Stephan Gass is a woodworker / patent lawyer / physicist who has designed and built a table saw that can put the brakes on a 4000 rpm saw blade in about .003 of a second and has saved fingers from amputation or even sutures
….by using electricity
http://www.designnews.com/CA6360672.html
and the BIG name saw builders want no part of it
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Replies
http://www.sawstop.com/
There have been a bunch of discussion on this saw over at the Knots board.
Edited to add: A week or two ago, someone over there reported their Sawstop activated on its own while he was cutting a piece of wood.
Edited 9/13/2006 10:11 pm ET by Stuart
been severaal discussions here and at JLConline too
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
There have been a bunch of discussion on this saw over at the Knots board.
Yea, and once in a while they're civil discussions!
They can get as heated as a political discussion in the tav.
Doug
the article touched on that problem occuring while cutting wood that was wet....I figured this guy and his idea was probably dragged over the coals next door....
but I've been trying to stay away from Knots lately.
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.Wer ist jetzt der Idiot
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<someone over there reported their Sawstop activated on its own>
Yeah, but maybe it ANTICIPATED an accident - who can tell?
Forrest - always nervous aroung my tablesaw
Shouldn't your tag line say your always nervous around a ladder?
LOL!
Forrest - Sometimes I worry that I'm not nervous enough
A friend of mine has a Sawstop. The stop has activated once, while cutting rigid foam insulation.
It is a pretty amazing saw. Has been on the market for a while now though. I saw it demonstrated about 6 years ago at IWF.
Tom
Douglasville, GA
Let's see, we got a $300 saw, we're gonna add a $200? emergency brake to it that only works once, then needs repair.
He wants 8% royalties. Add that to the 92% of sales the manufacturer gets to keep, and the same saw, with a one time brake, is going to cost $550.00.
Let us say that the brake pops once a week in production use. 1 hour downtime at $60 + $20? in parts equals $400 a year additional costs to the GC for the use of the saw.
Use it for five years and that saw costs $2550! YMMV.
Gass invented what he thinks is a better mousetrap, but no one beat a path to his door, so he's making Uncle Sam force us pay him anyway.
Then, since it's a safety issue, and we just have to defeat Darwin, we'll be ordered to put it on wormdrives.
Can you say "Rain day?" How about "Fog day," or even "Late dew day?" Whatever, the Gass SawStop ain't gonna get it done.
Oregon would be a great market for him. LOL
Edit: Quote: “We’re not just doing this for the money,†Gass concludes. “We’re doing this because we feel good about it.†. . . Gass is asking for an 8 percent royalty on each saw sold, a figure they describe as ridiculous
Edited 9/19/2006 12:13 am by SamT
IIRC when it trips it trashes the blade also. So figure another $50-100 or more for a blade.When this first came out a few years ago everyone was praising it.I keep saying that they need to make a small batch and lend them out for some field testing to see if they were reliable or not.
"Let us say that the brake pops once a week in production use. 1 hour downtime at $60 + $20? in parts equals $400 a year additional costs to the GC for the use of the saw. "
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You mean over $4000/year in extra costs if it pops once per week.
Billy
Ah, what's a decimal point or two among friends?SamT
How much would it cost if you lost two or three fingers on you dominant hand?
How much would it cost if you lost two or three fingers on you dominant hand?
Using that reasoning, nobody would ever leave the safety of their bed. I would gladly pay 100 times the cost of any table saw if I knew that otherwise I would be guaranteed to lose my fingers.
It's a cost/benefit analysis. The way I see it, it's low benefit (because the loss of fingers is low risk) and yet high cost.
We make these sort of decisions everyday. Like when we get in our cars. I mean, they do crash sometimes. And we do have technology to dramatically reduce the number of accidents (like impact-detecting radar), but it's rather expensive.
-Don
Ok, there would be annual costs for the false positives this sensor/saw stopper triggers. But what is the cost of one cut/severed finger?
Lost worker time?
Worker's Comp expenses?
Unemployement?
This seems to be a piece of technology that is. like most, expensive at the front end, but with continued refinement and future mass production, it may be another feature that does increase the price per unit, but marginally. Anyone old enough to remember when variable speed in a drill was hugely expensive? Or the first clutchhead drives?
And be advised...not all of us in Oregon are mindless Socialists....just a majority :-)
BruceM
Four severed fingers = $14,000 operation + overnight in the hospital + $15,000 lump sum payment + 6 months @ ~$350 week.
~$40Grand. . . To the insurance company.
YMMV
And how often does one crew cost it?
Even that accident would have been prevented if we had used company saws and that one had been promptly repaired. No, it wasn't my saw. Mine was being used for some critically fine work, cuz it was the best cutting and best maintained piece on the site.
Everbuddy knows all you Oregonians are rusted not tanned.
SamT
Edited 9/19/2006 10:31 pm by SamT
Not buying the newest finger saving Tablssaw....2200$
Blood on expensive cherry stock... 5.00$ a board ft
Time lost at emergengy room ...50$/hour
Medical bills... 45000$$
Not having to fold your fingers to flip off an idiot... Priceless!!!"The truth, when told does nothing but bolster a mans character." -Big Cal Stew 2006
"There are 2 kinds of people in the world, those who divide the world into 2 kinds of people and everyone else" -Gloria Steinham
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LOLSamT
Bruce,
I have mixed feelings on it.
I laid my index finger of my dominant hand into my tablesaw blade about 20 years ago. I did not loose it, but man it hurt and I still have significantly reduced feeling in it. BTW, I was carrying hod at the time, had to keep working, and I thought I was gonna die...
Anyway, since that day, I gain a whole lot of respect for a rotating blade. I have used a tablesaw at least weekly since then with not even a near miss.
My point is, the super-stopper would have been nice, but the best safety device I have is between my ears.
... been in Oregon my whole life, and republican since I could walk, so I know there is at least one non-Socialist here (rest of the family are liberal, socialist dogs...)
I'm guessing I'm the lone person here who has actually set off a sawstop, we have one in our workshop.
Just wanted to clarify that it's not an hour down time to reset the saw. Think more like 5 minutes, 10 max. It's a matter of popping off the old, putting on the new, and adjusting the space between blade and cartridge.Justin Fink - FHB Editorial
Your Friendly Neighborhood Moderator
Is the blade damaged?
yes, blade should be tossed. The teeth almost always crack, or the blade will get a hairline crack which could cause serious injury down the line.Justin Fink - FHB Editorial
Your Friendly Neighborhood Moderator
How exactly did you trip the thing?Body part or false alarm?
I've always been a dreamer, spend my life running around. But it's so hard to change... [Eagles]
VERY Good question Ron.
If a hot dog is slowly (say at 1 inch per second) moved into contact with a 4000 RPM blade that stops in 3 milliseconds, the blade moves 1.25" before it stops ( 418 in/sec initial velocity) but the hot dog maybe moves only 3/1000 inch so minimal hot dog damage, hardly breaks the skin.
However, if your finger gets first slammed by a piece of jammed wood (which is usually the case in accidents)* and is moving at even 100 inches per second when it first contacts the blade, it moves 1/3 of an inch into the blade which leaves a still nasty cut.
Then there are always manufacturing variables.
The first time a kid goes to show-off the stopping ability and the charge of the stop cartridge is low or the blade is oiled/ or other variable, the sawstop company is probably out of business due to lawsuits.
Will rely on own precautions and knowledge before thinking a safety device being driven by apparent greed could provide any protection.
* got cut 1/2" deep on end of thumb by 8" Tsaw when 15 YO, first and last time - the thumb got whacked on the side by a thrown piece of wood.
I've actually done it twice - both were contact with metal.
The first time the adjustable miter gauge hit the blade because I didn't have it set to properly clear the cut path.
The second time was trimming a piece of foil-faced sheathing.
In retrospect, both seem very obvious things to avoid. But this saw takes some getting used to. You really have to consider each material that will go through it.Justin Fink - FHB Editorial
Your Friendly Neighborhood Moderator
How much of the foil was torn?
You probably would have had to look under a magnifying glass, or at least really, really closely, to see any tear. It stopped dead before cutting any foil.Justin Fink - FHB Editorial
Your Friendly Neighborhood Moderator
Airbags only deploy once. Are they worth the cost? ;o)
Indeed, doctors have been sawing off casts in a skin-sensitive way for many years. Cast saws cut, when they're touching rigid material. But when they get to the cotton batting -- and to the skin -- beneath the cast, they quit cutting. It's interesting to see.
The saw doctors use to cut casts is simply a vibrating disc (no cutting teeth). I can't remember if the disc even slowly rotates. Trust me on this I used to ride motocross.
The tool doctors use to cut casts is a, drumroll...............FEIN MULTIMASTER!!!!
never needing a cast on anythiong...I would probably freak out when they came near me with the thing anyway.
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.Wer ist jetzt der Idiot
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