Off topic but only indirectly

[jdervin]

Replacement brakes go for around $70 (not including the cost of a new blade).

[navigator7]

I've never agreed with the comment : "You can't be too safe!"
Followed to it's logical conclusion....A thoughtful person might ask: "Why leave the womb?" Even the womb has it's woes.
More lives, not only appendages, would be saved with a SawStop in the feminine regions.
If power tools were as lethal as abortion, the practice of using power tools would be banned!

I say..."It's not what you got but what you do with what to got."
Three fingered men are living proof they are simply not meant to run power tools.

The courts remove common sense from minds of the injured so the equation in tool safety has become a lopsided abortion.
Job injuries today are career goals and some people's meal ticket to retirement.
There is no shame injuring yourself on the job via pure stupidity.
For some...it's a goal.
Keeerist...It's even a law where I live the employer must inform you the day is going to be a hot one so drink plenty of water! If you pass out from heat exhaustion, the employer is subject to fines if the employee wasn't informed that the day was gonna be hot.

I still think dynamic braking, tort reform and citizen action focused on our elected leaders is a better solution than Marxism and bondage.

Let the free market rule. It works with mouse traps.

[meatbal80]

I got this news in an email 2 nights ago as I was going to bed and it kept me up for a while. If the average consumer can sue the manufacturer for something that was caused by the operator/consumer, whether it was pure negligence or just a common mishap when does it stop. Kitchen knives are quite sharp I know I have cut myself chopping food, or how about suing the pool company or even better the water utility when someone drowns. Every body has been in some kind of car wreck I am sure, why don’t we sue the manufacturer. The courts have gotten a little out of control when allowing these cases to even be heard. This will be one of my examples to show the complete lack of judgment by our judicial system along with the McDonalds hot coffee and the robber with a broken leg.

For those not familiar with the broken leg one a burglar breaks into a house to rob it but somehow gets caught up in the window (or skylight don’t remember) falls and breaks his leg. He then proceeds to sue the property owner and wins.

On another note the cost of your basic table saw will skyrocket if they mandate the saw stop devices. It doesn't make much sense to me to put a 500-1000 dollar safety piece on an $89 machine. I definitely like the saw stop feature and would love to own one but I can’t afford one yet. One day I hope I will, it would make me much more comfortable when my kids are old enough and start using more than hand tools. At the same time I don’t want them getting complacent. The world is a dangerous place and you have to constantly pay attention and use your head, even then accidents do happen.

[burchbot]

Chuck Gallup
wrote Let the free market rule. It works with mouse traps.
That’s only because nice don’t have lawyers
Dan

[navigator7]

Chuck Gallup
wrote Let the free market rule. It works with mouse traps.
That’s only because nice don’t have lawyers
Dan

Dan,
Don't forget, if (m)ice had lawyers, they'd also have a political lobby.
If they had a political lobby, American Taxpayers would be on the hook for the legions destroyed by man's insensitivity.
Yep...I see your point.
Reminds me of a quote from GK Chesterton: When men cease to believe in God they will believe in anything.

Mice Have Rights!

;-)

[mitch_prest]

I don't see an air bag in that contraption.. you could be sued for not licensing that technology.. which brings us back where we started..

removing responsibility from the individual is not the answer.. and that seems to be the road we are heading down.. if you don't belong on a horse or shouldn't be operating a table saw, then all the safety equipment in the world is not going to save you.
Nothing is idiot proof.. and there is always one of those in the bunch...
There are 150 in our shop... and safety is always an issue.. we have guards on everything.. even the table saw had an extra shield made to cover the drive belt. The chop saw is firmly mounted and has all the guards in place.. but... when the switch ceased to function, instead of telling someone and getting it fixed.. the bright fellow got some tape and taped the trigger in the on position... using the plug to turn it on and off... luckily I happened to see it before he got much further.. as I am sure it would have been the fault of the company for supplying the tape...

[dlcw]

When 545 people (elected federal boneheads) impose their will on 300,000,000 people (We, The People), we are headed for a major train wreck.

[cnc_works]

<ramble on>
Cost of replacement: $80 plus blade. $100 to $180 total cost, not including service time and down time.

There was a comment in Woodshop News from a shop owner (with employees) who had replaced something like thirty cartridge/blade combos over the three years he had his Sawstop and only one was from skin contact. The rest of them were staples, wet wood and whatever other condition combos which would set off the mechanism. $5K worth of replacements. Which I suppose would still be cheaper than absorbing the costs around the one real incident.

On the other hand, I could imagine my frustration being in the middle of a project on my single tablesaw and have my work come to a stop for the period of time it takes to get a new cartridge. Of course, I suppose it would be prudent to have one on the shelf if you owned a Sawstop.

I've been pushing wood through a tablesaw for close to 50 years and have been lucky enough to have had a couple of minor incidents involving blood and blades that performed the function of warning me..."be more careful". No ER, no $$$, just the warning. The point is, though, that you can't make a shop perfectly safe. While the tablesaw is one of the scariest tools in the shop, I've had worse injuries from far simpler tools.

Education, awareness and attitude are far better protection than any safety devices and if you don't go into your shop armed with those attributes, you are gonna get hurt despite any safety devices.

Bottom line, extension of this judgment provides an impossible set of standards to live up to and is a waste of time and energy.
</ramble off>

[michael_schwartz]

<ramble on>
Cost of replacement: $80 plus blade. $100 to $180 total cost, not including service time and down time.

There was a comment in Woodshop News from a shop owner (with employees) who had replaced something like thirty cartridge/blade combos over the three years he had his Sawstop and only one was from skin contact. The rest of them were staples, wet wood and whatever other condition combos which would set off the mechanism. $5K worth of replacements. Which I suppose would still be cheaper than absorbing the costs around the one real incident.

</ramble off>

There is an override feature if your cutting wet wood, or materials that may contain fasteners. Sounds like an issue Of operator error to me.

While cutting in override mode the saw will tell you if it would have tripped as well.

If one were to primarily cut wet materials the Sawstop might not be the best option. I would have to check my owners manual, but I believe they specify a specific moisture content.

Imbedded fasteners and woodworking machinery are not an ideal situation to begin with.

[waynelocke]

I sold the Unisaw which I had had for 30 years last year and bought a Sawstop. One not so major injury pays for it and those are all one inattentaive moment away. The small cheap saws at Home Depot et al seem inherently unsafe to me and probably account for an amazing number of accidents each year.
Call me a Marxist, Groucho or Karl, but maybe some study is due before throwing out the phrase. I look at 100 year old tools without guarding or safety features of any sort and marvel at the elaborate and beautiful cast iron...and the injuries they must have caused.Why are they safer now? Pretty much two words — government interference. It's the only force large enough to stand up to large corporations and it does result in some ridiculous rules and rulings and lawyer's warnings. It's always a battle for some balance.
I'm old enough to remember the automaker's years long efforts to prevent mandatory seat belts and air bags and I'm the proud victim of an air bag accident. Nissan didn't put them in my truck because they were nice guys but they sure prevented some blood and guts in my 55mph accident.
I grew up around the refineries along the Houston Ship Channel and am also old enough to remember when the air smelled almost daily and the sky was always lit up with flares. Water pumped from the channel for fighting refinery fires had to be siphoned from at least 12 feet deep to ensure non-flamable water. It was not the free market or the good citizenship of Exxon and Shell that cleaned that up. So when I hear of McDonald's coffee and other such things I can always easily find numerous examples which make me grateful for government interference. I also cuss a lot of the stupidity.