Thread: This is for metal workers too!

I can't beleive it took this long for the subject to appear on this forum

Well I googled but came up with nothing very useful(which wasnt a great surprise). Lots of talk about it and a few people claiming false triggers.

One thing someone did being up was that "the manufacturers won’t touch it for any amount of licensing loot. The reasons are many and some have been mentioned, but mainly you are including a feature which if it fails is a huge lawsuit waiting to happen."

Looking at that another way, I wonder how sawstop will go if or should I say when someone manages to cut their finger off. Then where will you get your replacement brakes?

Stuart

Good stuff and but if your using the correct procedures with your table saw you will never have a problem.
Like a lot of things they trying to sell this device from a fear/safety point of view.

....Push sticks, feather boards etc... how hard is that?

Originally Posted by China

I can't beleive it took this long for the subject to appear on this forum

China this subject has been absolutely done to death on this forum but always in the area where it belongs, woodworking.

The problem with the Metalwork forum is that most people that frequent this seem to think it is the only forum on WWF, despite the name WoodWorkers Forum

Sawstop is pushing very hard to have their device made mandatory on all table saws in the US, the most litigious nation on this earth, although we aren't far behind.

apologies guys if this was old..I'd never seen it before (not that I recall anyway) and just thought it was recent and hence my posting of it.

but non the less..if it works then we should accept that it most likely will become a fixture on all saws?

One thing that does scare me though is what happens to that blade...and the possible results if the blade lets go towards the operator...seems to me that it may be better to lose a finger

Eskimo,
Thanks for posting it, I have never seen it before.

I think we are all aware of the woodworking parts of this forum, but I know I have trouble keeping up with the metalworking side, and I'm sure some of us just aren't interested in woodworking, but that doesn't mean that things like the saw stop don't interest them. I stil stand by my belief that if if people are stupid enough to treat a saw without the respect it demands then they deserve to loose a finger. I know many of you may dissagree but I see this from a tradesmans point of view and not an untrained amateurs.

Originally Posted by eskimo

One thing that does scare me though is what happens to that blade...and the possible results if the blade lets go towards the operator...seems to me that it may be better to lose a finger

That's an interesting point of view because when I saw it being demonstrated I did not have the slightest concern about this.
They weren't exactly premium quality blades either.

Originally Posted by BobL

I have since done the calculations based on the rated reaction time to stop and found it will be extremely difficult to make more than a 1 mm deep cut. You certainly will not lose any digits. The maths is somewhere on the site - I'll see if I can dig it up.

Here's the maths

The reaction time of Sawstop is supposed to be 1 ms.

This means via simple physics
1 if your hand is dropped under gravity from 0 distance above the saw it will stop by the time your hand has gone 0.0049 mm into the saw, ie a half a hairs width.
2 if your hand is dropped 10 cm above the saw it arrives at the blade doing 1.4 m/s and will stop by the time your hand has gone 1.4 mm into the blade, ie medium cut but leave finger intact.
3 if your hand is dropped 1 m above the saw it will be doing 4.4 m/s and stop by the time your hand has gone 4.4 mm into the blade, leave most of your finger intact.
4 the fastest speeds top black belt karate experts generate at the very end of the punch is about 7 m/s. This means a 7 mm deep cut, even that would possibly not even take your finger off completely.
5 to cut your finger (say 2 cm across) completely off would require a hand speed of 72 km/hr. I guess you could always hang your hand out of a car window and drive past the saw stop?

My guess is that probably case 3 and definitely cases 4 and 5 would shatter the bones in your fingers even if the blade was not moving.
So if you are stupid enough to push a still blade - well - need I say more?

I would like to see all these test confirmed with a pigs trotter - lets get mythbusters onto it!.

A "push and a slip" is unlikely to be worse than case two.

hi Big-Shed, Yeh there must be pages of discussion on the woodwork section, as I have most likely said before,what concerns me is the reliance safety devices that are not failsafe 100%, I have a friend in sa who dose a lot of work for schools here in S.A. and some of the so called safety add ons that are being fiited to machinery is a real concern e.g. anti kick back fingers on thicnessers. I'm sure the same must be occuring in the metal work field as well

Well I am definately not going to try it out. It would be a Good feature though to have on a Saw providing it never Fails.

i will simply say that there are quite a few very carefull operators out there that have lost a digit or two and up until that micro second of red mist they belonged to the" it wont happen to me" group.If you dont touch the blade the unit wont need replaceing(a little like seat belts or airbagsheh!?

How many airbags do you know with a bypass button?

Originally Posted by Stustoys

How many airbags do you know with a bypass button?

30 seconds with a computer these days....I got the VW guys to turn the passenger one off in my van cause i have Arthur in there a lot, and once Max fits in a forward seat i'll start training him up so i have 2 boys to do my job.....

When I was first taught to use a saw many years ago one of the first things drummed in to me was to keep my fingers away from the line of the blade and using push sticks if necessary.
While an interesting device, the idea that it is needed (and should be mandatory) annoys me because it sounds like the alternative, thinking about what you are doing and using the correct technique, is too much of a burden to expect people to responsibly do. What ever happened to being responsible for your own safety?

Michael