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This is an article about a safety feature on table saws that would undoubtedly transform the injuries that occur from them. However, there's resistance from the industry. What a crazy world.

Gerald Wheeler caught the hot dog demonstration at the International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta in 2002. A man took an Oscar Meyer wiener and pushed it into the blade of a table saw spinning 4,000 times per minute. As the hot dog touched the whirring saw, the blade came to a dead stop in about three one-thousandths of a second, leaving the dog with only a minor nick.

The saw was equipped with a safety device called SawStop that could distinguish between wood and flesh and then stop the blade fast enough to prevent a gruesome injury. Wheeler was amazed. As the operator of a wood shop in Hot Springs, Arkansas, he was all too aware of the unforgiving nature of table saws. Not long before, two of his employees had been maimed within a few weeks of each other. Wheeler felt awful about the injuries, the loss of two good workers, the $95,000 in medical bills, the doubling of his workers compensation rates. Watching SawStop in action, Wheeler thought: If only this had come along sooner.




Saws Cut Off 4,000 Fingers A Year. This Gadget Could Fix That. | Mother Jones

I have personally witnessed a thumb lost in a table saw and two fingers in a mitre saw.

The cost is $60 or about £40 the only reason I can think this isn't taken up industry wide is the cost of the adaptation to the saw, or that damp timber or something else might trigger it, thus wrecking an expensive blade and possibly the whole saw.

Bruv;1427190 wrote: I have personally witnessed a thumb lost in a table saw and two fingers in a mitre saw.

The cost is $60 or about £40 the only reason I can think this isn't taken up industry wide is the cost of the adaptation to the saw, or that damp timber or something else might trigger it, thus wrecking an expensive blade and possibly the whole saw.


Trouble with that is the industry has developed an improved version that does not wreck the blade or the saw when activated. They have not implemented it because they'd have to pay royalties on the original patent.

Truely disgusting given the number of injuries happening daily.

So presumably it all boils down to cost?

Why can't the Health and Safety 'over the toppers' insist by law that things like this are implimented, rather than Risk Assessment for changing light bulbs?

Bruv;1427214 wrote: So presumably it all boils down to cost?

Why can't the Health and Safety 'over the toppers' insist by law that things like this are implimented, rather than Risk Assessment for changing light bulbs?


The article explains that because the power tool companies have an industry organization that regulates by voluntary agreement the law cannot intervene unless they can be seen to be doing nothing. The keep making minor tweeks to the safety regs and can therefore show that they are doing something.

Again with wanting the gov't to protect careless people from themselves. Oh well ...



Here's a full review of the table saw. He doesn't get to the safety features until 22 minutes in, if you want to jump forward. It's a good looking saw. As for that safety blade stopper thing: Do I understand rightly that it ruins the blade when it goes off? Is the cartridge reusable?

Accountable;1427288 wrote: Again with wanting the gov't to protect careless people from themselves. Oh well ...



Here's a full review of the table saw. He doesn't get to the safety features until 22 minutes in, if you want to jump forward. It's a good looking saw. As for that safety blade stopper thing: Do I understand rightly that it ruins the blade when it goes off? Is the cartridge reusable?




Are the fingers usable again after an accident?

It's more about wanting the industry to give the users the choice rather than suppressing the safety improvement.

As I see it, by squashing the new system they ARE making themselves liable for compensation claims. If they sold saws with and without then users who choose without have only themselves to blame.

Is there a retrofit for older saws? I'd hate to have to buy a whole new saw just because I've decided to quit drinking and have shaky hands.

Accountable;1427291 wrote: Is there a retrofit for older saws? I'd hate to have to buy a whole new saw just because I've decided to quit drinking and have shaky hands.


It doesn't look as though there would be as it's a fairly fundamental design change whichever version you go for.

I feel that I should say that I have NOT decided to quit drinking. I was only stating a hypothetical. I don't want to crash the alcohol industry or anything.

Accountable;1427295 wrote: I feel that I should say that I have NOT decided to quit drinking. I was only stating a hypothetical. I don't want to crash the alcohol industry or anything.


:yh_rotfl As if :wah:

Accountable;1427288 wrote: Again with wanting the gov't to protect careless people from themselves. Oh well ...




Don't you have safety laws on the books to protect construction workers from zealous employers ?

Both of the instances I witnessed might best be described as oversights rather than carelessness. The mitre saw incident was a failure of the rest supporting the feed onto the saw, so no carelessness there.



At first the price of $60 appears a small price to pay for safety sake.

I expect a good table saw would last throughout an average workers lifetime and some, and to have this device fitted means a totally new saw, so $60 is everytime it triggers or in addition to the price of a new saw, which means a workshop would have to throw out reliable saws at great expence, just to avail themselves of this feature.

Blade and cartridge become welded together, so a new blade and cartridge is needed everytime your timber gets a little unsuspected drop of moisture from any source.

I can see the reluctance to take up this device myself, however to renew worn out saws with said device over time might be wise.