-see at the sliders. charlie and paul, myself and several other folks on this forum alone use these tools daily and can attest to the inherent safety by design. honestly even a sawstop doesn`t offer the degree of safety these bigger sliders do and as an additional bonus you`ll get the accuracy and clean cuts that no other system offers in both hardwoods and sheetgoods. the dust collection is state of the art, on my saw the design of the blade flask will propell most dust into the lines even when i forget to turn on the dust collector. i don`t use the overhead guard, but everyone i`ve spoke to says they`re very effective at containing top of the table dust.
if you where to go with a slider and a feeder i cannot think of any tablesaw opperation where your body would be in jeopardy. tod

Todd, what you say is true, but don't you really need a two saws, one slider, which needs a 8 feet in front, behind, and to the left of the blade. A slider like this is like $10-20K. Plus, wouldn't you need second saw with a feeder on it? Most of the folks on the forum are making due with a 1-2 car garage, or maybe a 3 car garage. I am lucky enough to use most of a 3 car garage, but I don't see how I could fit a slider in my shop along with the planer, shaper, RAS, Drill Press, Bandsaw, and Jointer. I'd love a big slider, someday when I get a dedicated shop.

[Joe Jensen]

John Kain, your risks are different from the usual, the extra money isn't all that important compared to injuring your career and there's no competition for that particular format of saw yet so it's a logical contender.

HOWEVER, if you really are concerned with health - why stop there, why stop at trying to handle only one risk? Why go with any table saw rather than, for instance, the Festool saw-on-a-rail system which also spends a great deal of engineering effort on dust control? No lesser light than Nick Engler (bigtime woodworking author who's also famous for being down to earth) has said he thought people could do fine woodworking with the Festool saw system. Capture the spinning blade on a rail and you severely lower the risks of amputations and kickbacks both. An additional benefit of the Festool system is that it was designed from the start to produce VERY little free dust - it's a whole different approach to woodworking safety. More comprehensive, don't you think? They have sanders and routers as well, all designed to throw their output into a vac system. You can afford nearly the whole line for the cost of one Sawstop.

The Sawstop only addresses one fear: amputation or severe cutting injury. Speak to some shop teachers. Kickback is also a KILLER. How happy would those untouched hands be if you were speared by a flying missile of oak which was, a millisecond ago, spinning around at 140 mph three feet away from your reproductive organs?

Inhaling toxic wood dust for decades also adds up to a measurable risk, IMHO. (IMHO = In My Humble Opinion, an acronym from the Jurassic Period of personal computers.)

There's more to woodworking risks than cutting injuries from falling into the saw blade of a table saw. This might be a good time to think beyond the box and consider the whole range of issues which might affect your safety long term. Off the top of my head, I'd consider the risks to vision, lungs, hands, body parts in the way of kickbacks and hearing. Which parts of these health issues would not affect your professional performance?

So you are saying that even though you can reduce the risk of the TS, you shouldn't bother since there are other risks too?

[Bruce Benjamin]

Allen, if you haven't seen it, you should check out the "hot dog demo" video on the Sawstop site:

http://sawstop.com/

- Vaughn

Question: How often has someone cut their hand on a saw by slowly feeding it into the blade? I would think that most accidents happen pretty quickly so I'd assume the Sawstop wouldn't be as effective there. I recall in another more heated thread recently about the Sawstop that there was a quote from the Sawstop FAQs about this. I think the reply from Sawstop was that if your hand was moving faster the injury could be very serious. When I pushed my finger into the side of my RAS blade my hand started out about 6" or so from the blade. I sneezed hard and accidentally jerked my hand quickly into the blade. I'm certain that my hand was moving faster than that hot dog is in the video. With my injury all I did was take the padding off the end of my left middle finger right to the bone. I was luck it wasn't worse. As fast as my hand was moving I doubt that the Sawstop technology would've prevented that level of injury in my case but it might have kept a worse injury from happening if the specific circumstances would've been even slightly different.

My point being that the hot dog video only shows it effectiveness in one limited circumstance that I don't think is very realistic. Who slowly pushes their finger into a spinning saw blade? Some do I suppose but most are probably a lot faster, like when there's a kickback and suddenly the wood isn't there anymore. Why don't they show a video where the hot dog is moving at a more realistic speed? Slip! Bam! Oh $#:^ !!!

Bruce

[Joe Jensen]

Actually, I read the stuff the Sawstop folks inserted into the Congressional record and when I looked at the data they cited, the number of accidents which led to more than trivial scrapes or cuts is around 25,000. (Look up their "testimony," it reads like a sales brochure, it's almost a script of their previous press releases.)

I'd like to see some refresher data on how much money those injuries cost and how rerouting that money to Sawstop would make woodworking any safer for those who aren't in a position to spend $2,000+ on a table saw. Are we going to make woodworking safer by making it less accessible? If you don't let people ski, you certainly will lower the number of ski accidents.

What do we lose if the entire bottom of the market is ripped out? What do we lose if we only have one saw company allowed to sell to schools, factories, public agencies spending tax dollars? We can see the gain to Sawstop. What's the gain to us as taxpayers, as citizens, as woodworkers? We might gain something from banning poor people from owning a table saw - but does the United States want to be that type of country? Do we really want to prevent working class people from owning affordable table saws?

While it's tempting to forget the limits of economies and say things like, "If it prevents ONE ACCIDENT, it's worth 87 kajillion dollars," it's not true in the real world. In the real world, we put numbers into the risk/benefit ratio when we decide what to buy. Private individuals do not typically spend $2,500 to cover a $1,000 risk. People spending other people's money are often not so restrained.

When you amortize out the excess cost of the Sawstop saws over those 25,000 accidents it might have saved the nation, IMHO: the Sawstop impressed me as the most expensive way for this society to meet the need for more safety around table saws.

It's been a while since I read those docs, I don't even have them on this computer, but my lasting impression was that one of the major sources of controversy in this issue is Sawstop's energetic pursuit of legal/legislative force rather than market persuasion to make its case. They apparently aren't able to scare the hell out of enough woodworkers to make the money they want to from this thing -- so they're happy to try making an end run around the marketplace by going down political paths instead. When people do that to a community which has a lot of independent minded constituents, they will find resistance. I'd bet some of the valence of Sawstop threads comes from that resistance.

I see, you are one of the people who dislike Sawstop because of their attempt to require this technology. I think the original poster was asking if as a surgeon a SawStop was a good idea, and he asked if they are well made.

[Allen Bookout]

Don't get me wrong. I am not anti Sawshop and the demos are impressive. I just had some of those lingering thoughts in my mind. I just hope that it is really dependable.

I guess one thing is that you never think that you will be the one so it is hard to part with the extra dollars. Once you have no fingers on one hand I guess that you would think otherwise. On the other hand if you get away with no injuries -------.

I am not going to look at those videos again. Makes me nervous. If nothing else they make you realize once more that you really need to stay far away from the blade no matter what it takes and not get complacent.

Thanks! Allen

[Joe Jensen]

If you have a power feeder, it would be a waste of money. Your fingers would never even get close to the blade. I'd spend it on better/more feeder wheels, better fence system, better blade(s).

I have nothing against Sawstop, I just think kickback is FAR more an issue than getting your fingers into the blade.

I'd like to see some more manufacturers put OFF/Emergency switches in a better, more accessible spot. Preferrably where you could hit them with your knee/leg. 9 outta 10 times that I've gotten into a sawing situation that required I stop it, finding and getting to the off switch is quite a challenge!

Do you mean a stop switch like on the SawStop (sorry, I couldn't resist )

[Per Swenson]

Wow 5 pages,

I was gonna stay away, Nah.

Im my opinion the sawstop cabinet saw is the best made saw under $10,000 American. Period. I am not talking sawstop tech. Leave that out for the moment. I am not talking slider I am talking cabinet saw. Next step up
is the 10 grand Northfield. Oh he didn't say that. Yes I did.

I am staying away from the slider discussion 'cause room is a issue.
So is price. We will wait on one until the next expansion.
I make my living, my sole income from this woodworking/carpentry thing
of ours,kinda makes me all about the Benjamins.

This translates to a spread sheet on every purchase Swenson & Swenson
makes.

So we bought one.

As my Father said while he was on the phone placing the order
(while I yelled in the backround " what are you doing with my money")

"Per you would have to be stupid not to buy this saw."

Me, 30 years in the trades I have all my fingers.

The old man 62 years (He is,81 so I guess) messin with spinning sawblades.

All his digits intact. Are we super careful? You bet.

My son is 16, first year on the saw.

So, the $500 premium for the technology is nothing but

extra insurance. I wanna keep em. My familys fingers that is.

About the kick back to the privates comment, the riving knife negates that

and you must have some pretty long legs.

Bottom line, Sawstop, or the $20,000 slider I want.

Nope, this year I will keep the difference.

There is this really nice Boston Whaler down the street, I can pick it up for

8 grand.

Per

[Charlie Plesums]

Todd, what you say is true, but don't you really need a two saws, one slider, which needs a 8 feet in front, behind, and to the left of the blade. A slider like this is like $10-20K. Plus, wouldn't you need second saw with a feeder on it? Most of the folks on the forum are making due with a 1-2 car garage, or maybe a 3 car garage. I am lucky enough to use most of a 3 car garage, but I don't see how I could fit a slider in my shop along with the planer, shaper, RAS, Drill Press, Bandsaw, and Jointer. I'd love a big slider, someday when I get a dedicated shop.

Joe, I don't know where you live, but you are welcome to visit my shop in Austin, Texas. I have an 8 1/2 foot slider (with a 12 inch blade it requires 18 feet from one extreme to the other, but that space is often shared with other equipment or projects), plus a lathe, 24 inch band saw, 14 inch bandsaw, 16 inch jointer/planer, shaper, mortiser, power feeder, drill press, radial arm saw, drum sander, dust collector, two spray setups, a couple hundred board feet of wood, and countless small tools, in a two car "shop." Furthermore, in less than 20 minutes, I can clear enough room to put one of the cars in the garage (the smaller tools roll into the workspace around the larger tools).

Is the equipment expensive? Yes. Is it crowded? Yes. Do I enjoy making furniture full-time in that shop? Yes. Would I love to have a larger shop Yes. But only having a 2 car space available isn't reason to avoid the large euro-style machines in a complete woodworking shop. My safety, precision, and productivity skyrocketed when I sold my traditional jointer, planer, and tablesaw, and went with the MiniMax. Come see it!