Saw Stop Question

[Scott Kilroy]

I don't know much about the sawstop story. However I know a lawyer who specializes corporate liability who shared this little bit of general information with me. Just about any company that sells a product in the USA has to be concerned about offering a safety feature that then fails, or offering a safety feature on only part of your product line. The example he gave was (from his firsthand experience) was of a zipper manufacturer coming out with "child safe" feature (if it broke none of the parts were a choking hazard) and that some clothing manufacturers started requiring this zipper in adult clothing since they had a history of knowing about choking hazards in all zippers they could have been accused of ignoring the deaths of adult zipper eaters (must be a bigger problem that I realized).

[Joe Dusel (Vista, CA)]

I'm sorry, but the type of fence on the SawStop looks dangerous to me. I wouldn't feel safe using a fence that didn't slide back and forth to accommodate doing cut-offs using a miter gauge. I think someone should sue them.

I actually think the technology is a great idea, and having the Euro style riving knife is a great idea. Forcing it on other manufacturers I'm not crazy about - and of course not having a Euro style fence is a big mistake. Plus, there is no slider... What good is a saw without a slider?

Joe

[Scott Felicetti]

Well stated Mike.

The best recounting of the story that I've seen is here:
http://www.designnews.com/article/CA6360672.html

Link is bad?

Patents expire lets say 21 years if I remember correctly on something like this. I don't know how many years have already ticked by. On it's own, Saw Stop isn't going to take a large market share away from the table saw manufacturers. In a few more years the patent will expire and every Asian made machine can include such technology (free of royalty). The only hope would have been to successfully lobby Congress to get such technology mandated. Saw Stop could have cleaned up if that happened. A few good Personal Injury lawsuits (yeah stop yelling) against the standard machine makers could have done it. If I represented an injured plaintiff injured while using a standard table saw, the Saw Stop and technology behind it would be one of the things my jury would hear before they went to deliberate. Maybe not tomorrow but eventually you will see this or similar technology on every table saw sold in the future.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

You forgot to mention that manufacturers of consumer products will kill to save a nickel.

They tend to make things crappier rather than better. After all the consumer is not known for discernment.

[Eric Gustafson]

You forgot to mention that manufacturers of consumer products will kill to save a nickel.

They tend to make things crappier rather than better. After all the consumer is not known for discernment.

Most people I meet are suspicious of business in general. Most people are afterall, consumers. To be fair to a business, however, you have to look all factors. Business owners are always in competition with someone, unless they have a patent, copyright, or can otherwise monopolize their product. Lose that competition and you lose your busines.

If a saw manufacturer can improve their product without increasing its cost, then it would make sense to do so, but no improvement is without any cost. Every change to a production line adds cost at first. First for the engineering , then the tooling, and don't forget the mistakes. So a supplier must ask themselves if those costs can be recovered and whether they will gain an competitive edge. If they are wrong they will price themselves out of their market segment. This seems to be the situation with the Saw Stop. How many new saw owners buy some other saw right now because of price? The SawStop technology adds material cost, labor, tooling, and royalties. The current market for table saws has a lot of competition. A lot of improvments have been made over the years, and at a reduced price because of Chinese manufacturing. Certainly, there are quality problems, but over all, quality has improved and will likely improve more over time. We get a lot of bang for our buck.

Business entreprenures are accustomed to accept risk, but business managers are less so inclined. Hence, fault the tool manufactures for not seeing a good opportunity to set themselves apart, but realize this is not the only industry to resist change. Think of American automakers and airbags, fuel economy, etc.

[Dave Sinkus]

I don't know how the 8% royalty is calculated, but I was surprised it was that low. I was thinking it was $200 per cartridge (or whatever they call the brakeing mechanism).

Not to beat the dead horse, but the statement about "too many false positives" and the cost with replacing those cartridges......there was a thread not too long ago (maybe not on SMC) about a "false positive" that the guy couldn't figure out why it fired only to find out he nicked the very tip of his aluminum miter gauge fence. The same for wet wood, conductive material, or hot dogs -- if it conducts, it triggers the braking mechanism. They have an override capability.

I see where the China or Taiwan manufacturers would need to retool, but some of those saws are painted different colors and sold under different brand names. In the end, it is money. I think the most liability for anyone would be on SawStop's part. Can you imagine if it doesn't fire and some one can't post a story about a finger save? I would think that lawsuit would be astronomical for their foolproof system failing.

[James Ross]

A neighbor has a new Saw Stop and has had two "accidental" trips. Both times he was talking to someone while sawing and his cross cut fence touched the blade, tripping the safety feature.

Required two new Forrest Woodworker II blades and two replacement cartridges. He says he will not be talking while sawing in the future.

Alan

[Chuck Burns]

I had a SawStop delivered last Friday and I am most impressed with the saw. After using it all day Sat and Sunday I can say that the sheer quality of the machine justifies it's price irregardless of the safety features. The crating was outstanding as was the internal packaging and the owners manual is the best I have ever seen.

As to the royalty of 8%; I would have guessed it would have been higher. I had a question and spoke to Tony at SawStop. He said they are working on several products for future release; a jointer, CSMS and bandsaw. Apparently they feel that with additional volume they could moderate pricing somewhat.

As to whether people would pay for the technology SS has sold 9000 saws since it's introduction. Thats a fairly decent number but I have no idea how it compares to the sales of the PM2000, PM66, Unisaw or other cabinet saws. Tony at SS did tell me that they have had customers tell them that after replacing their other saws with SS that their yearly workers comp premium went down by more than the cost of the saws.

[Greg Pavlov]

............
As to whether people would pay for the technology SS has sold 9000 saws since it's introduction. Thats a fairly decent number but I have no idea how it compares to the sales of the PM2000, PM66, Unisaw or other cabinet saws. Tony at SS did tell me that they have had customers tell them that after replacing their other saws with SS that their yearly workers comp premium went down by more than the cost of the saws.

I don't know if any high schools are buying shop equipment these days, but if they do I suspect that it would be difficult for them to buy any table saw other than the Saw Stop.