have you priced a good quality saw blade lately?Quote:
Really? It cost less than $150?
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have you priced a good quality saw blade lately?Quote:
Really? It cost less than $150?
... unless you accidentally cut overly green timber without testing it first. :doh:Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidG
So let me get this right: your argument is that because your medical expenses for getting your fingers sewn up and knuckle reconstructed were less than the price of replacing a saw blade and a cartridge, you're better off cutting your fingers than buying a Sawstop?Quote:
Originally Posted by weisyboy
Well, there's no argument against logic like that.
Yep. He's definitely going to win a Darwinian award - just a matter of when and which one.Quote:
Originally Posted by silentC
:?Quote:
Originally Posted by weisyboy
OK. Let's be completely transparent.
The replacement cartridge is purchased from us, and will set you back $152 plus postage plus GST. Let's say it will cost you $185 in total.
The blade you can source from anywhere, but it is ten-inch blade, and according to my good friends at Leuco you would be hard pressed to spend more than $200 on a top quality 10" blade. With GST and postage on top of that, let's call it $240.
$185 + $240 = $425.
$425 is your total out-of-pocket expense to keep your fingers intact if you were using a top of the line saw blade.
I've laid my cards on the table. Let's see yours. How much did it cost you, or the taxpayer, to have your hand fixed. I won't even ask you to factor in the pain or trauma associated with the injury.
How can he lay his cards on the table when he has no hands :o:o:o:o.
Ok that said...
Initial operation...
This was done in a public hospital as an emergency admittance.
out of pocket expenses
$1700.00 for the hand micro surgeon specialist (after medicare and private health cover rebate).
Physio... 4 months 5 days a week at the public hospital $0.00 (that's another story).
If done at private physio about $80-$200 per session depending on the treatment (now it starts to add up as the rebate you get is about $65)
Physio.. 6 months 3 days a week at the public hospital (see notes above)
Physio.. 2 months 1 day a week at the public hospital (see notes above)
Second operation.. private hospital (this was to straighten and pin the finger)
out of pocket expenses
$1000.00 for the same specialist
$250 for the anathesist
(this was after the rebate from medicare and private health insurance)
The second operation was done during the last 2 months of physio so the above applies.
So in all about $3000.00 out of pocket expenses.
Hate to think what it would of cost if I had to pay the physio bill, as they use some pretty expensive stuff to get the wound to heal. So I would say that most of the physio sessions would have been around the $200.00 mark.
And on top of this I couldn't do any woodwork for about 18 months.
Sawstop great innovation. Upfront cost high. On going costs, are they really that high, no I don't think so compared to the above cost.
If you can afford the saw in the first place then the first time it activates and saves finger,hand or whatever you will probably be happy shelling out $500 to put your saw back together.
Steve
Steve
I think his belief is that they will grow back. :)Quote:
How can he lay his cards on the table when he has no hands
In 1982 a guy who worked for my old man lost his left hand in a motorbike accident on his way to work one morning. They stitched it back on but he only ever regained about 50% of the movement. He was a first class sheet metal worker at the time of the accident but was unable to work in his trade ever again. Worker's comp covered him on reduced wages for about 5 years while the court case went on, then he got a compensation payment which covered his medical expenses and some of his lost income. That was 25 years ago and he has been on a disability pension ever since. Is he bitter about it? You bet...
:whs:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wongo
Well you would need a Victorian promoter , wouldn't you :U:U
Stunned and amazed. OWWWWW. The thought of what he did just makes me cringe. I have all ten fingers (and plan on keeping it that way), so I don't plan on testing his invention at any display. Makes you think about having something like that installed in the workshop though. Have a friend who has been working in wood for a long time and he has the tip of one finger missing from an unfortunate mistake with his table saw. We play with dangerous things don't we?!
The saw stop is very impressive. I have another question. The video explains that it works by the detection of a small electric current that is conducted by the hand but not by wood that is being cut. Is there any possibility of false alarms - such as timber of a moisture content or other properties that can result in shut downs other than with a finger or sausage? How was it that the piece of meat on the video did not shut the machine down?
Because he was not touching the steak, it was insulated on a piece of dry wood.
Because that wasn't the SawStop. It was a normal table saw. It was supposed to be demonstrating what happens if you run meat through a saw without the SawStop.
I believe there is a button to "Turn off" (Temporarily) the sawstop function, for if you wanted to cut metal, etc. Brendan could explain it better though
I thought they were just trying show you what it is like without the function.
They were...
Gra is explaining that the thing can be deactivated when you're cutting green wood that might trigger it.
The steak cutting demo is on a completely different table saw, not the SawStop.
I'm pretty sure the steak demo was on a SawStop machine, actually. The lighting is different, but the machine looks the same. Suspiciously, there is red text on the top of the rip fence, possibly arranged to form the word "SawStop".
So why didn't the steak set it off?
Two possibilities.
Either the steak did not have enough mass to draw enough of the signal (this is true for the sausage demo - if I'm not touching the sausage then it would be cut in half :oo: )
Or the machine was in 'Bypass Mode'. You can change the machine into Bypass Mode if you want to cut aluminium, steak, fingers, or any other conductive material. The good part about the Bypass Mode though is that you can't accidentally turn it on, and if you switch the machine off and then on again, it automatically reverts to safe mode.
I reckon it was in Bypass Mode.
EDIT: Just watched the steak thing again. Steve's hands were touching the steak, so the machine must have definitely been in Bypass Mode.
Yeah OK it probably is. They took the wings off so it fooled me. Easily done.
Too easy. LikeQuote:
Originally Posted by silentC
http://matazone.co.uk/sillyimages/bl...rrel-small.gif
really....
Having seen the sausage demo work "in the flesh" so to speak when brendan demo'd it I am confident that if I ever dropped me snags on it it would stop them being cut and I could cook and eat em.
Now that I have seen a finger go in one and not get cut I am happy enough that it works.
The arguements on the forum about the technology being flawed are stupid.
Buy one, dont buy one, who gives a rats.
They could have his assistant "Stumpy" come on the Video to talk about the prototype and the testing proceedures.
Sorry All ............ Couldnt resist.
Regards,
Keith.
It was not a "real situation" demonstration, I would like to see him pass timber through the blade, with a finger or thumb in the line of cut, I don,t believe he would becuase it would cut his finger, however the injury would most likley far less serious. any thing that reduces injury is a good thing, but it should not be relied upon
I'm still intrigued by this attitude. Can you imagine someone nonchalantly passing their finger through the blade, knowing that the mechanism will protect them? How do you 'rely' upon it? What behaviour would having a Sawstop induce that might make you more likely to put your hand in the blade?Quote:
it should not be relied upon
To put the point another way - this indicates why there is little risk of SawStop leading to a reduction in the level of care taken by an operator. No-one in their right mind will do something which is going to increase their chance of having a finger damaged, even if they have SawStop and even if they believe implicitly in its efficacy.Quote:
Originally Posted by silentC
What SawStop recognises is that the obvious danger of tablesaws does not of itself lead to all users of table saws adopting appropriate levels of safety procedure to prevent accidents. In the face of that reality of human behaviour, the only question is whether the extra protection against injury that SawStop offers is worth the money they are asking for it.
And that is just a matter of personal opinion.
Sorry JK but I disagree, because just about everything the average human "right mind" is constantly over ridden by the perception of, "it will never happen to me". Sure, no one in their right mind is consciously going to stand there and poke their finger into the saw, but what happens with new product safety features is they eventually become part of a subconscious "background safety net". When seat belts were introduced the number of motor vehicle accidents per vehicle.km on the road increased. One might well say that "no one in their right mind would run their car into a another" so why did the number of accidents increase? The same has happened with air bags. Now we're even starting to see people not using seat belts because we have airbags! And not everyone is in their right mind when they head for the shed eg "I've just had 5 beers and I'll just go and rip some timber on the TS . . . ., hang on, that's a dangerous tool, maybe not, . . . oh wait I have saw stop, she'll be right"! OK - A bit over the top maybe but just trying to make a point"Quote:
Originally Posted by jmk89
I'm not saying that this is a reason not to do these things, but I think what happens is these safety features are "over marketed", which adds to that subconscious safety perception. If anything, to counteract the safety net perception companies should make an even bigger deal about what their "safety features" do not cover. Sawstop does that to some extent but does it do enough?
Quote:
It was not a "real situation" demonstration, I would like to see him pass timber through the blade, with a finger or thumb in the line of cut, I don,t believe he would becuase it would cut his finger, however the injury would most likley far less serious. any thing that reduces injury is a good thing, but it should not be relied upon
I think you are less likely to have an accident when your hand is on the timber. You do pay more attention when you are actually cutting wood don't you?
Accidents are more likely to happen when the cut is finished. You relax, you become less careful and you are reaching out to get something else while the blade is still running. (For example a piece of off-cut or a pencil) I know someone who lost part of his finger that way.
I've heard that before but no-one has ever linked the assertion to a published study. So do you have a reference for it, or is it just an urban myth? Do they take into account the increase in drivers on the road, the change in attitude towards motor vehicles as a status symbol, the recklessness of young drivers. etc etc?Quote:
When seat belts were introduced the number of motor vehicle accidents per vehicle.km on the road increased.
It seems counter-intuitive to me, but maybe it's natural selection at work.
And by the way, the 'it will never happen to me' attitude applies with or without the safety mechanism in my experience. There are plenty of prematurely dead people to prove that.
Yeah, like to instances where it could have happened as posted on here somewhere yesterday with idiots letting 6yr old sons use a tbale saw and another idiot letting his 2yr old son shoot an automatic pistol - come from the same country - is there something in that? :yikes:
I hear it all too often. :no:Quote:
Originally Posted by silentC
"It will never happen to me."
"I've been using a tablesaw for twenty years and haven't cut my fingers off."
"It's good technology for someone else."
"Better still, I just won't touch the blade."
That last one was told to me by a guy at the Sydney T&WWW show. He rang me three months later, just as he got home from the hospital after cutting the tops of two fingers off. He now owns a SawStop machine, and is hopefully the only 'I told you so' story I ever have to deal with.
Wow,
Read this entire thread…
I work for a company in the US that sells SawStop…we sell Jet, and Powermatic, Steel City and Delta also.
To address the “fitting one to my saw” question.
The inventor designed his original mechanism to fit the Delta Unisaw…offered the design and patent to Delta, and they refused, because they didn’t want to sell or promote the idea that their products might be unsafe to begin with.
If you look closely, the basic cabinet is close to a Shop Fox saw…but the SawStop has much heavier trunions and bearings.
As for the circuit failing…
The basic circuit is a collapsing circuit, technology that has been around for almost a century, but with the modern chip technology it can be made quite compact and bullet proof.
The cartridge used in the SawStop will work underwater, buried in sawdust and under almost any condition you could imagine…the cartridge simply provides a path for the current, the blade is the trigger…which is why the saw checks the blade when you first turn it on…it measures the resistance present, so it has a base line resistance value…change that value and the cartridge will fire, period.
If you happen to be resting your hand against the blade and try and turn the saw on, the resistance value exceeds the safety values and the saw will not start.
As someone who has been using a table saw for 38 years, if I was in the market for a new saw, I would purchase the SawStop…not simply for the brake and safety feature, but because the saw is an excellent machine all by itself.
We demo the saw about three times a year…using our classroom SawStop, which has 100 of hours of use on it, it is as dirty and dusty inside as you would expect a saw used daily to be.
During one of our demos, we decided to try the hot dog, but taped it to a board and ran it through the blade with no one touching the hot dog…the brake fired.
There will always be folks who don’t believe this works, or are sure it will fail because it is a machine, or involves electronics and such, but trust me, short of causing intentional damage to the cartridge, it will work..
As for the blade skipping because of the crumple zone on the brake…the holes in the aluminum brake are there to give the blade something to bite into…if the brake was a solid aluminum block, the blade might skip off of it, but because of the holes, the brake face collapses, grabbing the blade not only one the face, but on the sides as well, using the centrifugal force of the blade to force it down below the table…this happens faster than you can blink.
At our store, we sell on average three SawStop cabinet saws, and one SawStop contractor saw every month…so far they out sell the Powermatic p2000, Delta Unisaw and Jet combined.
Our local school district’s insurance carrier insists the schools shop have a SawStop only, and we have sold several to both our state and to Federal concerns, for the same reason, their insurance carriers insist on them.
It works.
As the promo say, “if you could buy a machine that could prevent an accident, why wouldn’t you?”
For the small extra cost of the safety brake, plus the fact that it is as good, if not a better built and running saw than most other, why not?
According to my latest FWW tools & shops, the StopSaw is only US$200 to $400 more than the powermatic saw and the new Delta Unisaw. It must be a pretty attractive buy over there in the US.
Wongo, from the experiance, of nearly 40 years in the woodworking trades most acidents happen when someone is making the cut and not paying attension or plain stupidity, one incedent I saw, an apprentice came back to work after removing his index finger on a dimension saw, the other lads asked how managed to do, he promptley demonstrted by removing his middle finger by the same method
I have followed this thread carefully and with great interest even though I cant - and possibly never will be able to afford this machine.
Like most of you I have never had an accident with my table saw; had a couple of minor upsets with other power tools - the worst requiring a few stitches. I don't for one minute suggest that the low incidence of personal injury is due to luck, no! it's due to dilligence, forsight and the reasoning that a mistake or a faulty piece of equipment could cause havock at any time.
Knowing this I, as I'm sure most of us do, I take every concievable caution, each time that saw is started I consider what it is going to do, how my work is going to be presented to the machine, what will happen if I slip, these plus a host of other things.
Now, should I be fortunate enough to be able to install saw stop in my shed, does that mean that I can forgo all these precautions - no - Not that I dont trust the system but because common sense tells me that the more precautions taken then the less chance of an accident, after all fingers in saw blades possibly only account for a fraction of table saw incidents.
Finally think of saw stop like you would a RCD in an electrical circuit, surely you wouldn't play with live electrickery just because the RCD is going to save you?
Denn
With the table extensions, 52 inch rails, and mobil base, the Saw Stop runs, at our store, $300.00 dollars more than the PM2000 from PowerMatic with the same size table and legs.
The PM2000 has a built in caster system.
The brake cartdridge runs $89.99, and the dado brake runs $99.99.
For an extra $300.00 bucks...if you use the safety brakes once, the saw paid for itself and then some.
Listen to Ruddigar, go see one of these in person...make a few cuts on the demo saw...you will want to buy one, count on it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wongo
He's seen the demo....didn't buy it.Quote:
Originally Posted by edblysard
Typical Chinese - always want 'best price' :bowdown:
I think Denn has summed it up pretty well.Quote:
Originally Posted by dennford
The Saw Stop is the absolute last line of defence not the first.
I would quite happily "trade in" my Jet saw and get back the $3000.00 it cost me to get my finger reconstructed and buy a Saw Stop. But I will not trade in all my precautions and safety measures just because I have a Saw Stop.
Cos I don't need one and no I am actually very easy on prices. :UQuote:
Originally Posted by Ruddigar
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fencepost2
Exactly, a slight mishap can lead to devastating results. But nevertheless, its usefull and a good safety device. Daring man!
I will be starting to set up up my next workshop in about three months as we just purchased a house yesterday (need to keep the economy going :D)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Bleeder
My wife hated my last table saw it was cheap Asian one did the job and I sold it and will be buying another saw.
The wife being a theater Nurse has seen plenty of missing and damaged digits in her years of service and plenty of other injuries and hates me using table and circular saws.
I showed her the SawStop some time ago when we were back in Brisbane before we moved and last night she asked what I will need to spend on the workshop I said I will need a Table Saw and she instantly asked will it have that thing that stops the saw if you touch it, I explained that it wont be cheap and her answear was either is you having a long period off work.
I am a hobby user I take care when using tools never cut myself once but have come close I am sure, It could happen and using this as the last line of defense is the way to think about it yes we are human we make mistakes loose concentration really snit happens when you least expect it.
Maybe auto defibrillator should be sold with it as well :D I think after you relise what you have set it off your more then likely to have a heart attack.
So whats the cost of one of these units need to work out the budget.
Do you think it could be factory fitted. Might have to see Ruddigar about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by WillyInBris