Poll on SawStop

[BigguyZ]

Imagine the lawsuit if somebody gets a defective saw-stop and cuts a finger off...

Now THEN I'd laugh my butt off! Not that the guy woudl deserve loosing a finger, but it would be poetic justice that Mr Lawsuit gets sued himself. What'll his defense be? You should've followed basic safety guidlines and not even needed the stop in the first place??

[twistsol]

Imagine the lawsuit if somebody gets a defective saw-stop and cuts a finger off...

I'm guessing there would be afew companies willing to ensue the plaintiff had really high quality representation.

[Len]

To me this falls in the catagory of a lawsuit against the maker of a paring knife for putting sharp edge on it, so you cut yourself when it slipped while using it to loosen a screw.

What ever happened to read the directions, follow the safety instructions, use the appropriate safety equipment, use the tool for it's intended purpose, and don't operate the machinery when you're tired, been drinking (even a little), or taking medications that can cause drowsyness??

Len

[gsmittle]

The strange thing is, do you really need to stop the saw blade? Wouldn't just retracting the blade work just as effectively? The demos I have seen show the blade being instantly retracted below the table as well as stopping the blade. .. (Other than it wouldn't require replacement of $60 piece of aluminum, of course.)

My understanding is that the action of the brake provides the energy to retract the saw blade.

Keep in mind that the only physics I know is what I saw in a play about Galileo…

g.

[jackellis]

I don't care much for government mandates, but there are cases where they do make sense. Seat belts are one. The cost is small and the number of lives saved is huge. A seat belt saved my life and it makes sense to have them in vehicles. I'm not nearly as sold on air bags.

I don't like Gass's methods - I've seen similar tactics in other forums and they make me angry, not the least because very often the supporting arguments are empty. In this case, however, I'd agree that the manufacturers missed an opportunity to make their product a lot safer at reasonable additional cost. If someone did a cost-benefit study, my gut tells me there's a high likelihood the additional cost of adding SawStop technology to all table saws would be less than the out-of-pocket cost of reattaching or repairing severed fingers and physical therapy, and the wages and other compensation lost by folks who cut off or damaged their fingers.

If I have lots of spare cash at some point, I might replace my saw. Meantime, it's featherboards, holddowns and push sticks.

[Rich P]

Beam me up Scotty!

If you want to use a potentially dangerous piece of machinery (like a jet fighter or a atom bomb) and you screw up and get hurt (and you didn't RTFM or get trained) then if you lose life, limb or other valuable things it ain't the fault of the maker. Frankly I think the Sawstop is a technical gimmick. How would Fred (as in Fred's Mill) feel about it? Hey, I cut the bejessus out of my finger sharpening a planer blade...is there a Sawstop for that??? Take the lawyers who filed that case and send them somewhere cold and dark (IMHO) and the poor guy who got hurt, send him to high school shop class (OH, I forgot, we closed them all down). Sorry if this view has been posted above but I don't have the patience to read through the BS.

[mpc]

Right now the SawStop technology makes a difference in just one of the hazards associated with a table saw. It does nothing to reduce injury risks for kickback for example. So an operator still has to pay attention to stay safe. I've seen/read about more kickback injuries than I've seen/read about finger amputations. Kickback got me when I borrowed a friend's saw years ago (prior to my getting my new BT3000, his wasn't aligned right it turns out) and I still have the scar across my index finger to remind me. Fortunately the cut looked worse than it was... cut didn't reach the bone though it did cut part of the extensor tendon.

Rather than pay the the extra cost associated with a SS saw, I'd use that money for extra safety equipment and supplies to build/buy myself jigs, push sticks, feather boards, dust collection, etc. Stuff that improves safety for kickbacks, keeps my fingers further away from the blade, and works on multiple tools as well. Much more bang for my limited bucks.

I don't buy cheap - I do spend what it takes to buy what I think is quality, safe, accurate, and reliable. But I'm not going to spend twice as much for a small increment in safety if that money can buy more safety elsewhere.

mpc

[vaking]

Disregarding the merits or lack thereof of the lawsuit and Mr Gass's participation in it, I believe the following:

3) The 'royalty' or licensing fee or whatever you want to call it, by my understanding, was supposed to max out at 8% of wholesale cost.Doesn't sound unreasonable to me. So maybe on a $500 saw, about $250 wholesale, $20 in royalty fees.
4) I think the major companies decided to ignore the technology because they thought they could, and this would all go away.
I don't think they had our best interests at heart when they turned him down.

This is bad math. Let's do it over and this time let's try to make ir right.
SawStop technology is expensive in itself. If you take as an example a high end Powermatiic (retail price $2200) and a comparable Sawstop (retails for $3200) you will see that addition of this technology increases retail price by $1000. Using your own ratio - wholesale price increases by $500. Let's presume this will get cheaper with quantity if other manufacturers start using it - say we cut the cost in half and now adding this technology will increase the wholesale price by only $250. Sawstop technology is about safety and safety is the one area where no manufacturer can afford to compromize quality. That means adding this technology will cost you that much regardless which saw you are talking about. Now let's take the example you started with. The saw that currently retails for $500 has $250 wholesale price. Adding sawstop technology brings wholesale price to $500. Licensing fee for Steve Gass adds another $40 - $540. Double it to arrive to retail price - $1080. So the product that now people can buy for $500 after adding this safety will become available for $1080. I am certain that manufacturer of the saw that has wholesale price of $250 makes less than $40 profit on it, so Steve Gass's licensing fee amounts to more than manufacturer's profit now. Still think it is reasonable?
Ryobi today makes some of the cheapest saws on the market. Some sell in the $200 range. Same math applied to those saws would result in their new price being around $750 if manufacturer were to add sawstop to those. If Sawstop technology were to become necessary on those saws (by means of regulations or legal precedent) - the entire low end table saw market will collapse and people will go back to circular saw upside down. Sawstop as a company today makes only high end saws. Now you know why - cost of this safety as a percentage of total cost is absolutely prohibitive on lower end products.

There is also one more factor to consider. There are many saws on the market even without Sawstop products and their prices range from $200 to $2000+ (retail). I am willing to bet that out of all the fingers than get damaged by table saw blades 99% are damaged by low end saws. There are 2 reasons for it:
1). Low end saws outsell high end by many-to-one, so there are more low end saws in use than high end.
2). High end saws are used by professionals and professionals know what not to do with the saw. Low end saws are used by amateurs who are much more prone to mistakes. Then there is also a category of people who rent a saw for a project or borrow from a friend or take a gig for a day helping flooring contractor. Those are completely clueless about safety. When was the last time you heard about anybody renting or borrowing a Unisaw?
What that means is that Sawstop technology cannot be reasonable applied to low end market and will have little effect in the high end professional market.

Having said all that I do believe there is one niche market where this technology makes perfect sense. All those woodworking schools/classes are places where saws see a lot of use/abuse and where people who touch them are often clueless. This is where sawstop is at home. I think manufacturers have made their calculations and decided that this market is too small for Gass's fees.

[cgallery]

This is bad math. Let's do it over and this time let's try to make ir right.
SawStop technology is expensive in itself. If you take as an example a high end Powermatiic (retail price $2200) and a comparable Sawstop (retails for $3200) you will see that addition of this technology increases retail price by $1000.

You can't correlate street price with manufacturing cost like that. There is no such correlation.

[LCHIEN]

vaking][/B]
This is bad math. Let's do it over and this time let's try to make ir right.
SawStop technology is expensive in itself. If you take as an example a high end Powermatiic (retail price $2200) and a comparable Sawstop (retails for $3200) you will see that addition of this technology increases retail price by $1000.

You can't correlate street price with manufacturing cost like that. There is no such correlation.

I agree, it's not that simple, you can't state that the cost of the sawstop technology is $1000.
First of all it assumes that the basic saw cost and markup values on it are the same.

After that assumption, Built into that difference number of $1000 is the cost of the hardware and the amortized R&D and tooling and SAWSTOP's management's determination of how much the customer is willing to pay for the safety feature.

Right now the only way to get it is to buy a sawstop saw so the premium is quite high, especially given the managements self determination that the value is quite high. As will all supply and demand, they might sell more if the price was lower but then they'd have to work harder for the money. Its best to sell a royalty and do nothing but collect it... they've already demanded that the royalty should be 8% of the selling price of the saw - that's $176 for the example $2200 powermatic.
You can educated guesses at the hardware costs - the brake and the triggering mechanisms, then put in factors for markup - which will vary much more greatly than the hardware costs... it might approach $1000.

[LarryG]

Right now the only way to get it is to buy a sawstop saw so the premium is quite high

Or is it?

The new issue of WOOD Magazine includes, as it happens, a comparo test of eight (I think ... I'm working from memory) cabinet saws, ranging from an ~$1100 Grizzly to the newest version of the Unisaw at $3300. Those out in the middle included a JET, two different saws by General International, the PM2000 (which incidentally now costs more like $2600-2700, not $2200), and the SawStop Professional Cabinet Saw. IIRC they gave the SawStop's price as $3000, so it was not the most expensive saw in the test. (Further, one of the General Internationals cost $2900 -- within spittin' distance of the SawStop even though it lacked the latter's blade braking mechanism.)

All the saws had 3HP motors and 50" Biesemeyer-ish fence systems, so broadly speaking they were all variations on the same theme. That the prices ranged from $1100 to $3300 for such a similar group is in itself proof enough that a saw's MSRP cannot be directly related to manufacturing costs.

The WOOD reviewers found that the SawStop's fence had the least lateral deflection -- none whatsoever -- at the rear (although the article stated that for all practical purposes, the fences on all the saws were equally excellent). The SawStop had the best dust collection; they liked its riving knife and ease of blade changes; they liked that it included a built-in mobile base.

In the end the SawStop and the Delta Unisaw shared "Top Tool" honors. Was the SawStop named a "Top Tool" in part because of its blade brake? No doubt. But the reviewers were clearly impressed by the overall package. And, as mentioned, the SawStop cost $300 less than their other top choice.

I'm not taking sides either way, just offering some additional food for thought. When I bought my PM2000, it cost me ~$2000 so stepping up to the SawStop would indeed have been a considerable premium. With the price difference now down to only $400, if I were shopping today I would definitely give the SawStop a serious look. Not just because of the blade brake, but because it looks like an excellent saw in all respects.

[LinuxRandal]

Something else to take into account (forgive me if I missed this in all of this). When Sawstop first approached them, it wasn't proven. For a long time (not sure about now), if you had a false trip, Sawstop would swap you brakes, so they could improve the tech. Say this was incorporated into all saws when first introduced, who would have covered this, and how does it affect manufacturing costs, product costs, image costs, etc.

[Eagan]

Interesting questions. What would happen if someone mounted Saw Stop on a Ryobi Bt3xxx. Would it flip? Or would it stop smoothly.

I don't think that price of the Saw Stop is entirely because of the technology; the company seems to be trying to make sure it is the best saw in the market in the category; it is their best and possibly only chance of survival.

I've lived a long time with the BT3000; I don't need the best table saw in the world. I like having a good one, and I would like a safer one. There are too many situations that could take my concentration off the blade for a split second, and at least once when I used a dado blade, and push stick blocks, and found the wood I'm working on suddenly missing. It would be nice to couple of times when I've suddenly found the board I'm cutting missing. Perhaps they are my fault, perhaps not. In any case, it would be nice to know that

I still haven't read a description of the accident that caused the lawsuit, though I've seen a lot of declarations that it must have been the guy's fault and he couldn't have been using it safely.

[Old Lurker]

From one of the links posted earlier:

Gass, an avid woodworker who holds a doctorate in physics, built a prototype for his device in 1999 out of a $200 saw and electronic parts he had around his home.

So the prototype cost him nothing because he had those parts laying around the house and he used a $200 saw? Too bad we don't know what brand and model saw that was because it would be posted on instructables.com on how to make your own sawstop.

[tommyt654]

I wonder how many adds Sawslop runs in Wood magazine vs the other named saws in the article,Just another biased opinion I would gather.