I think the greed mentioned here is that SawStop is lobbying to make it mandatory for saws to use their technology while trying to stop others from bringing similar systems to market, all so that they can price-gouge a captive market.
IIRC last time it was discussed here, they were trying to charge ~$100 per saw to license their tech, when the usual margin on a saw was about a quarter of that.
If they just accepted a reasonable licensing fee, their tech would be ubiquitous already and they wouldn't need to try and use regulatory capture to force people to use it.
Relevant quote from TFA:
> CPSC Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle said she was also concerned that the rule might force companies to license technology from SawStop, which she said might create a monopoly.
Thanks for putting that into better light. So it's SawStop that is asking for too high a license, they aren't getting bites at that price point, and now trying to get legislation to force other companies to pony up.
Now I get the greed aspect, should have been more obvious. I was thinking in terms of component cost and not licensing cost, how naive of me...
Though in this case, at least they did create something novel making the patent legit.
I don't see it as being greedy. If you invent something clever, and we have a whole patent infrastructure for protecting inventors, why wouldn't you want to get paid for people using your inventions? No-one is seriously claiming that these patents are bad, or trivial, or obvious. The patents exist, they are available for companies to license, it's just that the competitors don't want to pay for it.
They are also prevented from inventing their own similar solutions due to prior art and broad patent.
The solution in SawStop qualifies as super obvious to a person not even well versed in art. As such it should not be patentable. However making a patent invalid in the US is extremely hard.
> I think the greed mentioned here is that SawStop is lobbying to make it mandatory for saws to use their technology
I don't think they are lobbying for saws to use their technology, but rather for saws to use -a- technology to stop the saw.
They just happen to have a patent on a technology with proven results that it works. The patent probably covers the sensing, the stopping of the blade, and reactive retraction system to move the blade downward quickly.
Another manufacturer would have to come up with alternatives to all or more of these to implement the same safety feature; or license the tech from SawStop.
Manufacturers have done the math, and have come to the conclusion that they want the profits over their customer's safety; maybe they also got input from their customers, and found that most wouldn't pay over a certain amount extra for the feature, and that amount was much lower than what R&D for a new method, or licensing SawStop would cost.
So - what's going on can be looked at as either SawStop being greedy, or they really want some kind of this technology to be put on saws (and other tools could benefit likely) - whether it is their's or something else. You can't fault them, though, for pursuing a lawsuit on patent infringement, if the it is being infringed. That's the point of patents.
It could be argued that this is somewhat about greed, though, because SawStop has been pursuing this with the FTC since they came to market with the tech. But I doubt that they are trying "regulatory capture" here - that would be fairly blatant, and I doubt even the current FTC would abide by that. It could turn out, though, that their tech is (so far) the only way to reliably stop a saw blade from spinning instantly.
Ultimately, we'll know what the truth is when the patent runs out:
If all the table saw manufacturers adopt a similar system, but charge only a little extra (but not the huge difference that SawStop does - which is likely a combination of R&D recovery, plus being a small manufacturer with different margins to recoup) - then they care about their customer's safety.
I'm cynical, though - I guess I've lived too long. I expect they'll either adopt something then charge just as much or more as SawStop does currently, or they'll not do anything (but likely increase their prices anyhow).
It adds $200 to the cost of a saw. You can buy sawstop saws on Amazon.
The trouble as I see it is it's patented technology, and SawStop sues infringers. It would certainly be a jackpot for SawStop to get a law requiring their patented technology on every saw - look what happens to drug prices with patent monopolies. SawStop could easily impose a ruinous patent fee on competitors, and completely monopolize the saw business. Is it any wonder other saw companies oppose this law?
The patents expire in 2021, that should change the game.
Yeah, I think it's fair to debate now if it's worth making mandatory, but I don't have a strong opinion either way. I think he should be able to enforce his patent for the duration and after it expires there's a stronger argument for making it mandatory.
Off the top of my head, I can think that the saw getting false positives or being incapable of cutting anything conductive, which may be my precise goal as a tool user, as dealbreakers on this feature.
Luckily, the creators of this technology also thought of these cases and provide ways to pre-test the safety check (e.g. damp wood) or to override it on specific cuts.
I do wonder if this is an issue of misaligned incentives. If a person has workers' comp insurance through their company, why not give a reduced price to the company if they deploy this tool? The owner can show they reduce the risk of high payouts. The insurance company should, rationally, drop the bill by 50-100 a year. Even 30-50 could make the price difference of the saw worth it then.
My local community workshop has it. You're also responsible for paying for a new blade and cartridge if you trigger it. If you're a community workshop it seems like a no brainer because of liability.
But on the flip side, some construction workers pin back the blade guard on circular saws because it can get in the way.
They don't mention if it's possible to build saws without sawstop patents. Is this guy lobbying for all saw companies to be required to license his technology?
EDIT: It appears that they're currently suing Bosch for developing their own similar technology.
Not just suing, they have an injunction and at the moment you can't buy a saw in the USA with Bosch's REAXX technology, which actually works quite differently than SawStop.
Here are two videos where you can compare for yourself:
So many things seem obvious after they are explained. Fact is, no-one had built this kind of thing before sawstop. If it were so obvious, how come only one company did it?
We're talking about a small piece of circuitry that detects a current. This was possible in 2004, it was hardly the dark age of electronics back then.
Besides, the more complex part of the sawstop, at least to my eyes, is the part where you have to stop a big metal blade from spinning very fast ASAP. Just putting some brake pads on it like a bicycle wheel is not going to be good enough.
Any electric motor can be ran as a generator, which can be used to do electronic braking. It is the foundation for regenerative braking on electric cars and often used on big trailer trucks as the primary braking system.
The theremin, a device for detecting fingers using capacitative coupling, was patented in 1928. It output an analog audio signal, where pitch indicated proximity of one hand, and volume indicated proximity of the other.
The children's game Operation used an effective means to detect when the game's forceps contact the metal chassis.
Can we assume that the difficult and novel part of the invention is not generating the sensor signal, but acting upon it quickly enough?
>So many things seem obvious after they are explained
but randyrand guessed (I assume correctly, its so obvious I didnt bother checking, googling now ... yep capacitive coupling) without prior explanation. This is one of those 'X, but on a smartphone' patents.
Are there other tools that detect fingers and stop heavy machinery instantly? Did they exist prior to sawstop? Just because someone can guess how an invention works doesn't mean it was obvious, you've also got the benefit of being told of the idea in the first place. It's an invention that saves over ten life-changing injuries a day, if it was so inherently obvious, why did no-one else think of it before?
So many comments on here seem to focus on the electrical side of the patent, yet it's only part of the invention. There's also the non-trivial discovery of how to safely stop the fast spinning blade instantly.
The REAXX saw uses a completely different method to stop the blade so it is the electrical side of the patent that is being used to stop the only other example.
Also, the electrical side of the patent seems to be the most obvious.
Detecting touch on metal has been around for > 30 year. Seems like the obvious way to answer the question of how to tell if somebody is touching a metal blade.
And since they are suing, people can't buy Bosch's technology, and probably a lot less saw-stoppers are installed.
Also, it seems the SawStop version is destructive, as opposed to Bosch's. That means you have an expense every time it fires.
So this lawsuit is causing a lot of lost fingers, and some lost money. It would be really funny (although unrealistic) if somebody could be held responsible for all damages caused by the lawsuit.
Bosch system is cheaper in comparison: You have to replace the cartridges (~$156) which can fire twice (so 78 per activation). With SawStop you have to buy both the break ($69) and the saw (15-100? depends on the saw).
Prices taken from amazon.com (so I don't know how realistic they are, the cartridge may actually be much cheaper, I don't know where to look at the official price)
Volvo held the patent for the 3-point seat belt and voluntarily gave it up. Being able to say "well on second thought, this invention is just so good we actually want to give it away" would be a chilling effect on exactly the inventions we want - those with overwhelming positive societal influence.
From what I saw, the entire system is more or less single use, resulting in a destruction of the sawblade and the catch.
As well as severe shock to the drive.
I'm not one bit surprised there is serious opposition to the idea, capitalism and all
Well, you'd only lose your blade and cartridge if you would have otherwise cut yourself...so it sounds like a good trade. Yes, it does get triggered if you have a stray nail in your wood (bad idea) or if the wood is too wet. But from the little experience I have, it'd only be triggered by wood that's wetter than you'd want to cut in the first place.
SawStop is used at our community woodshop. I've seen it go off (someone touched by blade after they turned off the table saw, but before the blade at stopped spinning), but I haven't heard of it harming the table saw in any way.
Going to depend on the strength of the axle, also if saw stop are insisting on licensing the tech at 100$ a saw then people will be priced out of the market completely.
Oh and why not just instead use a clutch to disconnect the drive instead? There is one already I bet. Without motive force the blade stops in your hand without explosions. It has low mass so low momentum. (This won't work for massive blades but neither will exploding them. You will need an active brake.)
However the patent is on the dumb detector and is overly wide.
When shut off, the blade doesn't have "low momentum"; if it were clutched, it would still be spinning fast enough to seriously mangle or sever fingers. An active brake won't be fast enough.
Remember, each tooth is flying at an insane amount of speed; you need to be able to stop the saw dead in a fraction of the length of the tooth (within the length of about 3/4" - about the thickness of an adult hand/finger). You don't - you can't - do that with a friction brake, or even some hypothetical friction plus e-braking (regenerative braking).
That spinning mass of steel has a ton of momentum, even disconnected from the motor. The only way to reliably stop is is to quickly jam something non-yielding into the teeth of the saw.
If you can figure out another way, kudos to you! But I would suggest you first learn about what and how a table saw works first, just to know what kind of forces you are dealing with. They are anything but small.
Even a very good blade is in the neighborhood of $100. The catch is about $70. The trunnion and drive mechanism of the Sawstop is very solid, it's meant to cope with these shocks.
This is nowhere near what a hand injury would be.
The table saw is the most dangerous piece of equipment in a standard wood shop. Even very experienced people can get into trouble on a table saw.
It's kind of like the F# versus C conversation, but with your hand.
If big companies won't adopt it, startup a company and build a better saw and people will buy it. Table saws are dangerous, I remember in high school having a piece of wood splinter and fly past my head hitting the ceiling. People don't seem to have problems buying safety with cars, I see it as just an industry full of cheap ass power tools that constantly need replacing.
I'd buy such a saw just so when my dumb ass neighbor borrowed it he wouldn't cut off his fingers. I laughed at him when he asked for the chainsaw.
>People don't seem to have problems buying safety with cars
Compare the introduction of three-point seat-belts. These were legally required while they were still under patent, but unlike SawStop, Volvo shared their invention with other manufacturers for free. They didn't try to use regulatory capture to force people to pay them.
Yea, people don't have problems buying safety with cars because they are forced to. You can't buy a new car without a seatbelt or airbag (and other mandated features), even if you wanted to. If they instead were optional features that actually cost money, a sizable number of people would skip them.
As far as I know sawstop will trigger on wood that is lightly damp. And at ~$100 per occurrence it gets expensive fast ($70 for sawstop cartridge and 15-50 for a new blade.)
Yes there is a bypass but you don't always know if the wood is too wet or not.
Bosch have a better system that doesn't destroy the blade or require the cartridge to be replaced every time because it merely retracts the blade very quickly into the bed, but SawStop are using their patents to stop Bosch from selling it. Apparently they went to the effort of patenting every possible approach that doesn't require the expensive but profitable single-use cartridge even though they have no intention of using them, just to stop competitors from doing it.
As horrible as patents are, this seems like an abuse even if the patent system. I think all patents should expire no more than five years from application date or one year from certification date whichever is longer.
This is true, it does trigger with wet wood. Aside from framing lumber (2x4s, etc), most woodworking is done using kiln-dried hardwood, though.
I worked around a sawstop at the Stanford student shop for a couple of years, and saw it triggered a handful of times: once was a piece of mirrored acrylic, once was a (wet) oak stump, and once was a TA's finger (he was fine, just a nick).
We frequently turned the safety off if a student needed to cut something that we knew might trigger it - it's just a key that you turn next to the start/stop switch.
The blade is not always ruined - just depends on the blade you're using. We primarily used a blade with carbide tips (which is very common, though more expensive), and I never saw the blade ruined.
Personally, I would never buy a table saw without this technology. However, I'm not sure we need a law to require it.
I own and use a tablesaw for home maintenance, and occasionally building utilitarian furniture, loudspeaker boxes (musician here), etc. My saw is an ancient Sears Roebuck that a buddy found at a garage sale.
I'm aware of the SawStop technology, but haven't felt motivated to buy a brand new saw. The deal for me is simply that I don't have enough use for a saw, to justify buying a new one. I wouldn't recommend this approach to anybody else -- just using myself as an example of a person who has somehow rationalized keeping the old technology.
My approach is to limit what I do with the saw. My hands never go anywhere near the blade. For smaller workpieces, intricate cuts, etc., I use hand tools or just figure out a different design. I'm willing to waste wood rather than try getting one last cut out of a scrap. Also, I simply don't use it very often. Most of the time it sits with the blade retraced, covered with bicycle parts.
But in a lot of fields, it's impossible to discuss safety, or to get a straight answer about safety questions. Every technology has detractors with arguments that it is actually more dangerous. (Try reading web forum threads about bike helmets).
That's certainly an interesting thought. For now, I'm in maintenance mode, so my most important tools are the ones that I can throw in a bucket and carry to the point of use. And, stuff that's not related to woodworking at all: Repairing appliances and messing around with old bikes.
One of the most common uses of a table saw is preparing stock for other operations like ripping (cutting longitudinally) long boards or cutting a sheet of 4'x8' plywood into panels. You would need a pretty big CNC router to be able to do that.
You can DIY one cheaper, of course, but you're still looking at a few grand. If you don't mind slightly less accuracy, and want to do it as a kit (instead of completely homebrew - which can be a pain to learn about if you aren't familiar with CNC already) - this company is pretty well known:
Also something else to keep in mind: If you do metal work, you can purchase (or build) a CNC plasma cutter. You typically have to supply your own plasma cutter, or spend extra for it (what you normally pay for is the table, mechanicals, and interface electronics - computer is also extra). Many or most of these can be easily converted to adding a router for woodwork (provided it has a height control head to handle it). Just make sure you get one that can handle 4x8 sheets.
There are also CNC routers, etc that can handle much smaller sizes, if you aren't going to do anything big. Many of these are easy to DIY and there are plenty of examples, tutorials, books, PDFs, instructables, etc - on how to build one.
A small desktop CNC router can be homebrewed for less than $500.00 (plus a fair amount of time). Of course, you will need to have access to at least some basic tools to build one, and be competent at using them.
Folks get their fingers cut off, so their hands are going near the blade, though I don't know the exact circumstances. They may be trying to manipulate small pieces, or in too much of a hurry to take the right precautions.
Maybe there are cases where their hands get pulled in, but I can't think of how. Honestly I wouldn't recommend using a table saw at all to most people I know.
>Who is putting their hands/fingers near the sawblade ?
Most people don't deliberately place the hands dangerously close to the blade. Instead, it's an unforseen interaction with the wood and the blade. E.g. the hand holding down wood against the fence and is (supposedly safe distance of) 1 foot away from the blade but an unexpected kickback quickly pulls the hand into the blade before the operator can even react defensively. An experienced woodworker was demonstrating kickback using push blocks and thought he was safe but he almost got sliced by the blade.[1]
On can then say, install a riving knife to prevent kickback, etc... but that doesn't prevent an operator from reaching over the blade to grab a piece of waste. Whether fatigue or being in a hurry, he misjudges how his hand and the wood moves through space above the blade and boom, fingers get sliced. There are probably a 100 different ways to lose fingers on table saws.[2]
> let's make this amazing new safety feature mandatory for everyone! oh but let's make everyone licence it off us and punish anyone that doesn't want to pay us for safety
Ya, no. Besides the horrendous patent issue (say goodbye to market competition), this will double the price of table saws. No thanks. Consumer protection laws are not about making obvious choices for me. Its supposed to protect me from the unknown unknowns - things that the average consumer would not know is dangerous. Everyone has heard about these safer saws for over a decade now. Everyone knows saws are dangerous. If people wanted them, they'd buy them. This law will not making these saws any cheaper or make saws any safer, it's just removing consumer choice.
This is a ban. This is not why we have consumer protection.
What about employees or students who have to use the equipment? They can't force their employer or educator to spend the money, but it's their fingers that'll be lost.
Maybe laws to ensure that if you are employing or in any way requiring someone use your saw you need the safety features.
The patent stuff is it's own issue for sure, and yet another example of how crappy the system is.
The point is that any insurance company asked to provide a policy for table saws would mandate this technology for any saws it covers. Same way we got UL (underwriters laboratories!) listed electrical equipment.
To state the obvious, a consolation prize to someone who loses a finger isn't the point. Rather the purpose of said proposed legislation would be to incentivise rational economic actors to purchase safer machines. Assuming the premium discounts were greater than the added cost of the "safe stop" technology amortized over the lifespan of the machine, they would. Either that or go out of business, further automate production, move shop to Mexico, etc.
AFAIK schools already have these because they're pocket change to a school budget and students are notoriously dumb. It makes sense. So perhaps, we can think about a law but we should first evaluate if it is necessary. I can agree with the sentiment.
As TFA discusses, this certainly wasn't the case in 2013 when Mr. Ward had his hand destroyed in a high school shop. This technology had already been available for a decade at that point. Anyway the fact that a $400 machine has this feature doesn't mean that big multi-user shops can spend $400 and get it. Cheap table saws are made very cheaply, and are much less useful than $2000-and-up table saws. (More expensive/better built saws also last much longer than cheap saws.) Are there really public schools that wouldn't notice lots of additional spending?
Lots of additional spending? We're talking about one saw per district, a saw meant to last years. If they can't shift the budget to work in a one time purchase of a single tablesaw, in exchange for the safety of hundreds of woodshop students, that's on them. Most equipment in a school woodshop lasts multiple decades.
That said, many school districts already have made the switch. My high school already had a Sawstop by the time I first took a woodshop class in 2006, and it had already stopped multiple students from losing fingers.
Everything is relative, of course. It's likely that not all public schools have the same enrollment or tax base that yours had. At some point the number of public school shops without this technology will be low enough that an ethical company like Bosch could just give all the poor schools a new table saw. That seems less involved than the lobbying efforts described in TFA.
In a (slightly more) rational society, we would recognize the health care costs [1] of all those saw victims, and divert a bit of money to equip all saws with this technology.
If it becomes mandatory I wouldn't want manufacturers and customers to pay more. You could cancel his patent, but I think why not let the inventor get his "reward". I would take the money for licenses and implementation from health and disability insurers.
Of course, our system is really bad in making these kind of sensible re-allocations, so that probably won't happen.
Table saws aren't in the same class as cars. Table saws are mostly used by competent people and the injury rate is pretty low. When an accident does happen it only involves a single person and usually requires a few stitches. The cost savings of avoiding a few thousand people needing stitches is not even close to the cost of "modernizing the table saw fleet.". Plus, saws already come with a plethora of safety features (anti-kickback pawls, blade guards, and riving knives), and most serious woodworkers take the safety features off.
In a rational society we would let people make their own choices. We can raise insurance raise rates on people who act dangerously, and disallow frivolous lawsuits from people that circumvent existing safety features. There is no need for the government to regulate table saws that only risk the individual using it.
> Table saws are mostly used by competent people and the injury rate is pretty low. When an accident does happen it only involves a single person and usually requires a few stitches.
4000 people a year suffer from being mangled by a table saw. That's losing digits or an appendage (their entire hand). (NPR had a story about this a week or two ago)
EDIT: Let's say, conservatively, each accident on average costs $100K in medical costs, disability, etc. That's $400 million/year in costs. Just a hunch, but adding the safety break seems like a clear win.
I suppose that's a perverse benefit of healthcare being so broken in America; its so expensive, its usually cheaper to fix the problem then to dump it on the healthcare system as an externality.
>Just a hunch, but adding the safety break seems like a clear win.
Human behavior is counterintuitive and maybe the situation would be worse. See excerpt:
>Data supplied by SawStop concerning the number of table saw units sold and the number of reported blade contact incidences, proves that operators are nearly five times more likely to contact the saw blade of a SawStop saw as opposed to the operator of a conventional table saw.
Logic dictates that this increase in accident rate on SawStop saws is due primarily to a user’s decision to use the blade guard less frequently due to a “sense of security” in having the SawStop flesh-sensing technology on the saw. [1]
The analysis above may be flawed and/or come from a self-serving biased source. Either way, it's similar to the famous thought experiment about seat belts in cars: Volvo's generosity in giving the world seat belts without patent encumbrances didn't make the world "safer". Instead, if governments mandated a sharp iron spike in the steering wheel pointing just a few centimeters short of every driver's heart, that would actually make us safer than seatbelts.[2] It may have been tongue-in-cheek but it may also be true.
In my case when I researched saws, I seriously looked at SawStop and valued its flesh detection safety but ultimately preferred a European style sliding saw[3] that doesn't have the flesh detector. In my opinion, a sliding saw without the blade stop is "safer" overall than a SawStop. Of course, it would be nice if all saws had SawStop technology but if I had to choose among tradeoffs, I'd go with the sliding saw. The drawback is that it's more expensive.
Where there SawStop technology is more non-negotiable is the portable jobsite saw. A contractor can't transport the giant footprint of a sliding saw into a truck and then into a customer's house remodeling jobsite. Therefore, you want a portable saw with all the safety features possible.
In the video[1], you can see the operator walking with the sled to rip a large panel. A cross cut sled on a traditional Powermatic/Delta/SawStop doesn't have the same capacity and the operator ends up standing in front of the saw and bending his hip to push the sled into the blade. The geometry of motion is different. With a sliding saw, you're mostly out of the line of fire of kickbacks.
(The saw in the video is $40k but you can get used sliding
saws for $5k which is about the price of a brand new SawStop Industrial saw.)
Seems good for a commercial application or a large volume hobbyist. Actually, not too different from what they seem to use at the hardware store for their cuts.
But, what about the small scale home hobbyist that can't dedicate a huge space to their table saw (and has a budget under $1k).
The blade moves on tracks and the wood is stationary for cross cuts. Euro-style sliding table saw is the opposite of that.
For rip cuts, yes, the operator locks down the saw position and then pushes the wood through the blade. The issue with the vertical panel saw is that the top half of the rip cut wants to close the gap and bind the blade because of gravity. The horizontal surface of the the Euro slider doesn't have that issue.
>But, what about the small scale home hobbyist that can't dedicate a huge space to their table saw (and has a budget under $1k).
A tracksaw (Festool is a good brand) is a better alternative than most table saws, at least for cutting down sheet goods. Combine it with a chop saw and you've covered a lot of the use cases for a table saw.
So, it's a circular saw that can optionally ride on a long and straight metal track that clamps to your wood. I have rigged up things like that with 2x4s in the past.
Hadn't seen it as an actual product before, but much more convenient this way, which makes it more likely to get used. Not as advantageous as a table saw if you need to do a lot of identical cuts; but, seems like it would work well for the occasional need.
I might just replace my cheap/scary table saw with one of these the next time I build something. Thanks.
>Not as advantageous as a table saw if you need to do a lot of identical cuts;
You can do repeated identical cuts if you buy extra accessories for the tracksaw.[1] (I assume we're talking about "repeated cuts" using stops instead of constantly re-measuring with a ruler.) The parallel guides work ok but it's a lot more work to set up and dynamically adjust widths than a table saw's sliding fence.
If you like to use table saws to cut dados, rabbets, and slots for box/drawer joints, a tracksaw isn't as useful for that. Might have to get a router for those cuts in addition to the miter saw when supplementing a tracksaw.
The idea that we'd all be safer if we had a spike on our steering wheel is ludicrous. Traffic fatality rates have dropped dramatically over the past few decades, and much of that can be attributed to safety technology.
There is merit in the argument that people behave more dangerously in the presence of safety equipment. But there's no reason to think it's so extreme that it overwhelms the positive contribution of the safety technology.
> Traffic fatality rates have dropped dramatically over the past few decades, and much of that can be attributed to safety technology.
Yes that is true but it's not relevant to the idea that an alternate universe with different conditions could be safer than seat belts. If one truly engaged with the thought experiment, you'd have to try to imagine all side effects of the "ludicrous" spike. E.g. drivers no longer tailgate at 70mph -- in fact, they may drive under the speedlimit of 55mph. Instead of whizzing through the neighborhood at 40mph, they drive less than 20mph because any random squirrel running into street would trigger a reaction to hit the brakes which causes the heart to be pierced. Maybe less parents would let their kids have a drivers license at age 16 and instead make them wait until age 18 because of an iron spike pointing at their kids chest would keep them up at night. (That's 2 years less of teen driving fatalities right there.)
There may be all sorts of hard-to-imagine secondary effects that would lead to less deaths than seat belts. That's the idea of truly playing with that thought experiment. It doesn't mean we'd ever realistically implement that idea.
My point is that he hypothetical was really close to being real back before the 1970s or so. No seat belts and solid steering columns meant you'd die pretty easily. It didn't make people drive substantially more carefully.
It is posssible that the slope of the curve dramatically reverses sometime between "no seat belts and stiff steering columns" and "literal spike in the middle of the steering wheel" but that seems unlikely and there's no reason to think that would happen.
>hypothetical was really close to being real back before the 1970s or so.
Our perceptions differ then because when I drove an old Plymouth without seat belts, I didn't drive it as gingerly as driving a modern car today with a birthday cake in the front seat. A literal steel spike into the heart would make me more cautious than worrying about a birthday cake slamming into the dashboard. The Plymouth's steering column never gave me the feeling of impending death but a literal spike would. I think that sharp point on the end as a constant reminder really matters for the thought experiment.
Everyone isn't quite accurate; do they sell and advertise saws with this at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. where most people buy their power tools? I also think that thinking this will remove consumer choice is inaccurate as well, because if this was mandatory it's not like current saw manufacturers would simply stop selling saws. My understanding is this product doesn't really change much over time, and while there might be some new features added it's essentially the same product that was created years ago. I think the patent issue is a problem but if that was removed this would be a no brainer to add.
Also, you're absolutely wrong that this won't make saws safer. This will prevent people from sawing their fingers off in the off chance a finger enters the blade. That absolutely makes it safer and its disingenuous to argue otherwise.
> do they sell and advertise saws with this at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. where most people buy their power tools?
Yes, they did. Both companies carried Bosch REAXX saws, which have injury detection sensors, and are advertised accordingly.
^edited to past tense because there's apparently an injunction banning US sales of REAXX. So they tried to, and the reason they don't is that the company advocating for this law won't let them.
> I also think that thinking this will remove consumer choice is inaccurate as well, because if this was mandatory it's not like current saw manufacturers would simply stop selling saws
First, it still removes consumer choice to massively increase the price of saws. The cheapest sensing models I can find listed are >$1,000. The cheapest table saws at Home Depot are ~$400. Tripling the price of the cheapest model is absolutely a restriction of choice, and one that's going to hurt both hobbyists and professionals.
Beyond that, Bosch REAXX is currently being sued by SawStop, the same company/inventor pushing for this legal requirement. Does it restrict consumer choice if there's only one legal brand, all the others having been sued out of the market?
I agree that this technology is makes saws safer. I'm not at all convinced that the safety justifies handing a single company a government monopoly on table saws.
I mean, beyond this specific issue, it does seem they were infringing on the patent, so he has a right to sue to stop it being sold or get royalties from new and previous sales.
I think this tech should be mandatory in all saws, but I also think that one company shouldn't have control over the licensing and it probably shouldn't be something companies have to pay for.
Didn't sawstop offer to license the technology for something like 8%? It doesn't seem that unreasonable to get a license. I would agree with you if sawstop was trying to prevent anyone from selling a safety saw, but I don't think that is the case.
8% is egregious. Margins on consumer goods after parts and production are often well under 5%. Complex durable goods are probably higher, but even so 8% completely redefines the entire market.
Look at it this way: Bosch decided it was better to spend a small fortune of R&D to try to avoid the patent than to pay the license fees. And even now they haven't settled the resulting lawsuit - they'd rather fight it, because the likely outcome of the fee is not "paying up" but "scrapping the entire product line as a net loss".
Also bear in mind that this technology is a major portion of the total price of a saw - up around 50% on cheaper saws. So it's going to massively increase prices, and also increase SawStop's margins. They didn't just ask for 8%, they asked for 8% while lobbying the government to increase the price they're taking margin on and ban smaller competitors.
This looks like the other form of patent abuse - where instead of trolling you make a product people can't avoid and crush competitors with patent suits.
Let's say the patent issue was rendered unnecessary (maybe courts require safety tech but also require the patent to be allowed royalty free) -- how much would this add to the cost of the saws? If the patent was still valid and they had to license it, are you sure it would add $200? The tech seems simple enough that I have a hard time believing a $400-ish saw becomes $600 due to this.
The Reaxx is comparable (almost the same saw, just without the safety component) to the saw that I use (Bosch 4000-09) and IIRC it cost $1499 before the injunction, compared to the 4000-9's $600.
Wow, that's a 250% increase... I feel like that price is due to pricing the research into it rather than the cost of the actual product itself. Ideally if the tech becomes mandatory it won't be a significant increase.
"CPSC commissioners in favor of the rule point out that the $200 price difference is dwarfed by the financial cost, and pain and harm caused by 30,000 ER visits and more than 4,000 amputations every year. CPSC's analysis puts the annual cost of table saw accidents at around $4 billion."
> Besides the horrendous patent issue (say goodbye to market competition)
Bullshit. There are any number of ways to ensure the same functionality (just point a camera at the blade and have a computer stop the blade before it cuts somebody, rather than after, would be one obvious improvement) and if stopping the blade is mandated there will be plenty of competition.
Also, patents expire. I don't know when the patent for this particular device was granted, but given that NPR wrote its first article on them in 2004, they can't have many years left of patent protection.
Is this fundamentally a story about bad/criminal actors, or another strange outcrop of an insurance-centric industry?
The facililty described in the article seems to be a criminal racket. But my question in these cases is usually: is this a spectrum? How many places are on the seedy-but-not-criminal portion of that spectrum?
Kickbacks and body brokering might be ilegal, but the ultimate goal of these isn't: find clients with insurance you can bill, bill clients as much as the insurer will pay. There are options that aren't criminal, but also aren't a good allocation of resources.
I remember seeing this either on Science or Discovery channel when I was younger, talking about great inventions. I remember thinking it was a good idea, but forgot about it until last week when I saw an article pop up about the patent issue but that the FTC is thinking about contemplating making it mandatory. I think it should absolutely be mandatory, but I hope that the FTC can deal with the patent issue and let companies use the technology (or similar technology) for free rather than having to deal with paying royalties (or at least not have to pay 8% of profit from the tool).
I think the argument that, "you should know that this item is unsafe" is stupid, because just because something is unsafe doesn't mean a good, quality of life saving feature should be excluded. You could make the same argument about having seatbelts or airbags in cars, because you know it's dangerous but you're taking the risk anyway. Accidents happen, taking measures to prevent them or mitigate the damages should be done, if possible.
This isn't something I use, since I don't often create things from wood, but I would pay more for a technology that saves my finger in the off chance I accidentally move my finger towards the blade or something else happens, like the table accidentally shifting because my dog ran into it.
> I would pay more for a technology that saves my finger
Same, and I'm horrified to consider that professional tradesmen whose livelihood depends on their fine muscle control would choose not to pay more for a tool like this. Part of it is the mindset of "I'm not an idiot, I'd never accidentally position my hand anywhere near the blade"; but wood is a natural product with variations, and hitting an unexpected dense section might cause the piece to kick back. Then you might move rapidly to avoid it, and trip & fall onto the blade, or stumble & reflexively put out a hand…
> The company pushing the legislation has a major agenda that is not safety - patent licensing.
I'm not convinced this is reason enough to argue against it; rather, it's reason to demand that whatever regulation is proposed doesn't mandate the technology used, or to fix the licensing fee at a reasonable amount.
> You know why [… other safety precautions for woodworking …]
I don't find this argument very compelling. By analogy, you could argue against airbags in cars, since people wear seat belts, have licensing + supervised training, brakes, etc. All of those things are human-dependent, and thus may not be used appropriately in all situations.
You actually should wear form fitting tough gloves. (Unless you like splinters.) You should not wear loose gloves or clothing that could get pulled into the saw.
"I think the argument that, "you should know that this item is unsafe" is stupid, because just because something is unsafe doesn't mean a good, quality of life saving feature should be excluded. You could make the same argument about having seatbelts or airbags in cars, because you know it's dangerous but you're taking the risk anyway. Accidents happen, taking measures to prevent them or mitigate the damages should be done, if possible."
When you engage in an unsafe activity with a very dangerous tool (chainsaw, for instance) your brain works in a particular way and you have a high level of vigilance and care.
When you engage in a totally safe, foolproof activity (crayons) your brain works in a totally different way.
Both of these approaches are appropriate and economical.
The problem is when you add enough safety features to a (still) dangerous activity that it causes people to take the wrong approach to the activity. That is a recipe for many, many more (and novel and interesting) accidents.
I don't know where the sawstop-enabled-saw fits in this model. I guess it's conceivable that, along with anti-kickback, etc., etc., a sawstop-enabled saw really is totally safe like crayons are. If so, great.
But if you think a table saw continues to be a dangerous, maiming tool even after adding the sawstop then I think it could be a net-negative with regard to safety.
> like the table accidentally shifting because my dog ran into it.
Damn - just how cheap are the table saws you buy?!
/table saws tend to be fairly heavy, and don't typically move unless you really lean into them - a dog is not likely to move a table saw (and honestly shouldn't be in your shop, either)
"None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used to finalize any rule by the Consumer Product Safety Commission relating to blade-contact injuries on table saws," the rider on the budget bill reads.
The meta meaning of this thread is the most interesting part. Otherwise intelligent people are running straight into the buzz saw of obvious cognitive biases. Phrases like "Table saws are mostly used by competent people and the injury rate is pretty low" commenting on an article that spells out the injury rates and costs veer into near self-parody. Obviously humans are highly capable of over-estimating their own competency, in the face of graphic and statistically compelling evidence.
My wife, when we were dating, bought me a Unisaw, one of the so-called dangerous saws. (She's also the woman who would say "I'm going out to get some milk, do you need more clamps? Woodworker joke, sorry :)
I have no intention of getting a sawstop saw. Why? Because my shop is full of dangerous tools. My 1930's drillpress ripped some of my hair out, my 1940's metal lathe can take your arm off, my bandsaw is way more dangerous than a table saw, don't get me started about my shaper, etc. Tablesaws, treated with respect, are very safe.
But why not have an even safer tablesaw? Because I don't want to get complacent around one tool and have that feeling linger when I go use the next tool. They are all dangerous and all need to be treated with respect. Unless there is a way to make them all safe (there isn't), it doesn't make sense to me to have one safe one.
Yeah, I'm with you to some extent. My mills, lathes, etc. are all very dangerous when treated wrong (Anything with a reasonable amount of horsepower is). Routers still freak me out since there is virtually no chance of reattaching things hit with a router. "A fine spray on the wall" is about all that's left.
However, I'll also say that de-risking tools is a good idea. If you want to avoid complacency, then avoid it. If you can't take the vigilance you have around a lathe or a shaper and apply it to a tablesaw, just because the tablesaw is safe, I'd say you should probably reconsider your safety practices. There is a difference between good process and complete paranoia.
At present, I have a standard delta saw, because it's what I have. It is "dangerous" and also kind of lousy. Because of the way the trunion mounts the blade carriage, it is not possible to adjust the blade to 45° without a few thousandth of pinch.
I know my next saw will be a saw stop. They are safer, yes, but they are also incredibly nice saws. Compared to the powermatic I used to have, they are even better. When I move next, my Delta won't be coming with me, and I'll be ordering a saw stop.
I like the switch, the fence, and the surface finish of the table quite a bit. Small ergonomic changes that seem nice. I used to have a powermatic 66 and loved it too. Given the choice of buying a new saw, though, I wouldn't buy the powermatic just because of the safety.
Regarding cold, dead hands, is that before or after amputation by tablesaw? /s
Isn't this like saying you're not going to wear a seatbelt, because driving is still unsafe and you don't want to get complacent? I get what you're saying, but I would want to utilize as many safety precautions as possible, no matter what I'm doing.
Sort of, but not really. The reason you wear a seatbelt (for the most part) is because of things that are outside of your control: other drivers. In the case of woodworking, there are no other woodworkers that are going to do something stupid.
And yes, I know that you also wear a seatbelt to remove potential injury from only you driving (think if you lose control, etc). You do the same in woodworking; you use clamps to prevent things from moving, you use push blocks to keep your hands from the blade, etc.
The article lists someone at the safety hearing who's amputations were the result of something out of his control. Your statements against the seatbelt analogy would suggest that we should all be using this safety mechanism because, for the most part, there are things outside of our control that can seriously injure.
Sure. There will always be things out of our control in woodworking. Just like seatbelts won't save you in all circumstances. And there are still some people that drive without wearing seatbelts. It really comes down to personal preference (even though driving without a seatbelt on is illegal in many states and countries).
So my argument is wrong but you want to be protected from inattention????
You need to be fully awake when running tools, same goes for driving. They are both defensive activities.
Maybe people are beating on me because I didn't say "for me...." but whatever. I stand behind my reasoning, it works for me. And I think the sawstop is just silly. Tablesaws, used properly, are just fine. If you are losing fingers can I introduce you to this magic development called push sticks?
My tablesaw rules are simple:
- use wood or plastic push sticks to move the material
- don't stand behind the work (sawstop still has this problem)
- don't reach behind the blade until it is stopped
- don't use the fence as a stop for cutoff work (unless it's a unifence and you pulled it back)
as taught to me decades ago by my high school shop instructor.
A lathe will screw you good, so will a bandsaw (ever freehand work on a bandsaw? Sketchy as heck but useful). A chopsaw can jump the work and come right over your thumb. Shapers, oh, my, the ways that shapers can eat you.
If you need what sawstop offers then there is no way I'd let you in my shop. If you like it in your shop, have the big fun, anyone who depended on that is just an accident waiting to happen on the next piece of equipment.
I work 10 hours days six days a week with power tools and overhead cranes and individual steel work pieces that are guaranteed to kill or serious injury you if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Anyway safety feature that can be implemented without getting in my way, or any safety feature that forces me to work more safely is very welcome.
Just the other day someone nearly lost their fingers due to inattentiveness.
They've been default on new chainsaws since the mid 90s. That hand guard at the front is linked to a powerful brake so that if it catches and kicks back, it's very likely to engage that brake and save you a life-altering injury. They have centripetal clutches to disengage automatically and most require two points of contact and a disengaged brake for the throttle to work (common to many outdoor tools). Chainsaws still aren't safe —you'd be an idiot to use one without steel-laced trousers— but they are much safer than they were.
As I said in another comment, nobody needs this stuff until it saves their fingers, their hand, their face, their leg and their livelihood.
And that's what these arguments come down to. You (and some others here) think you'll never make a mistake or forget to move a hand or misplace their feet, or ever cut too deep in a bit of stock that was cutting fine last week. These are pretty stupid mistakes on their on their own but people aren't robots; they happen all the time.
Conversely I'm happy to say that I've been safe so far, but I respect how quickly that can change.
I should have given you some background, I used to be foreman on a tree service, I own 5 Stihl chainsaws currently (ms192, ms200t, ms261, ms362, ms660), I know what the brake does. I'm rural, 15 acres, I use all the saws regularly.
That's not the stop I was talking about, I was talking about the same sort of stop as the sawstop has. Sorry if I was unclear.
Do you consider somebody who demands they put their chainsaw trousers on first inept and unsafe? What about people who don't disable/remove their chainsaw brakes?
Trained operators are the ultimate safety feature, right? And these features actually weigh you down.
These innovations were obviously warmly welcomed by arboriculturalists. Why do so many woodworkers think they're beyond the need of similar precautions? Hell, half of you seem to think riving knives and guards were sent by the devil.
And a chainsaw voltage loop could work but you'd need to make the loop through the operator, not to earth. You'd need to make conductive gloves and generate a voltage and trigger the brake. All possible, isn't it... but more weight.
I dunno why you're all worked up. I didn't say anyone was inept (I sure hope I didn't, if I did, my apologies). Nor did I say you should remove your chainsaw brake.
What I was saying was what works for me. If you want to approach things differently, be my guest, I wasn't trying to convince to be a clone of me, I was just saying this is what works for me. Not sure why that is such a controversial thing.
I said if you "need" what that sawstop has. I was specific in my choice words. I didn't say "want", I said "need" because that implies you are careless enough that the sawstop is a necessity.
Let me try it this way: if you are unable to run a tablesaw without getting your fingers in the blade, of course I don't want you in my shop.
I'm not against safety equipment, I'm against people leaning on it, to me that's a crutch that's going to let you down at some point.
And just to be clear, this is the system that works for me. This is part of how I stay alert and don't let myself get complacent. You want to use a different system, great, in your shop do whatever you want. In my shop, all equipment is dangerous, that's the rule, people who don't like that rule aren't welcome to use my equipment. Pretty much the same rule that my shop instructor taught me 40 years ago and it has worked so far for me.
WFM™ here is survival bias given form. Your system hasn't failed you yet. When it does —because you're human and we make mistakes— you get to lose a digit.
The people saying they "need" this stuff are just saying they see avoidable risk and recognise their bodies are a finite resource worth the expense, even inconvenience of a few extra safety features. We're not talking about using sawstops in isolation.
But anyway, we clearly differ in our approach to risk, or perhaps how we balance our own skills against it. Whatever it is, I don't think I'm going to change your opinion here.
"When it does —because you're human and we make mistakes— you get to lose a digit."
By that logic I should just get rid of my 3 wood lathes, metal lathe, 2 bandsaws, drillpress, chop saw, shaper, horizontal boring machine, metal bandsaw, sawzall, circle saws, etc, because none of those have the sawstop feature.
And, by the same logic, loose the 5 chainsaws, the industrial chipper, the excavator, the two tractors, the rhino, because none of those are safe either.
Which is just silly. This whole discussion is silly. I've got a system that's been working for me for 40 years yet you feel like you want to tell me I'm gonna lose a finger. Maybe I will but it won't be on the tablesaw, I use push sticks. Religiously. Which is why I still have all my fingers. Sam Maloof pushed his stuff through with his hand and never lost a finger.
I just don't like the sawstop. It doesn't remove all of the risks, it's expensive when you forget to turn it off when you are cutting green wood, it's easy to forget to turn it back on when you switch back to dry wood, and I have never, in 40 years of using tablesaws, had any sort of fear of the tablesaw. Respect, absolutely, but a tablesaw, properly used, isn't high up on the risk scale. Free handing on the bandsaw is way way more risky yet people do it all the time.
I'm not telling you to do what I do, you can do whatever you want. I do resent, a bit, your view that I'll lose a finger. That implies you think I don't know what I'm doing and I resent that. Or maybe it is just like you said, it has been 40 years of getting lucky. Or maybe not.
> That implies you think I don't know what I'm doing and I resent that.
That's fair enough. I'm sorry. I truly believe you are knowledgeable in your tools and what you do with them. I think if that weren't the case, 40 years using them would have left you unable to type these comments.
But I would also put some of the other 40-80 thousand people hospitalised by table saws in the last year in your category.
And over 90% of those were hand in blade injuries. The sort of thing that is vastly eradicated by a blade that can detect a hand and deactivate.
So yes, I take your points, but epidemiologically, doing nothing and hoping people just do it better next time is more harmful to all of us than demanding better safety equipment as standard.
Perhaps that opinion is my Britishness coming through; we're paying the medical costs of our woodworkers' injuries directly.
I went and googled and, yeah, sure seems like a lot of table saw accidents. I went to the database and looked up tablesaw and bandsaw estimates. 2605 bandsaw vs 33164 tablesaw. Something is kinda weird about that. Unless everyone has a tablesaw and few people have bandsaws I'd expect that the numbers would be similar.
I'm starting to wonder if there are just a lot of stupid people using tablesaws. Which wouldn't surprise me, there are an amazing number of untrained people doing all sorts of stuff.
Whatever, I'm perfectly happy to say that sawstop is a fine idea for stupid people. I just don't need one, I don't put my fingers anywhere near any blade, that's stupid. And we have all sorts of data that says when you do stupid stuff you lose your fingers.
In my case, knock on wood, I believe I don't need that technology because I have a lot of respect for that spinning blade and don't get close to it. And what I've been trying, and apparently failing, to say is that my respect for the tablesaw is part of my mental state when I'm in the shop. I actually don't want a safer saw, it's still dangerous, it can still throw stuff at you hard enough to really hurt you, I'm fine with the protocol I have to not hurt myself.
I realize that winds people up, they think I'm Mr Cuts Corners or something, I'm not. I live on a 15 acre property, I use chainsaws, tractors, excavators, mowers, all sorts of stuff that can kill me. I do that stuff every day so I have to have a mental state of carefulness. On all the equipment. None of it is safe.
So for me, sawstop doesn't add any value, I'd use it the same way I use my current saw, with push sticks. Which is how everyone should use their saw. That's not saying I'm against sawstop or other safety equipment, it's just saying that I've got a safety protocol that works. And I won't let anyone into my shop who doesn't follow that protocol.
My thought process is that I don't know you from Adam, and without casting any aspersions, I assume that everybody is an accident waiting to happen. Pretty much any home woodworking shop gives me the heebie jeebies. I don't believe that anybody can categorically reject that they will ever experience a momentary lapse of attention while using tools. That means myself included.
Admittedly my views are biased by years of experience designing and setting up manufacturing equipment, which is different than an individual having their own wood shop. I don't even know if tools like manual lathes and tablesaws are still in widespread commercial use. I've never seen one at a construction site. Most work seems to be moving towards assembling prefab components.
> The reason you wear a seatbelt (for the most part) is because of things that are outside of your control: other drivers
There are plenty of things outside of your control, even if only you are involved. For instance, you could suddenly have a seizure or an involuntary muscle spasm while using one of your dangerous tools. I frankly don't see any meaningful difference between the seatbelt and power tool scenarios, just a continuous risk gradient.
I agree that it's a bad analogy, but I understand and agree somewhat with the parent's point.
You don't want to go from driving a vehicle where the consequences of a collision is "a $100 part replacement" to driving a vehicle where the cost of a collision is "possible death or serious bodily injury for 1 or more people".
I find the complacency argument to be flat. The Sawstop technology doesn't prevent injury, you still get nicked by the blade, it just dramatically reduces the severity of injury incurred. Additionally when the mechanism trips the break and blade are spend and must be replaced.
So the motivation to be safe around the saw isn't negated, it's just driven by different factors. Instead of motivation coming from the fear of losing a part of your hand, it's coming from fear of getting nicked AND having to replace expensive parts of your saw AND the time loss from having to stop working.
Having a case and screen protector on your phone don't magically make it impervious and you don't suddenly starting handling it recklessly. Having seat belts and airbags in your car doesn't suddenly make you open to ramming your car into that asshole driving like a jerk in front of you. So why would no longer fearing losing your hand if you screw up make you more open to touching the spinning blade on your saw?
Furthermore, making it into a monetary loss might actually help people be more careful. Time and again I see people respond much better to "that will be expensive to fix if you break it" than to "that will maim or kill you."
My flying club's annual safety meeting always puts heavy emphasis on the time and money cost of breaking our equipment for this reason. It seems to work well.
Everybody has an experience making an expensive mistake that they can relate to. (Living) people don't generally have experiences dying that they can relate to.
This is a really important point not made in the article:
> I find the complacency argument to be flat. The Sawstop technology doesn't prevent injury, you still get nicked by the blade, it just dramatically reduces the severity of injury incurred. Additionally when the mechanism trips the break and blade are spend and must be replaced.
You make good points. I think I screwed up by not saying "for me ...."
For me, I don't want a tool to be "safe" unless all my tools are safe. Working in my shop there are so many places where something can go wrong. I don't just do woodworking, I've got a metal lathe, I do a ton of mechanic stuff so things like forget to put a jackstand under the tractor and the floorjack gives out, I run chainsaws, a chipper, tractors, an excavator, there are just a zillion ways things can go wrong. So I feel like it is my job to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I'm not a fan of one or two or twenty things that save me, I've got 200 ways where something is going to screw me.
Your situation is very likely different. I'm rural, on 15 acres, all of this stuff is to support living here. I can't afford to get lazy or complacent, I'd be dead real quick.
There's no need to justify yourself. Mindfulness is a learned skill and removing the necessity to practice it can be a bad thing. Just today I was remarking to someone how I felt automatic headlights and other assistive technologies were allowing people to be less mindful and more inconsiderate of their surroundings and other people.
I totally get where you're coming from and agree with you to an extent and I don't disabled the safeties on my guns or tools. I personally wouldn't spring for a stopsaw because the price is several orders of magnitude more than I'd spend on a saw however if given one I'd welcome it gladly and find comfort in knowing that I or a family member wouldn't accidentally be losing any limbs to it.
I wasn't allowed in the shop as a child but I still found my way in there. We had a radial arm saw that I used quite often as a child, I'm really not sure how I survived.
For me, the safety stuff was a bonus to the fact that the Sawstop is a really great tablesaw. It was a huge upgrade in power, accuracy, and just fit-and-finish over my older less-safe saw.
While gloves are useful in some cases (e.g., moving splintery and damaged lumber), with woodworking they actually significantly increase the risk of injury. You need the finesse and control of your hands when handling materials and tools, because gloves have a tendency to get caught in rotating machinery (e.g., drill press) and the decreased accuracy means you will be making mistakes in your movements.
For this reason manufacturers tend to warn against the use of gloves in the user manual (while strongly recommending goggles, respirator, and ear protection).
not sure if this is meant facetiously, but one tenet of shop safety is that you don't wear gloves when using tools that could snag and wrap your hand around them. drill presses, grinders, table saws.
You sound exactly like my uncle who is opposed to all modern car safety measures (seatbelts, ABS breaks, lane departure, blind spot radar, etc.) on the grounds that he doesn't want to get complacent while driving.
Nah, I like all that stuff. It all helps make driving safer.
The sawstop is sort of like making left hand turns safer but nothing else. That's weird to me, all the other stuff is still dangerous but this one thing is safer. That doesn't seem to be a win to me. Maybe it is to you, for me, I think it would make me less careful in the cases where I don't have protection.
This is a weak argument. A better one is that the saw stop doesn't work for conductive materials including wet or pressure treated wood. For this reason they provide a bypass which turns the stop off. You can imagine how this plays out in a production environment where it's accidentally tripped a few times (hint: workers learn quickly about the bypass).
>>But why not have an even safer tablesaw? Because I don't want to get complacent around one tool and have that feeling linger when I go use the next tool. They are all dangerous and all need to be treated with respect. Unless there is a way to make them all safe (there isn't), it doesn't make sense to me to have one safe one.
This argument is very irresponsible. Disclosure: I am a happy saw-stop owner who also has a large collection of POTENTIALLY very dangerous tools (gas-welding, milling machines, routers both CNC and otherwise, metal forming, etc).
First, every tool that is safer reduces your total risk. Saying that unless all tools are safe, none are, is nonsense.
Second, I know somebody that got caught in a drill press, and I can say from experience that you are very lucky that you only lost some hair. I find it odd that you argue against safety measures in the same paragraph where you note how you took a risk that could literally have lobotomized you.
Finally, safety measures aren't only about you. Does your wife ever use your tools? Is she OK with those risks? Do you have kids (I know a dude locally who got his hand into a planer when he was a _young_ child. He's surprisingly dextrous after being amputated around the first knuckle on every finger on his right hand). Not everybody understands the risks like you do, and it's hard for them to make an informed decisions when they learn to use those tools without some kind of industry guidance.
Curious you consider your bandsaw more dangerous. There's a lot less momentum, only one vector for injury and you generally have a lot more control over your stock. My table saw can fire a 2×4 across a room. So I don't agree with your assessment but your kit is obviously different to mine.
I don't disagree with your wider point about respect, but even seasoned pros make genuine mistakes. A lapse in concentration or material behaving abnormally. That's all it takes and you've lost a finger.
It would be great to see similar things implemented in other tools but for the moment, what's wrong with making sure new models are safer by default? I mentioned airbags in another comment and I think it's a good comparison. Why would you NOT want this?
And yes, why isn't somebody doing the exact same thing in bandsaws and routers? The same premise would work with little adaptation.
I sometimes freehand stuff through my minimax bandsaw. Sometimes that's the only way to get the curve I want. I'm not very good at it, the master of that stuff is Sam Maloof, he's light years ahead of me.
The thing that made freehanding remotely possible was getting a carbide tipped blade. The normal blades have set to each tooth, the carbide tipped blade has no set, the tips are slightly wider than the blade. What that does is make the blade way less "grabby". I tried freehanding with the old blades and it grabbed stuff out of my hands like crazy, just (short) matter of time before something would go wrong there.
The carbide tip blade has almost zero unpredictable grab.
All this probably makes me sound better than I am. I'm an ok woodworker. Some examples (from ~20 years ago) are here: http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ - the bench is a pretty decent chunk of work. Other than the section over by the vice the top is flat and square to about 1/1000th of an inch. Hand flattened with planes.
The "sounds better" point that I'm trying to make is about the whole freehand thing. I'm not Sam Maloof good, not remotely close. I just need to freehand once in a while and the minimax plus the carbide tipped blade made that possible.
We can all be for consumer rights, but I can't understand how anyone runs a business with a table saw without retracting technology. It seems like insurance companies would require this because if you don't have it in your table saw, you are being negligent with your employees.
I came in hoping to stumble upon an explanation on the cast saw used in hospitals that won't cut skin at all. I believe I seen an explaination once, but it didn't sink it apparently. This must be a completely different technology.
Yes, it does not work with wet wood. You rarely want to cut wet wood though.
As for wood with nails, you NEVER cut wood with nails in a workshop. Nails + metal blades = sparks, and woodshops, even with ventilation and vacuums,have wood dust everywhere on the floor, the air, etc. It'd be the surest way to start a fire.
have you seen his price point? Nobody wants his tech because its crazy expensive. The brake isn't reusable, so you have to have a spare lying around so your project doesn't get delayed. I don't want it because proper safety keeps your fingers attached. Its not rocket science.
This. I feel we should all be wary of a for profit institution trying to manipulate the government to force adoption of their product, be it a small or very large business. What if Comcast was forcing a commercial internet safety product?
"The brake isn't reusable, so you have to have a spare lying around so your project doesn't get delayed."
Is the false positive rate non-trivial? Because losing a brake and saw only when otherwise someone would lose a finger seems like a great deal, even from a detached, purely economical perspective taking into account health care and disability costs.
This system is expensive enough that its purchase really ought to be left up to the consumer. A rule mandating sawstops would double the price of entry level saws and put them out of reach of hobbyists.
"CPSC Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle said she was also concerned that the rule might force companies to license technology from SawStop, which she said might create a monopoly."
I think this is a valid sentiment. Why should the federal government literally award a monopoly to one company? This is not consumer protection. People know what they are getting into when dealing with a saw. This is government overreach. If people want the safety, and if a $400 stopsaw is has equivalent functionality (excluding sensing tech) as a $200 normal saw, than the increased demand will prove that the extra $200 is necessary.
Do you also resent your goverment for legislating the cars are safer? There are more than glancing similarities between SawStop and airbags.
That this is currently patent-encumbered isn't really relevant. It would be trivial to write the law now but defer its enforcement. We're only 4 years away. It's time to let manufacturers know this is what they'll be building.
Cars should be made safer WRT to the people outside the car who might have to deal with the consequences. For example, a car with spikes on the outside should probably be illegal. But as long as the danger is knowingly and exclusively contained to the occupant of a vehicle I see no reason to make it illegal. Motorcycles, for example, lack standard safety features like seatbelts and airbags, and yet we haven't made them illegal.
I guess I asked for it but I didn't really expect somebody to argue against things like airbags and SRS. Hey, what about driver seatbelts?
It's a constant surprise to me just how much some people want to forgo very reliable and affordable technology to play contrarian and stick it to the man. The problem is, it's a team of paramedics, police, fire and rescue who have to scrape your broken arse off the road. You don't just evaporate when your self-reckless decisions snuff you out.
And in many counties and US states, motorcyclists have to wear helmets that meet certain safety guidelines.
I'm not trying to stick it to the man. When I pass on certain safety features it's for practical reasons. I don't like side view mirrors with blind spot detection -- it'll lull me in to not checking over my shoulder if I ever have to drive a car without that feature (or the feature fails). Same thing with wearing a bike helmet, while it sounds excessively vain I have an afro that gets completely destroyed by a helmet, so I don't wear those. At the end of the day I want to be able to opt-in or opt-out of safety features based on a set of personal calculations.
Its not about eliminating the technology; its about choosing its presence. These safety features are not free to have, and are not necessarily worth their cost, in every situation.
But by enforcing it at the federal level you remove that choice from consumers everywhere, with at best a limited understanding of the environment in which the rule is being applied.
It is not nonsensical that I might want a $400 death trap versus a $5k properly regulated and safety-confirmed vehicle if I immediately need a car, and I don't have 5k to spend. What regulations do is fuck over anyone who wants the $400 death trap (valid reasons), by only allowing the $5k (and better) to exist. The guys who can afford the regulated machine are better off, the guys who can't are worse off.
Why might I be fine with a death trap? Because its that or I lose my job, and I'm willing to take on that risk. And I'm assuming I can better gauge the meaning of that risk for myself than the governments can (whereas they have a better understanding at a macro level)
Its not about safety, its about autonomy, and the belief that the government is just able to make poor decisions as you are, but their mistakes are far longer lasting, and destructive.
Doing these "worth their cost" risk assessments where n=1 leads to its own problems. Regardless of what they considered their own skill, nobody ever died in car accident, or cut their thumb off in a table saw... until they did. It's hard to be objective about your own absolute risk factors with decades of survival bias to clamber over.
And governments don't do this stuff for you, or even just the lobbyist. Injury costs the economy through lost productivity. Fatal RTAs take much longer to investigate and block critical infrastructure.
Just going back to vehicles, getting $400 death traps off the road is a good thing. These are often unsafe to other people directly (heavy, no crumple zones) and indirectly through emissions. However deferred implementation of safety features (air bags, SRS, table saw brakes, etc) means that by the time they're mandatory, you can almost always find one second hand. The "death trap" category just gets safer, not more expensive.
Ofc, if you believe in the free market, then n=1 calculations will naturally sort themselves out for the most part to the eventual and overall benefit of everyone, better and more efficiently than what the relatively slow-changing government will achieve except in very particular cases.
And while you can still find death traps, they're now even deadlier than before because the market still exists for them, but now you can only obtain 10, 20 year old death traps, after regulation instantiates. And ofc the point of regulation is that eventually all death traps leave the used market too, and there's simply nothing at all left to serve this market.
Regulation intentionally kills the market being served; ideally for longer-term macro-level benefits.
Safety is not free. And governments are not infallible in their devision-making. But neither is the free market. This is the crux of the issue; it depends on who you believe is better able to make macro-level decisions: natural markets or regulatory bodies.
Safety, or whatever other hot topic of the day, is just a distraction leading people to talk past each other.
and it gets further confounded by current reality vs ideal. ie there's no external costs not being accounted for with the table-saw-stopper if hospitals, insurance, etc aren't being subsidized. If individuals have to pay the whole bill for their mistake, which should naturally be true in a totally free market, then it'll all sort itself out soon enough (lest the market collapse). But since in reality various costs are being subsidized/hidden by greater forces... this doesn't hold so easily. Of course, if gov interference is the primary reason for more gov interference, then you're in a positive feedback loop that probably won't take you anywhere good.
If the requirement is written in to law then the US Constitution (or other such documents granting exclusive use to an idea) must be amended to void any patent which prevents competition to meet that requirement.
Volvo[1] is the a good steward in this regard, seat belt laws cover most people but the technology itself is free to implement by anyone. That's how it should be. If you can patent something that the government then mandates be included your patents must be invalidated (or you do what Volvo did voluntarily).
I agree with your point, and safer technology, if available, should make its way into the market. But on the other hand, people are more willing to pay for something if the benefit outweighs the cost. Looking at their site[1] (their $400 saw out yet), and you can tell why their saws aren't more ubiquitous: their cheapest saw is $1300. A somewhat equivalent (I am not super familiar with important metrics about saws, but looking at amps and saw blade diameter (15A, 10")) table saw made by a more recognizable manufacturer (Ridgid) is already $400.
Here is a link to a /r/woodworking thread about SawStop saws [3] (albeit 3 years old). I think that they would be the target audience for the saws more so than many of us.
The stupid thing is, this technology could be applied to more than just table saws; most woodshop machines are fairly dangerous if you don't keep your mind and eyes on things. The thing is, even experts can get lulled by "having done this 100 times before" - and a terrible accident happens.
There are tons of power tools, shop tools, and other machinery that could be made safer. Yes, it will cost money, and consumers may not want to pay it. But I know if I ever purchase a table saw, it's going to be one of SawStop's - because my fingers are part of my livelyhood as a software engineer, and worth the money, easily.
How it works is kinda neat, but it does have some limitations:
In general you really shouldn't be using dado blades. It's an easy and dangerous way to skip setting up a router and a temporary fence. There's a reason dado stacks aren't sold in europe.
225 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 291 ms ] threadI suppose the R&D on building the components into their current products is something they don't want to do, so maybe that's the greed aspect?
IIRC last time it was discussed here, they were trying to charge ~$100 per saw to license their tech, when the usual margin on a saw was about a quarter of that.
If they just accepted a reasonable licensing fee, their tech would be ubiquitous already and they wouldn't need to try and use regulatory capture to force people to use it.
Relevant quote from TFA:
> CPSC Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle said she was also concerned that the rule might force companies to license technology from SawStop, which she said might create a monopoly.
Now I get the greed aspect, should have been more obvious. I was thinking in terms of component cost and not licensing cost, how naive of me...
Though in this case, at least they did create something novel making the patent legit.
The solution in SawStop qualifies as super obvious to a person not even well versed in art. As such it should not be patentable. However making a patent invalid in the US is extremely hard.
I don't think they are lobbying for saws to use their technology, but rather for saws to use -a- technology to stop the saw.
They just happen to have a patent on a technology with proven results that it works. The patent probably covers the sensing, the stopping of the blade, and reactive retraction system to move the blade downward quickly.
Another manufacturer would have to come up with alternatives to all or more of these to implement the same safety feature; or license the tech from SawStop.
Manufacturers have done the math, and have come to the conclusion that they want the profits over their customer's safety; maybe they also got input from their customers, and found that most wouldn't pay over a certain amount extra for the feature, and that amount was much lower than what R&D for a new method, or licensing SawStop would cost.
So - what's going on can be looked at as either SawStop being greedy, or they really want some kind of this technology to be put on saws (and other tools could benefit likely) - whether it is their's or something else. You can't fault them, though, for pursuing a lawsuit on patent infringement, if the it is being infringed. That's the point of patents.
It could be argued that this is somewhat about greed, though, because SawStop has been pursuing this with the FTC since they came to market with the tech. But I doubt that they are trying "regulatory capture" here - that would be fairly blatant, and I doubt even the current FTC would abide by that. It could turn out, though, that their tech is (so far) the only way to reliably stop a saw blade from spinning instantly.
Ultimately, we'll know what the truth is when the patent runs out:
If all the table saw manufacturers adopt a similar system, but charge only a little extra (but not the huge difference that SawStop does - which is likely a combination of R&D recovery, plus being a small manufacturer with different margins to recoup) - then they care about their customer's safety.
I'm cynical, though - I guess I've lived too long. I expect they'll either adopt something then charge just as much or more as SawStop does currently, or they'll not do anything (but likely increase their prices anyhow).
The trouble as I see it is it's patented technology, and SawStop sues infringers. It would certainly be a jackpot for SawStop to get a law requiring their patented technology on every saw - look what happens to drug prices with patent monopolies. SawStop could easily impose a ruinous patent fee on competitors, and completely monopolize the saw business. Is it any wonder other saw companies oppose this law?
The patents expire in 2021, that should change the game.
Nothing to do with greed.
But on the flip side, some construction workers pin back the blade guard on circular saws because it can get in the way.
EDIT: It appears that they're currently suing Bosch for developing their own similar technology.
Here are two videos where you can compare for yourself:
SawStop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE
Bosch REAXX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4heF0Y2-QYc
Here's an article that talks about the lawsuit: https://www.protoolreviews.com/news/sawstop-vs-bosch-reaxx-l...
For the record, I don't even know how the sensing actually works in the saws. I'm just guessing because its fricken OBVIOUS.
Besides, the more complex part of the sawstop, at least to my eyes, is the part where you have to stop a big metal blade from spinning very fast ASAP. Just putting some brake pads on it like a bicycle wheel is not going to be good enough.
The children's game Operation used an effective means to detect when the game's forceps contact the metal chassis.
Can we assume that the difficult and novel part of the invention is not generating the sensor signal, but acting upon it quickly enough?
but randyrand guessed (I assume correctly, its so obvious I didnt bother checking, googling now ... yep capacitive coupling) without prior explanation. This is one of those 'X, but on a smartphone' patents.
So many comments on here seem to focus on the electrical side of the patent, yet it's only part of the invention. There's also the non-trivial discovery of how to safely stop the fast spinning blade instantly.
Also, the electrical side of the patent seems to be the most obvious.
Detecting touch on metal has been around for > 30 year. Seems like the obvious way to answer the question of how to tell if somebody is touching a metal blade.
Just because the tech exists doesn't mean it will be popular or economical.
Yes, this seems like rent-seeking on SawStop so they can go and eat a sausage.
As a sibling comment said, detecting the finger is the obvious part (and there should be ample prior art)
Just like volvo gave up the three point belt patent for public interest.
Also, it seems the SawStop version is destructive, as opposed to Bosch's. That means you have an expense every time it fires.
So this lawsuit is causing a lot of lost fingers, and some lost money. It would be really funny (although unrealistic) if somebody could be held responsible for all damages caused by the lawsuit.
Prices taken from amazon.com (so I don't know how realistic they are, the cartridge may actually be much cheaper, I don't know where to look at the official price)
"They decided that the invention was so significant, it had more value as a free life saving tool than something to profit from."
http://jalopnik.com/volvo-gave-away-their-most-important-inv...
SawStop is used at our community woodshop. I've seen it go off (someone touched by blade after they turned off the table saw, but before the blade at stopped spinning), but I haven't heard of it harming the table saw in any way.
However the patent is on the dumb detector and is overly wide.
When shut off, the blade doesn't have "low momentum"; if it were clutched, it would still be spinning fast enough to seriously mangle or sever fingers. An active brake won't be fast enough.
Remember, each tooth is flying at an insane amount of speed; you need to be able to stop the saw dead in a fraction of the length of the tooth (within the length of about 3/4" - about the thickness of an adult hand/finger). You don't - you can't - do that with a friction brake, or even some hypothetical friction plus e-braking (regenerative braking).
That spinning mass of steel has a ton of momentum, even disconnected from the motor. The only way to reliably stop is is to quickly jam something non-yielding into the teeth of the saw.
If you can figure out another way, kudos to you! But I would suggest you first learn about what and how a table saw works first, just to know what kind of forces you are dealing with. They are anything but small.
This is nowhere near what a hand injury would be.
The table saw is the most dangerous piece of equipment in a standard wood shop. Even very experienced people can get into trouble on a table saw.
It's kind of like the F# versus C conversation, but with your hand.
I'd buy such a saw just so when my dumb ass neighbor borrowed it he wouldn't cut off his fingers. I laughed at him when he asked for the chainsaw.
Compare the introduction of three-point seat-belts. These were legally required while they were still under patent, but unlike SawStop, Volvo shared their invention with other manufacturers for free. They didn't try to use regulatory capture to force people to pay them.
https://www.media.volvocars.com/uk/en-gb/media/pressreleases...
Yes there is a bypass but you don't always know if the wood is too wet or not.
Like it or not, that's the point of obtaining a patent.
I worked around a sawstop at the Stanford student shop for a couple of years, and saw it triggered a handful of times: once was a piece of mirrored acrylic, once was a (wet) oak stump, and once was a TA's finger (he was fine, just a nick).
We frequently turned the safety off if a student needed to cut something that we knew might trigger it - it's just a key that you turn next to the start/stop switch.
The blade is not always ruined - just depends on the blade you're using. We primarily used a blade with carbide tips (which is very common, though more expensive), and I never saw the blade ruined.
Personally, I would never buy a table saw without this technology. However, I'm not sure we need a law to require it.
I'm aware of the SawStop technology, but haven't felt motivated to buy a brand new saw. The deal for me is simply that I don't have enough use for a saw, to justify buying a new one. I wouldn't recommend this approach to anybody else -- just using myself as an example of a person who has somehow rationalized keeping the old technology.
My approach is to limit what I do with the saw. My hands never go anywhere near the blade. For smaller workpieces, intricate cuts, etc., I use hand tools or just figure out a different design. I'm willing to waste wood rather than try getting one last cut out of a scrap. Also, I simply don't use it very often. Most of the time it sits with the blade retraced, covered with bicycle parts.
But in a lot of fields, it's impossible to discuss safety, or to get a straight answer about safety questions. Every technology has detractors with arguments that it is actually more dangerous. (Try reading web forum threads about bike helmets).
How much would I have to spend? What if I want to do some simple cutting? Trivial?
http://www.shopbottools.com/
You can DIY one cheaper, of course, but you're still looking at a few grand. If you don't mind slightly less accuracy, and want to do it as a kit (instead of completely homebrew - which can be a pain to learn about if you aren't familiar with CNC already) - this company is pretty well known:
https://buildyourcnc.com/
Also something else to keep in mind: If you do metal work, you can purchase (or build) a CNC plasma cutter. You typically have to supply your own plasma cutter, or spend extra for it (what you normally pay for is the table, mechanicals, and interface electronics - computer is also extra). Many or most of these can be easily converted to adding a router for woodwork (provided it has a height control head to handle it). Just make sure you get one that can handle 4x8 sheets.
There are also CNC routers, etc that can handle much smaller sizes, if you aren't going to do anything big. Many of these are easy to DIY and there are plenty of examples, tutorials, books, PDFs, instructables, etc - on how to build one.
A small desktop CNC router can be homebrewed for less than $500.00 (plus a fair amount of time). Of course, you will need to have access to at least some basic tools to build one, and be competent at using them.
Isn't that what we all do, at all times ?
Who is putting their hands/fingers near the sawblade ?
It's actually quite simple to avoid if you have fences/blocks/SacrificalPieces ...
Maybe there are cases where their hands get pulled in, but I can't think of how. Honestly I wouldn't recommend using a table saw at all to most people I know.
Most people don't deliberately place the hands dangerously close to the blade. Instead, it's an unforseen interaction with the wood and the blade. E.g. the hand holding down wood against the fence and is (supposedly safe distance of) 1 foot away from the blade but an unexpected kickback quickly pulls the hand into the blade before the operator can even react defensively. An experienced woodworker was demonstrating kickback using push blocks and thought he was safe but he almost got sliced by the blade.[1]
On can then say, install a riving knife to prevent kickback, etc... but that doesn't prevent an operator from reaching over the blade to grab a piece of waste. Whether fatigue or being in a hurry, he misjudges how his hand and the wood moves through space above the blade and boom, fingers get sliced. There are probably a 100 different ways to lose fingers on table saws.[2]
[1] almost amputated @ 2m30s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7sRrC2Jpp4&feature=youtu.be...
[2] http://www.sawaccidents.com/recently-added-accidents.htm
And that was a brand-new demo unit put on the floor specifically to show it off.
I'll take my chances and use the time-tested method of using a custom-built wooden jig to hold the piece while it goes through the blade.
fuck off
This is a ban. This is not why we have consumer protection.
Maybe laws to ensure that if you are employing or in any way requiring someone use your saw you need the safety features.
The patent stuff is it's own issue for sure, and yet another example of how crappy the system is.
Same could be done for guns.
That said, many school districts already have made the switch. My high school already had a Sawstop by the time I first took a woodshop class in 2006, and it had already stopped multiple students from losing fingers.
If it becomes mandatory I wouldn't want manufacturers and customers to pay more. You could cancel his patent, but I think why not let the inventor get his "reward". I would take the money for licenses and implementation from health and disability insurers.
Of course, our system is really bad in making these kind of sensible re-allocations, so that probably won't happen.
[1] + loss of life quality and future income
In a rational society we would let people make their own choices. We can raise insurance raise rates on people who act dangerously, and disallow frivolous lawsuits from people that circumvent existing safety features. There is no need for the government to regulate table saws that only risk the individual using it.
4000 people a year suffer from being mangled by a table saw. That's losing digits or an appendage (their entire hand). (NPR had a story about this a week or two ago)
EDIT: Let's say, conservatively, each accident on average costs $100K in medical costs, disability, etc. That's $400 million/year in costs. Just a hunch, but adding the safety break seems like a clear win.
I suppose that's a perverse benefit of healthcare being so broken in America; its so expensive, its usually cheaper to fix the problem then to dump it on the healthcare system as an externality.
Human behavior is counterintuitive and maybe the situation would be worse. See excerpt:
>Data supplied by SawStop concerning the number of table saw units sold and the number of reported blade contact incidences, proves that operators are nearly five times more likely to contact the saw blade of a SawStop saw as opposed to the operator of a conventional table saw. Logic dictates that this increase in accident rate on SawStop saws is due primarily to a user’s decision to use the blade guard less frequently due to a “sense of security” in having the SawStop flesh-sensing technology on the saw. [1]
The analysis above may be flawed and/or come from a self-serving biased source. Either way, it's similar to the famous thought experiment about seat belts in cars: Volvo's generosity in giving the world seat belts without patent encumbrances didn't make the world "safer". Instead, if governments mandated a sharp iron spike in the steering wheel pointing just a few centimeters short of every driver's heart, that would actually make us safer than seatbelts.[2] It may have been tongue-in-cheek but it may also be true.
In my case when I researched saws, I seriously looked at SawStop and valued its flesh detection safety but ultimately preferred a European style sliding saw[3] that doesn't have the flesh detector. In my opinion, a sliding saw without the blade stop is "safer" overall than a SawStop. Of course, it would be nice if all saws had SawStop technology but if I had to choose among tradeoffs, I'd go with the sliding saw. The drawback is that it's more expensive.
Where there SawStop technology is more non-negotiable is the portable jobsite saw. A contractor can't transport the giant footprint of a sliding saw into a truck and then into a customer's house remodeling jobsite. Therefore, you want a portable saw with all the safety features possible.
[1] http://www.powertoolinstitute.com/pti-pages/it-table-saw-fac...
[2] http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2008/08/spikes-and-steering-w...
[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=european+sliding+saw&source=...
(The saw in the video is $40k but you can get used sliding saws for $5k which is about the price of a brand new SawStop Industrial saw.)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVYUss6pJqQ&feature=youtu.be...
But, what about the small scale home hobbyist that can't dedicate a huge space to their table saw (and has a budget under $1k).
At the hardware stores I visit like Lowes & Home Depot, I see vertical panel saws which is a different beast: https://www.google.com/search?q=powermatic+panel+saw&source=...
The blade moves on tracks and the wood is stationary for cross cuts. Euro-style sliding table saw is the opposite of that.
For rip cuts, yes, the operator locks down the saw position and then pushes the wood through the blade. The issue with the vertical panel saw is that the top half of the rip cut wants to close the gap and bind the blade because of gravity. The horizontal surface of the the Euro slider doesn't have that issue.
>But, what about the small scale home hobbyist that can't dedicate a huge space to their table saw (and has a budget under $1k).
I would say make a stretch and pay $299 more to get the cheapest SawStop which is the $1299 portable jobsite saw: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/11697127655919696780
Hadn't seen it as an actual product before, but much more convenient this way, which makes it more likely to get used. Not as advantageous as a table saw if you need to do a lot of identical cuts; but, seems like it would work well for the occasional need.
I might just replace my cheap/scary table saw with one of these the next time I build something. Thanks.
You can do repeated identical cuts if you buy extra accessories for the tracksaw.[1] (I assume we're talking about "repeated cuts" using stops instead of constantly re-measuring with a ruler.) The parallel guides work ok but it's a lot more work to set up and dynamically adjust widths than a table saw's sliding fence.
If you like to use table saws to cut dados, rabbets, and slots for box/drawer joints, a tracksaw isn't as useful for that. Might have to get a router for those cuts in addition to the miter saw when supplementing a tracksaw.
[1] example: http://www.festoolproducts.com/festool-57000023-parallel-gui...
There is merit in the argument that people behave more dangerously in the presence of safety equipment. But there's no reason to think it's so extreme that it overwhelms the positive contribution of the safety technology.
Yes that is true but it's not relevant to the idea that an alternate universe with different conditions could be safer than seat belts. If one truly engaged with the thought experiment, you'd have to try to imagine all side effects of the "ludicrous" spike. E.g. drivers no longer tailgate at 70mph -- in fact, they may drive under the speedlimit of 55mph. Instead of whizzing through the neighborhood at 40mph, they drive less than 20mph because any random squirrel running into street would trigger a reaction to hit the brakes which causes the heart to be pierced. Maybe less parents would let their kids have a drivers license at age 16 and instead make them wait until age 18 because of an iron spike pointing at their kids chest would keep them up at night. (That's 2 years less of teen driving fatalities right there.)
There may be all sorts of hard-to-imagine secondary effects that would lead to less deaths than seat belts. That's the idea of truly playing with that thought experiment. It doesn't mean we'd ever realistically implement that idea.
It is posssible that the slope of the curve dramatically reverses sometime between "no seat belts and stiff steering columns" and "literal spike in the middle of the steering wheel" but that seems unlikely and there's no reason to think that would happen.
Our perceptions differ then because when I drove an old Plymouth without seat belts, I didn't drive it as gingerly as driving a modern car today with a birthday cake in the front seat. A literal steel spike into the heart would make me more cautious than worrying about a birthday cake slamming into the dashboard. The Plymouth's steering column never gave me the feeling of impending death but a literal spike would. I think that sharp point on the end as a constant reminder really matters for the thought experiment.
...this is that story.
Also, you're absolutely wrong that this won't make saws safer. This will prevent people from sawing their fingers off in the off chance a finger enters the blade. That absolutely makes it safer and its disingenuous to argue otherwise.
Yes, they did. Both companies carried Bosch REAXX saws, which have injury detection sensors, and are advertised accordingly.
^edited to past tense because there's apparently an injunction banning US sales of REAXX. So they tried to, and the reason they don't is that the company advocating for this law won't let them.
> I also think that thinking this will remove consumer choice is inaccurate as well, because if this was mandatory it's not like current saw manufacturers would simply stop selling saws
First, it still removes consumer choice to massively increase the price of saws. The cheapest sensing models I can find listed are >$1,000. The cheapest table saws at Home Depot are ~$400. Tripling the price of the cheapest model is absolutely a restriction of choice, and one that's going to hurt both hobbyists and professionals.
Beyond that, Bosch REAXX is currently being sued by SawStop, the same company/inventor pushing for this legal requirement. Does it restrict consumer choice if there's only one legal brand, all the others having been sued out of the market?
I agree that this technology is makes saws safer. I'm not at all convinced that the safety justifies handing a single company a government monopoly on table saws.
I think this tech should be mandatory in all saws, but I also think that one company shouldn't have control over the licensing and it probably shouldn't be something companies have to pay for.
I'd be happy if my saw had the tech.
It also seems strange for that to be a percent instead of a fixed cost since the feature is the same for all models of a saw.
Look at it this way: Bosch decided it was better to spend a small fortune of R&D to try to avoid the patent than to pay the license fees. And even now they haven't settled the resulting lawsuit - they'd rather fight it, because the likely outcome of the fee is not "paying up" but "scrapping the entire product line as a net loss".
Also bear in mind that this technology is a major portion of the total price of a saw - up around 50% on cheaper saws. So it's going to massively increase prices, and also increase SawStop's margins. They didn't just ask for 8%, they asked for 8% while lobbying the government to increase the price they're taking margin on and ban smaller competitors.
This looks like the other form of patent abuse - where instead of trolling you make a product people can't avoid and crush competitors with patent suits.
Bosch released a saw with similar tech (called Reaxx -- https://www.boschtools.com/us/en/more/news-and-extras/specia...) but they were forced to stop selling it.
To answer your first question, you can't buy a SawStop at Home Depot or Lowes.
If this tech was mandatory, it would force other saw manufacturers to charge $200 more per saw to cover patent licensing from SawStop/Festool.
I have a suspicion that the price increase is due to BOTH a need to recoup R&D and the perceived value of the "safe" saw.
Yet it would be cheaper overall.
Bullshit. There are any number of ways to ensure the same functionality (just point a camera at the blade and have a computer stop the blade before it cuts somebody, rather than after, would be one obvious improvement) and if stopping the blade is mandated there will be plenty of competition.
The facililty described in the article seems to be a criminal racket. But my question in these cases is usually: is this a spectrum? How many places are on the seedy-but-not-criminal portion of that spectrum?
Kickbacks and body brokering might be ilegal, but the ultimate goal of these isn't: find clients with insurance you can bill, bill clients as much as the insurer will pay. There are options that aren't criminal, but also aren't a good allocation of resources.
I think the argument that, "you should know that this item is unsafe" is stupid, because just because something is unsafe doesn't mean a good, quality of life saving feature should be excluded. You could make the same argument about having seatbelts or airbags in cars, because you know it's dangerous but you're taking the risk anyway. Accidents happen, taking measures to prevent them or mitigate the damages should be done, if possible.
This isn't something I use, since I don't often create things from wood, but I would pay more for a technology that saves my finger in the off chance I accidentally move my finger towards the blade or something else happens, like the table accidentally shifting because my dog ran into it.
Same, and I'm horrified to consider that professional tradesmen whose livelihood depends on their fine muscle control would choose not to pay more for a tool like this. Part of it is the mindset of "I'm not an idiot, I'd never accidentally position my hand anywhere near the blade"; but wood is a natural product with variations, and hitting an unexpected dense section might cause the piece to kick back. Then you might move rapidly to avoid it, and trip & fall onto the blade, or stumble & reflexively put out a hand…
See, there are other ways to provide safety in this situation. And you cannot make anything really idiot proof. World will find a better idiot.
This automated solution has a major drawback when sawing through anything too capacitive, wet wood, wood with nails etc.
The company pushing the legislation has a major agenda that is not safety - patent licensing.
(Oh, forgot safety glasses.)
I'm not convinced this is reason enough to argue against it; rather, it's reason to demand that whatever regulation is proposed doesn't mandate the technology used, or to fix the licensing fee at a reasonable amount.
> You know why [… other safety precautions for woodworking …]
I don't find this argument very compelling. By analogy, you could argue against airbags in cars, since people wear seat belts, have licensing + supervised training, brakes, etc. All of those things are human-dependent, and thus may not be used appropriately in all situations.
When you engage in an unsafe activity with a very dangerous tool (chainsaw, for instance) your brain works in a particular way and you have a high level of vigilance and care.
When you engage in a totally safe, foolproof activity (crayons) your brain works in a totally different way.
Both of these approaches are appropriate and economical.
The problem is when you add enough safety features to a (still) dangerous activity that it causes people to take the wrong approach to the activity. That is a recipe for many, many more (and novel and interesting) accidents.
I don't know where the sawstop-enabled-saw fits in this model. I guess it's conceivable that, along with anti-kickback, etc., etc., a sawstop-enabled saw really is totally safe like crayons are. If so, great.
But if you think a table saw continues to be a dangerous, maiming tool even after adding the sawstop then I think it could be a net-negative with regard to safety.
Damn - just how cheap are the table saws you buy?!
/table saws tend to be fairly heavy, and don't typically move unless you really lean into them - a dog is not likely to move a table saw (and honestly shouldn't be in your shop, either)
What the actual fuck.
I have no intention of getting a sawstop saw. Why? Because my shop is full of dangerous tools. My 1930's drillpress ripped some of my hair out, my 1940's metal lathe can take your arm off, my bandsaw is way more dangerous than a table saw, don't get me started about my shaper, etc. Tablesaws, treated with respect, are very safe.
But why not have an even safer tablesaw? Because I don't want to get complacent around one tool and have that feeling linger when I go use the next tool. They are all dangerous and all need to be treated with respect. Unless there is a way to make them all safe (there isn't), it doesn't make sense to me to have one safe one.
However, I'll also say that de-risking tools is a good idea. If you want to avoid complacency, then avoid it. If you can't take the vigilance you have around a lathe or a shaper and apply it to a tablesaw, just because the tablesaw is safe, I'd say you should probably reconsider your safety practices. There is a difference between good process and complete paranoia.
At present, I have a standard delta saw, because it's what I have. It is "dangerous" and also kind of lousy. Because of the way the trunion mounts the blade carriage, it is not possible to adjust the blade to 45° without a few thousandth of pinch.
I know my next saw will be a saw stop. They are safer, yes, but they are also incredibly nice saws. Compared to the powermatic I used to have, they are even better. When I move next, my Delta won't be coming with me, and I'll be ordering a saw stop.
Regarding cold, dead hands, is that before or after amputation by tablesaw? /s
And yes, I know that you also wear a seatbelt to remove potential injury from only you driving (think if you lose control, etc). You do the same in woodworking; you use clamps to prevent things from moving, you use push blocks to keep your hands from the blade, etc.
You need to be fully awake when running tools, same goes for driving. They are both defensive activities.
Maybe people are beating on me because I didn't say "for me...." but whatever. I stand behind my reasoning, it works for me. And I think the sawstop is just silly. Tablesaws, used properly, are just fine. If you are losing fingers can I introduce you to this magic development called push sticks?
My tablesaw rules are simple:
as taught to me decades ago by my high school shop instructor.A lathe will screw you good, so will a bandsaw (ever freehand work on a bandsaw? Sketchy as heck but useful). A chopsaw can jump the work and come right over your thumb. Shapers, oh, my, the ways that shapers can eat you.
If you need what sawstop offers then there is no way I'd let you in my shop. If you like it in your shop, have the big fun, anyone who depended on that is just an accident waiting to happen on the next piece of equipment.
What's next? Chainsaw-stop?
Anyway safety feature that can be implemented without getting in my way, or any safety feature that forces me to work more safely is very welcome.
Just the other day someone nearly lost their fingers due to inattentiveness.
They've been default on new chainsaws since the mid 90s. That hand guard at the front is linked to a powerful brake so that if it catches and kicks back, it's very likely to engage that brake and save you a life-altering injury. They have centripetal clutches to disengage automatically and most require two points of contact and a disengaged brake for the throttle to work (common to many outdoor tools). Chainsaws still aren't safe —you'd be an idiot to use one without steel-laced trousers— but they are much safer than they were.
As I said in another comment, nobody needs this stuff until it saves their fingers, their hand, their face, their leg and their livelihood.
And that's what these arguments come down to. You (and some others here) think you'll never make a mistake or forget to move a hand or misplace their feet, or ever cut too deep in a bit of stock that was cutting fine last week. These are pretty stupid mistakes on their on their own but people aren't robots; they happen all the time.
Conversely I'm happy to say that I've been safe so far, but I respect how quickly that can change.
That's not the stop I was talking about, I was talking about the same sort of stop as the sawstop has. Sorry if I was unclear.
Do you consider somebody who demands they put their chainsaw trousers on first inept and unsafe? What about people who don't disable/remove their chainsaw brakes?
Trained operators are the ultimate safety feature, right? And these features actually weigh you down.
These innovations were obviously warmly welcomed by arboriculturalists. Why do so many woodworkers think they're beyond the need of similar precautions? Hell, half of you seem to think riving knives and guards were sent by the devil.
And a chainsaw voltage loop could work but you'd need to make the loop through the operator, not to earth. You'd need to make conductive gloves and generate a voltage and trigger the brake. All possible, isn't it... but more weight.
What I was saying was what works for me. If you want to approach things differently, be my guest, I wasn't trying to convince to be a clone of me, I was just saying this is what works for me. Not sure why that is such a controversial thing.
Shrug.
> If you need what sawstop offers then there is no way I'd let you in my shop.
I just wondered if your feelings towards table saw safety equipment were transferable to other dangerous machinery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5F9TiHF2tc
I said if you "need" what that sawstop has. I was specific in my choice words. I didn't say "want", I said "need" because that implies you are careless enough that the sawstop is a necessity.
Let me try it this way: if you are unable to run a tablesaw without getting your fingers in the blade, of course I don't want you in my shop.
I'm not against safety equipment, I'm against people leaning on it, to me that's a crutch that's going to let you down at some point.
And just to be clear, this is the system that works for me. This is part of how I stay alert and don't let myself get complacent. You want to use a different system, great, in your shop do whatever you want. In my shop, all equipment is dangerous, that's the rule, people who don't like that rule aren't welcome to use my equipment. Pretty much the same rule that my shop instructor taught me 40 years ago and it has worked so far for me.
The people saying they "need" this stuff are just saying they see avoidable risk and recognise their bodies are a finite resource worth the expense, even inconvenience of a few extra safety features. We're not talking about using sawstops in isolation.
But anyway, we clearly differ in our approach to risk, or perhaps how we balance our own skills against it. Whatever it is, I don't think I'm going to change your opinion here.
Stay lucky, dude.
By that logic I should just get rid of my 3 wood lathes, metal lathe, 2 bandsaws, drillpress, chop saw, shaper, horizontal boring machine, metal bandsaw, sawzall, circle saws, etc, because none of those have the sawstop feature.
And, by the same logic, loose the 5 chainsaws, the industrial chipper, the excavator, the two tractors, the rhino, because none of those are safe either.
Which is just silly. This whole discussion is silly. I've got a system that's been working for me for 40 years yet you feel like you want to tell me I'm gonna lose a finger. Maybe I will but it won't be on the tablesaw, I use push sticks. Religiously. Which is why I still have all my fingers. Sam Maloof pushed his stuff through with his hand and never lost a finger.
I just don't like the sawstop. It doesn't remove all of the risks, it's expensive when you forget to turn it off when you are cutting green wood, it's easy to forget to turn it back on when you switch back to dry wood, and I have never, in 40 years of using tablesaws, had any sort of fear of the tablesaw. Respect, absolutely, but a tablesaw, properly used, isn't high up on the risk scale. Free handing on the bandsaw is way way more risky yet people do it all the time.
I'm not telling you to do what I do, you can do whatever you want. I do resent, a bit, your view that I'll lose a finger. That implies you think I don't know what I'm doing and I resent that. Or maybe it is just like you said, it has been 40 years of getting lucky. Or maybe not.
That's fair enough. I'm sorry. I truly believe you are knowledgeable in your tools and what you do with them. I think if that weren't the case, 40 years using them would have left you unable to type these comments.
But I would also put some of the other 40-80 thousand people hospitalised by table saws in the last year in your category.
And over 90% of those were hand in blade injuries. The sort of thing that is vastly eradicated by a blade that can detect a hand and deactivate.
So yes, I take your points, but epidemiologically, doing nothing and hoping people just do it better next time is more harmful to all of us than demanding better safety equipment as standard.
Perhaps that opinion is my Britishness coming through; we're paying the medical costs of our woodworkers' injuries directly.
I'm starting to wonder if there are just a lot of stupid people using tablesaws. Which wouldn't surprise me, there are an amazing number of untrained people doing all sorts of stuff.
Whatever, I'm perfectly happy to say that sawstop is a fine idea for stupid people. I just don't need one, I don't put my fingers anywhere near any blade, that's stupid. And we have all sorts of data that says when you do stupid stuff you lose your fingers.
In my case, knock on wood, I believe I don't need that technology because I have a lot of respect for that spinning blade and don't get close to it. And what I've been trying, and apparently failing, to say is that my respect for the tablesaw is part of my mental state when I'm in the shop. I actually don't want a safer saw, it's still dangerous, it can still throw stuff at you hard enough to really hurt you, I'm fine with the protocol I have to not hurt myself.
I realize that winds people up, they think I'm Mr Cuts Corners or something, I'm not. I live on a 15 acre property, I use chainsaws, tractors, excavators, mowers, all sorts of stuff that can kill me. I do that stuff every day so I have to have a mental state of carefulness. On all the equipment. None of it is safe.
So for me, sawstop doesn't add any value, I'd use it the same way I use my current saw, with push sticks. Which is how everyone should use their saw. That's not saying I'm against sawstop or other safety equipment, it's just saying that I've got a safety protocol that works. And I won't let anyone into my shop who doesn't follow that protocol.
YMMV.
Admittedly my views are biased by years of experience designing and setting up manufacturing equipment, which is different than an individual having their own wood shop. I don't even know if tools like manual lathes and tablesaws are still in widespread commercial use. I've never seen one at a construction site. Most work seems to be moving towards assembling prefab components.
There are plenty of things outside of your control, even if only you are involved. For instance, you could suddenly have a seizure or an involuntary muscle spasm while using one of your dangerous tools. I frankly don't see any meaningful difference between the seatbelt and power tool scenarios, just a continuous risk gradient.
You don't want to go from driving a vehicle where the consequences of a collision is "a $100 part replacement" to driving a vehicle where the cost of a collision is "possible death or serious bodily injury for 1 or more people".
So the motivation to be safe around the saw isn't negated, it's just driven by different factors. Instead of motivation coming from the fear of losing a part of your hand, it's coming from fear of getting nicked AND having to replace expensive parts of your saw AND the time loss from having to stop working.
Having a case and screen protector on your phone don't magically make it impervious and you don't suddenly starting handling it recklessly. Having seat belts and airbags in your car doesn't suddenly make you open to ramming your car into that asshole driving like a jerk in front of you. So why would no longer fearing losing your hand if you screw up make you more open to touching the spinning blade on your saw?
My flying club's annual safety meeting always puts heavy emphasis on the time and money cost of breaking our equipment for this reason. It seems to work well.
> I find the complacency argument to be flat. The Sawstop technology doesn't prevent injury, you still get nicked by the blade, it just dramatically reduces the severity of injury incurred. Additionally when the mechanism trips the break and blade are spend and must be replaced.
For me, I don't want a tool to be "safe" unless all my tools are safe. Working in my shop there are so many places where something can go wrong. I don't just do woodworking, I've got a metal lathe, I do a ton of mechanic stuff so things like forget to put a jackstand under the tractor and the floorjack gives out, I run chainsaws, a chipper, tractors, an excavator, there are just a zillion ways things can go wrong. So I feel like it is my job to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I'm not a fan of one or two or twenty things that save me, I've got 200 ways where something is going to screw me.
Your situation is very likely different. I'm rural, on 15 acres, all of this stuff is to support living here. I can't afford to get lazy or complacent, I'd be dead real quick.
I totally get where you're coming from and agree with you to an extent and I don't disabled the safeties on my guns or tools. I personally wouldn't spring for a stopsaw because the price is several orders of magnitude more than I'd spend on a saw however if given one I'd welcome it gladly and find comfort in knowing that I or a family member wouldn't accidentally be losing any limbs to it.
And cash registers that make change, we can't do math.
On the sawstop, I still feel that having that in my shop doesn't make my shop safe, wouldn't let my kids in there.
For this reason manufacturers tend to warn against the use of gloves in the user manual (while strongly recommending goggles, respirator, and ear protection).
Don't google image search for "power tool glove accident"
The sawstop is sort of like making left hand turns safer but nothing else. That's weird to me, all the other stuff is still dangerous but this one thing is safer. That doesn't seem to be a win to me. Maybe it is to you, for me, I think it would make me less careful in the cases where I don't have protection.
First, every tool that is safer reduces your total risk. Saying that unless all tools are safe, none are, is nonsense.
Second, I know somebody that got caught in a drill press, and I can say from experience that you are very lucky that you only lost some hair. I find it odd that you argue against safety measures in the same paragraph where you note how you took a risk that could literally have lobotomized you.
Finally, safety measures aren't only about you. Does your wife ever use your tools? Is she OK with those risks? Do you have kids (I know a dude locally who got his hand into a planer when he was a _young_ child. He's surprisingly dextrous after being amputated around the first knuckle on every finger on his right hand). Not everybody understands the risks like you do, and it's hard for them to make an informed decisions when they learn to use those tools without some kind of industry guidance.
Irresponsible? Really? That seems like a crappy thing to say. How was it irresponsible?
I don't disagree with your wider point about respect, but even seasoned pros make genuine mistakes. A lapse in concentration or material behaving abnormally. That's all it takes and you've lost a finger.
It would be great to see similar things implemented in other tools but for the moment, what's wrong with making sure new models are safer by default? I mentioned airbags in another comment and I think it's a good comparison. Why would you NOT want this?
And yes, why isn't somebody doing the exact same thing in bandsaws and routers? The same premise would work with little adaptation.
The thing that made freehanding remotely possible was getting a carbide tipped blade. The normal blades have set to each tooth, the carbide tipped blade has no set, the tips are slightly wider than the blade. What that does is make the blade way less "grabby". I tried freehanding with the old blades and it grabbed stuff out of my hands like crazy, just (short) matter of time before something would go wrong there.
The carbide tip blade has almost zero unpredictable grab.
All this probably makes me sound better than I am. I'm an ok woodworker. Some examples (from ~20 years ago) are here: http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ - the bench is a pretty decent chunk of work. Other than the section over by the vice the top is flat and square to about 1/1000th of an inch. Hand flattened with planes.
The "sounds better" point that I'm trying to make is about the whole freehand thing. I'm not Sam Maloof good, not remotely close. I just need to freehand once in a while and the minimax plus the carbide tipped blade made that possible.
tl;dr it vibrates instead of rotating which doesn't break skin because skin is flexible
As for wood with nails, you NEVER cut wood with nails in a workshop. Nails + metal blades = sparks, and woodshops, even with ventilation and vacuums,have wood dust everywhere on the floor, the air, etc. It'd be the surest way to start a fire.
Is the false positive rate non-trivial? Because losing a brake and saw only when otherwise someone would lose a finger seems like a great deal, even from a detached, purely economical perspective taking into account health care and disability costs.
I think this is a valid sentiment. Why should the federal government literally award a monopoly to one company? This is not consumer protection. People know what they are getting into when dealing with a saw. This is government overreach. If people want the safety, and if a $400 stopsaw is has equivalent functionality (excluding sensing tech) as a $200 normal saw, than the increased demand will prove that the extra $200 is necessary.
That this is currently patent-encumbered isn't really relevant. It would be trivial to write the law now but defer its enforcement. We're only 4 years away. It's time to let manufacturers know this is what they'll be building.
It's a constant surprise to me just how much some people want to forgo very reliable and affordable technology to play contrarian and stick it to the man. The problem is, it's a team of paramedics, police, fire and rescue who have to scrape your broken arse off the road. You don't just evaporate when your self-reckless decisions snuff you out.
And in many counties and US states, motorcyclists have to wear helmets that meet certain safety guidelines.
But by enforcing it at the federal level you remove that choice from consumers everywhere, with at best a limited understanding of the environment in which the rule is being applied.
It is not nonsensical that I might want a $400 death trap versus a $5k properly regulated and safety-confirmed vehicle if I immediately need a car, and I don't have 5k to spend. What regulations do is fuck over anyone who wants the $400 death trap (valid reasons), by only allowing the $5k (and better) to exist. The guys who can afford the regulated machine are better off, the guys who can't are worse off.
Why might I be fine with a death trap? Because its that or I lose my job, and I'm willing to take on that risk. And I'm assuming I can better gauge the meaning of that risk for myself than the governments can (whereas they have a better understanding at a macro level)
Its not about safety, its about autonomy, and the belief that the government is just able to make poor decisions as you are, but their mistakes are far longer lasting, and destructive.
And governments don't do this stuff for you, or even just the lobbyist. Injury costs the economy through lost productivity. Fatal RTAs take much longer to investigate and block critical infrastructure.
Just going back to vehicles, getting $400 death traps off the road is a good thing. These are often unsafe to other people directly (heavy, no crumple zones) and indirectly through emissions. However deferred implementation of safety features (air bags, SRS, table saw brakes, etc) means that by the time they're mandatory, you can almost always find one second hand. The "death trap" category just gets safer, not more expensive.
And while you can still find death traps, they're now even deadlier than before because the market still exists for them, but now you can only obtain 10, 20 year old death traps, after regulation instantiates. And ofc the point of regulation is that eventually all death traps leave the used market too, and there's simply nothing at all left to serve this market.
Regulation intentionally kills the market being served; ideally for longer-term macro-level benefits.
Safety is not free. And governments are not infallible in their devision-making. But neither is the free market. This is the crux of the issue; it depends on who you believe is better able to make macro-level decisions: natural markets or regulatory bodies.
Safety, or whatever other hot topic of the day, is just a distraction leading people to talk past each other.
and it gets further confounded by current reality vs ideal. ie there's no external costs not being accounted for with the table-saw-stopper if hospitals, insurance, etc aren't being subsidized. If individuals have to pay the whole bill for their mistake, which should naturally be true in a totally free market, then it'll all sort itself out soon enough (lest the market collapse). But since in reality various costs are being subsidized/hidden by greater forces... this doesn't hold so easily. Of course, if gov interference is the primary reason for more gov interference, then you're in a positive feedback loop that probably won't take you anywhere good.
Volvo[1] is the a good steward in this regard, seat belt laws cover most people but the technology itself is free to implement by anyone. That's how it should be. If you can patent something that the government then mandates be included your patents must be invalidated (or you do what Volvo did voluntarily).
[1] http://jalopnik.com/volvo-gave-away-their-most-important-inv...
Here is a link to a /r/woodworking thread about SawStop saws [3] (albeit 3 years old). I think that they would be the target audience for the saws more so than many of us.
[1] http://www.sawstop.com/table-saws/by-model/jobsite-saw#build...
[2] http://www.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-15-Amp-10-in-Heavy-Duty-Po...
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/woodworking/comments/1ubckp/has_any...
There are tons of power tools, shop tools, and other machinery that could be made safer. Yes, it will cost money, and consumers may not want to pay it. But I know if I ever purchase a table saw, it's going to be one of SawStop's - because my fingers are part of my livelyhood as a software engineer, and worth the money, easily.
How it works is kinda neat, but it does have some limitations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop
Chief among them that if you want to use a dado blade system, it won't work. But for general crosscutting and such, not a bad piece of insurance.
http://toolguyd.com/sawstop-to-be-acquired-by-festool-parent...