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In 2015, 4,700 people in the US lost a finger or other body part to table-saw incidents. Most of those injuries didn't have to happen, thanks to technology invented in 1999 by entrepreneur Stephen Gass. By giving his blade a slight electric charge, his saw is able to detect contact with a human hand and stop spinning in a few milliseconds. A widely circulated video[1] shows a test on a hot dog that leaves the wiener unscathed.
Now federal regulators are considering whether to make Gass' technology mandatory in the table-saw industry. The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced plans for a new rule in May, and the rules could take effect in the coming months.
But established makers of power tools vehemently object. They say the mandate could double the cost of entry-level table saws and destroy jobs in the power-tool industry. They also point out that Gass holds dozens of patents on the technology. If the CPSC makes the technology mandatory for table saws, that could give Gass a legal monopoly over the table-saw industry until at least 2021, when his oldest patents expire.
At the same time, table-saw related injuries cost society billions every year. The CPSC predicts switching to the safer saw design will save society $1,500 to $4,000 per saw sold by reducing medical bills and lost work.
"You commissioners have the power to take one of the most dangerous products ever available to consumers and make it vastly safer," Gass said at a CPSC public hearing on Wednesday.
[1] SawStop Hot dog Video - Saw blade retracts within 5 milliseconds of accidental contact - YouTube.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:05AM (19 children)
What if I want to cut a piece of metal, that I'm holding in my hand? Will the saw stop? Safety tech usually has drawbacks that aren't mentioned.
I vote no on the mandate. Everyone should be careful around power tools and sharp objects. If you want extra safety, you can buy this kind of saw, but don't force it on everyone. Even under Trump, the nanny-state lives on.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:47AM (18 children)
What if I want to cut a piece of metal, that I'm holding in my hand? Will the saw stop? Safety tech usually has drawbacks that aren't mentioned.
There's no drawback. This tech won't work for metal, nor for overly damp wood. To deal with this, these saws have an extra button you press to disable the SawStop safety mechanism when you're cutting stuff like that. Of course, then you lose your protection, but you're probably not cutting that stuff most of the time anyway. In case you aren't sure about a piece of wood, you can just touch the wood to the blade while the motor isn't running, and it'll light up an indicator light to tell you it would trigger the mechanism if the blade were running.
If you want extra safety, you can buy this kind of saw
The problem with this mentality is that the people losing their fingers aren't the ones making the purchasing decision in many cases. It's not just hobbyists buying table saws, you know. And hobbyists probably have significantly better safety statistics, because they don't do this stuff day in, day out, and don't develop the complacency that professionals do, nor are they usually in a rush.
Do you think taxi companies should be allowed to buy taxicabs without airbags and seatbelts too, and taxi drivers should just die when they get in a crash?
Maybe you could make the argument that saws used in professional settings must have this tech, while hobbyists are allowed to buy cheaper ones without it, and companies using the hobbyist saws are subject to huge OSHA fines, just like companies with factories are subject to far more onerous safety regulations that some guy with a home-built CNC machine in his basement.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday August 12 2017, @05:29AM (13 children)
So if I'm a business owner who buys a table saw for cutting aluminum, my operators have to remember to disable this feature before each and every cut, and WHEN they forget the saw is destroyed and I have to buy another.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:01AM (10 children)
What the hell are they doing that would destroy the saw when it stops? Throwing aluminum at it?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @07:02AM
"Stop" and "Emergency Stop" are not the same thing. The first is a safe shut-down, the second brakes so hard that it destroys equipment because, as the name says, it's supposed to save life and limb in an EMERGENCY. This is standard in industrial equipment of all sorts.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:17AM (6 children)
Touching the blade with something conductive while it's running destroys the saw. Have you watched the videos?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday August 13 2017, @03:29AM (5 children)
What are you talking about? On the SawStop, it destroys the blade, not the saw. A blade is maybe $100 for a good one; not pocket change for most people, but a lot cheaper than the saw. If you have a spare on hand, it takes a few minutes to swap out.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday August 13 2017, @05:32AM (4 children)
I think there's a good chance it damages the bearings and spindle axle. I've seen those kinds of forces destroy machines before.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 14 2017, @02:12AM (3 children)
Citation needed. Everything I've ever read about SawStop, including their own literature, says nothing like this: you replace the blade and stopping cartridge and you're back in business.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday August 14 2017, @09:41PM (2 children)
Their device intentionally causes what we in the machining industry call a "crashed spindle", which generally voids all warranty on a spindle no matter the machine type. It's possible that they dramatically overbuilt their spindle to handle these forces, which would partially explain why their cheapest saw costs $1400 when I can buy something otherwise comparable for $140 at Harbor Freight. Yes, literally 10% of the cost. Replacement Sawstop cartridges are $70 to $90 each, so unless it can run without one I'd have to pay for a Harbor Freight saw every two times someone forgot to disable the "feature".
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 15 2017, @04:10PM (1 child)
Or perhaps it's because you're comparing to Harbor Freight, the place that sells tools so cheap they can't even manage a goddamn SCREWDRIVER BIT that won't shatter on the very first use. I've seen disposable napkins that were sturdier than their "tools". You've gotta be out of your mind if you're buying a table saw from that place...
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 15 2017, @08:03PM
I have several Harbor Freight tools which perform as well as or better than Home Depot tools. When the job calls for a $140 tool, I don't want the government mandating that I buy a $1400 tool.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:11PM
Actually, that is exactly what they are doing. See here at about 3:35 -- the blade bites into and embeds itself into a hunk of aluminum for the quick stop, then that part needs to be replaced along with blade. There is also a possibility of damage to the electric motor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnlTGndRi38 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:00AM
It jams a giant block of aluminum into the blade stopping it. (and destroying it)
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @07:57AM (1 child)
If you bought a table saw to cut metal then you've bought the wrong tool for the job.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:15AM
Table saws with carbide tipped blades are actually excellent for rapidly cutting aluminum plate, much better than bandsaws. Source: 23 years of machining experience, and I run a machine shop.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday August 12 2017, @02:06PM (1 child)
Table saws are rapidly nearing their post-professional era. Kind of like how metal shops don't have or use horizontal mills or shapers anymore so you can't buy them new. Or how most home electronics were not assembled on an assembly line using hand soldering irons. Or how most cooks, professional and amateur, have oursourced butchering services from their kitchens for better or worse.
They'll always be a place for stuff like custom crown molding installation inside houses, well, probably, but the days of table saws on factory floors are already gone, too productive and cheap to use automation and CNC.
I would not be entirely surprised with ever increasing automation and technology if the table saw market eventually disappears except for hobbyists and retro people.
For example people don't buy table saws because they're cool machines, they buy them because they want controlled predictable perfect cross cuts on a piece of wood, for example. Well... you're gonna need a CNC wood mill for market pressure anyway, and with advanced machine vision and robot arm clamping tech, you could casually toss a 2x4 on the mill bed and the machine vision will figure out a perfect 90.000 degree cut on both ends at precisely 92 5/8 standard wall stud length (or WTF it is, I think thats standard wall stud length?) regardless how you toss the 2x4 on the mill bed. In fact you can toss 5 or 10 studs at a time on the mill bed and the robot arm will feed material in and out and nicely stack it. And you need the mill to do millwork onsite anyway. So why purchase and haul a table saw that does an inferior job more slowly and more labor expense?
I would not be surprised if in 10, 20, 30 years people look back on using old fashioned table saws like most woodworkers look back on using jointers hand planes from the middle ages, well, that's very interesting and historical and makes interesting TV coverage but that ain't happening in my shop thanks!
The impact on structural engineering and building codes of aerospace grade onsite CNC manufactured tolerances is interesting to think about. No more "pound to make it fit" or "the house will settle eventually making that gap disappear"
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday August 13 2017, @05:41AM
Metal shops don't use horizontal mills anymore huh? That would be news to the machine tool industry. I would say most high volume machining is done on horizontals. As far as table saws go, you might as well claim that hammers are going out of fashion. Why put a process on a $200k+ machine when you can do it at least as fast on a $500 table saw?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:10PM
There are two very big differences though. First is that seat belts and airbags are not monopolies by one company (who is the petitioner for this rule, BTW). But are available to all car companies, precisely to make their use as widespread as possible. The second is if you actually look at the safety statistics they cite in the proposal, hobbyists account for approximately 3/4 of injuries and are more likely to have severe ones.
As a final note, you'd better believe that if the actuaries for workman's comp thought requiring SawStop would save them money, it would be on their safety rider, just like a bunch of other safety and protective equipment is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @10:10PM
Driving cars is a licensed activity, especially taxis. You don't need a license to cut wood with a saw. It's reasonable for licensed activities to have various government regulations, including for safety. But if you want the government to solve all problems and prevent all accidents, I guess they should also regulate table saws.