The Sawstop debate rages on

[Anthony Anderson]

well I may get bashed but... If you use push blocks like were supposed to, would this not be an issue?

Tim, you are being naive, with all due respect. I was in the local ww store last week, and an employee had a tablesaw accident, doing everything the way he should have been doing it, push sticks, guard etc (according to him, I did not see the accident occur). The right index finger was removed down to about the second knuckle, and the thumb was taken half way off. Even when we do things the correct way, using the safety equipment that we are supposed to use, things still go wrong. I suspect even the SawStop will fail as well, one day, when the user depends on it. A person can take all of the precautions in the world, and bad things can still happen. SawStop is, just as others have said, just another layer of protection, and it happens to be a quality saw as well. Regards, Bill

[Tim Wagner]

So who has the best prices?

[Calvin Crutchfield]

I recently took my wife into the local woodcraft. She is awesome by the way!

She asked me why I didnt have that cool black saw with the safety features on it? I said, I dunno, I like my saw and that one is expensive.

I have a General 650 that is about 5 yrs old. I just installed a Jessem Slide and have it tweaked nicely.

So my question is this:

Will I be losing anything in quality or functionality by getting the 5hp SS? From what I read, I kind of gain...beefier machine, Riving knife, safety and some have mentioned better dust collection...is this true? If so how.

My wife even said she would pay the delta in price after I sold my currrent saw!!!

I just want to make sure I will not lose any quality or functionality. Afterall, being North American made and baldor equipped was a strong selling point and the SS is a Taiwanese production. It would be great if current SS owners could chime in on the quality. That is, I do not need to rehash the $$ issue nor the technology of the safety featurs of the SS. Only how it rates against other TS's in all other categories.

I have attached a picture of my current tablesaw and a picture of a $2600 surgey circa Jun 2002. This happened as the blade was spinning down and I reached for a small piece of wood. Have no clue how it happened, but bet your butt that evertime I am near a blade now, I think and rethink my moves. If I am ever in a hurry, I stop and go in the house and take a break.

[George Lohnes]

I think my favorite line on the whole SawStop controversy came from my wife....

I was trying to justify buying a SawStop and said to my wife "aren't my fingers worth $3000?? At which time, she picked up my most recent Grizzly catologue... turned to one of the cabinet saw pages... and said "nope... they're only worth $975 (apparantly the price of the Grizzly.

Needless to say... I now have a grizzly saw

[Dave Fifield]

If I were you George, I'd be looking for a divorce right now.....seriously, she doesn't think your fingers are worth saving? That's crazy!!

[Calvin Crutchfield]

Obviously you won't be able to find a best price with an item with such price controls, but I got the 5hp with 52" fence and table for under 4k out the door.
My source had the freight listed as $145 vs. the $425 mandated cost for CA Freight. Timing was great so I jumped. Of course then I had to spend $300 on the htc base and another 60 or so to upgrade my electrical ckt to a 30amp.

Will be delivered on Tuesday morning and my General 650 was sold on Friday.

Saw 2799
2hp upgrade 200
fence 369
table 99
freight 145
+ tax

[Art Mann]

Lets see if I can enumerate all the facts I have learned from this thread.

1. Any hobbiest woodworker who uses a tablesaw without an instant stop mechanism and a riving knife, will eventually lose some appendage or get punctured by a large wooden object. It is inevitable.

2. The only tool worth buying is the most expensive top of the line model. Any other purchasing decision is a mistake.

3. The first thing a typical woodworker does when starting a new project is to buy $1000 worth of lumber @ $10 a board foot.

4. One should allow at least $20,000 to get started in woodworking in order to cover the cost of $4000 tablesaws, $1000 loose tenon cutters, $3000 12" jointers, $400 orbital sanders, $500 little green vacuum cleaners and and all the other essential items.

I think I will take up knitting.

[Steven Wilson]

Yep, except it's a 1000 BF of lumber @ $10/BF

[Kyle Kraft]

Well said, Art.

[Craig D Peltier]

For me I didnt really know what a saw stop was.I mean I got the idea but I finally found a good explanation.
:
"As for the safety features, I've haven't put the brake to the test. Like the air bag in your car, the Sawstop system includes an extensive startup and continuous self test while idle and running. And like your air bag it's very costly to "test." You get only one emergency stop per blade and brake. Besides $70 for a new brake, it's another $50-100 for a new blade. It's pretty high tech. The brake is a special aluminum block and electronic assembly with a fusible (i.e. burnable) wire holding the spring loaded brake block assembly in position. When the electronics "fires" after detecting contact with human flesh, the fusible wire is burned through by a high electric current "pulse". When the wire burns through, the spring loaded aluminum block is shoved into the spinning blade. The blade cuts deeply into the block, and the block absorbs the considerable momentum energy of the blade, arbor, belt and motor. The result is that the blade and block get hot enough near the teeth of the blade to unsolder or weaken the teeth on the blade. In short the blade is ruined 50% of the time according to one web site I found that had tested the unit. Once the emergency brake has been fired you need to replace the whole brake assembly (like the air bag), which includes the brake, spring, retaining fusible wire, firing electronics including capacitor, and brake frame assembly. Replacement only takes a couple of minutes. Despite the cost, it is still better than paying for a new finger. Two friends have lost 2.5 fingers collectively from table saws. And both were experienced woodworkers."

Pretty cool.What technology. Its come along ways here.

[Ron Blaise]

I would have saved myself a trip to the E-room last year, not to mention pain, a bloody mess to clean up and no wood working till it healed. Was it my fault? Of course! I work in an industry (Automotive) where we have to spend millions of dollars each year to try to protect people from themselves because they are too stupid or stubborn to follow common sense safety rules. So why all the complaining because someone came up with a great idea? Machines don't care about human life, only other people do. My 2 cents worth

[Jonathon Spafford]

I am curious if anybody on this forum has tried sticking there fingers in the blade for the fun of it ??? Ok... kind of an expensive experiment!

Anway... I personally think that the SS is the only way to go if woodworking is a big hobby. Statistics are against you and most of those guys that you see that have done woodworking for 50+ years are missing a finger or two. You only have to pay for a SS once, and the 2.7 grand (plus brake and blade) seem a good alternative to paying at least that much for surgery on your fingers. Some say they can't afford it... but the question is can you afford losing a finger plus the surgery that will follow? There are always those moments of carelessness or those unpreventable accidents and the SS just helps to cover for those moments... I thing it is worth it!

[Mark Singer]

I own a SawStop...it is not because I don't know how to use a cabinet saw safely...I do! It is because anything can happen to anyone at anytime. Not on purpose....by accident....that is why its called an accident. Race car drivers are excellent drivers....still they die racing ...it happens all the time. If the cars did not have seat belts and they were not wearing special cloting and a helmet .....it would happen more often.
When you think of the design of such a saw....the mechanism to drop and stop the blade is more complicated than a simple saw that is just spining....it is more complicated than a Euro slider that is a spining with a sliding table attached....its priced correctly IMHO....besides being a safer saw, its a higher quality saw than the best cabinet saws...my last saw was a PM 66....the SawStop is smoother...less vibration and very accurate....like with many things in life.....I forgot the cost long ago....now I just enjoy the saw and knowledge that just in case me or my son use it and someting happens, it safer

[Craig D Peltier]

FYI In finewoodworking basic power tools page 29. Sawstop is coming out with a contractors saw mid 2007. No price lsited but there was a pic.Reminded me of dewalt kind of tonka toyish top.
Maybe $1500?
Hmm says blade stops in 5 milliseconds and it says theres a video of it in action on there website.

[Ray Harkness]

I came here to see what kind of debate was occuring about this saw.

I went to my local Woodcraft store to get advice on what powertools should be considered essential to someone who is just starting out with making furniture.

A cabinetmakers saw was the first. Then I was shown the Powermatic and the SawStop. The price difference between the two was $1300. I've been doing alot of research and after reading the posts here I can say that I will most definitely be buying this saw. I have an annoying habit to my family and friends.

I will not jump into something until I can afford to purchase the best. I hade a crappy 20 year-old TV until I could save enough money to get a top-of-the-line HDTV 61". Same thing for the surround sound.

With my wife's hobbies of scrapbooking and quilting, I insist that she has teh best tools. We save up and get the tools when the money is there. We don't buy lesser quality tools and then get better tools later.

So, now I'll be delaying my entry into the woodworking hobby until I have the money saved up to purchase the tools that I want. I've determined that it will take about $6,200 in capital to get started:

$3400 SawStop
$800 Powermatic 6" Jointer (with 66" deck)
$600 DeWalt 3 blade 13" planer
$900 Powermatic 14" Band Saw
$500 Sales Tax


I'm not made of money, but every decision is highly analyzed and these costs are added to the budget and we juggle money around to try and afford it. If I cannot have the tools I want, then I won't start.

But from an anecdotal basis, my wife is an ER Trauma nurse. She said that in the past 6 months she has seen at least 10 table saw injuries in her ER and that was between the hours of 3PM and 3AM (her particular shift). She said of those most were involving amputations.

So, I ran the numbers. My annual out-of-pocket maximum is $2000 and that doesn't include the co-pays. So I could easily max out around $3000 for one major trip to the ER. That would be almost the cost of the saw in and of itself. PLus there are alot of other expenses that come with a serious bad injury. The cost could go up even more, if it happens near the end of the year and you roll over into a new insurance year.

If you don't have insurance (which if you listen to the news is a fair chunk of the US population), the cost of even a slight injury requiring a trip to the ER can add up to quite a price tag.