Interesting comment by Sawstop inventor

[tommyt654]

I have been involved in another forum discussing the Sawstop tablesaw a member there was curious about. It began with the usual ups and down and quips about its inability to cut hotdogs etc, Then out of nowhere Stephen Gass chimes in(about a yr too late) in response to a comment I had made regarding the use of guards and pushsticks. Heres his reply to another member there named George:

" George., Prior to the time we had our saws out in the field there was a lot of speculation about what would happen in actual accidents on SawStop saws. We had done a lot of tests with hot dogs, but no one really knew how fast hands hit saw blades in the real world. I had some guesses based on the physics of what happens in kickbacks and how fast material is normally fed, but no one, including me, could say with certainly how fast hands would be going and, as noted in our manual, the speed of the hand approaching the blade affects the depth of the injury.

That said, we now know the answer to this question with certainty. We have had almost 1000 reported finger saves on SawStop saws in the last 6 years. Of those accidents, around 1 in 20 requires stitches and in no case have we seen a hand approaching fast enough for the blade to amputate even a single finger. So, the answer is that unless your accident turns out to be extremely unusual, SawStop technology reacts fast enough to result in a relatively minor injury.

Interestingly and contrary to what Tommy would guess, our data shows that guards and push sticks are not sufficient to prevent accidents. In our finger save report form we ask people whether they were using their guard and whether they were using a push stick. About 70% of the reported cases of a blade contact accident, the guard (18%) or riving knife was reportedly being used. Even more strikingly, in almost 30% of the cases, a push stick was being used. The reason this latter statistic is interesting is that I suspect that push sticks are used in a smaller portion of table saw operations than they are of accidents. The implication is that push sticks may well statistically increase the chance of contacting the blade. If this is in fact true, I believe it would be due to the reduced control of the work piece when push sticks are used in the typical fashion.

Hopefully that is useful information,

Steve Gass, President
SawStop, LLC"

source: Woodnet here. I'm told this link my become dead....

[sscherin]

What I find interesting is the % of users that bothered to get a Saw Stop saw and then removed the guard and riving knife.. It's like saying I got airbags in my car so I cut off the seat belts..

[pacwind3]

As far as the pushstick comments: I'd like to know what kind of push sticks were used. Personally I use they type that look somewhat like a shoe, where my hand is positioned over the part that contacts the wood.
I really don't like the kind that push from the rear of the wood, they look awkward to me. In my time woodworking, I have seen people use a stick, literally. Like a little piece of cutoff as a pushstick. In other words: all pushsticks are not created equal.

[Black wallnut]

I've no use for Steve or his product. His motives are purely profit based from what I can see. His "data" regardless of what he may think it means supports no conclusion other than a summation of the events that occured to create the data. To claim any cause and effect relationship exists with such skewed data is foolhardy.

Proper use of guards and other safety devices are nearly 100% of the time safe.

[JimD]

The guy gives lawyers a bad name. The arguments presented in the Ryobi suit almost make you want to gag. No honest person who knows enough to testify as an "expert witness" could pretend a manufacturer is responsible for an injury someone got using an inexpensive saw without all the safety equipment because the manufacturer had not purchased the rights to a device that would cost more than the saw itself. This clearly displays the creep wants nothing but money and will do anything to get it.

Jim

[chopnhack]

Steve may have his own "Ryobi moment" in the future where some court sides with the plaintiff because they were cutting "too fast" and the SawStop should have saved them their finger!

[Richard in Smithville]

I think I will continue to use my guards, feather boards, and push sticks. I must like living dangerously.

[Cochese]

I'm so glad he's come along and invented woodworking for us all.

[jackellis]

I had an unusual accident about two years ago in which I carelessly reached in after the power was turned off and the blade was spinning down. The guard was off because I was making a cut that could not be made with the guard on. Pure stupidity but I was very fortunate to suffer nothing more than a bad scratch - no stitches.

I wonder how the brake on a Sawstop reacts when power to the saw is turned off?

I use a push shoe, along with a guard and splitter.

[gerti]

It really is to bad. I think the product does have merit, and I'd feel better on a saw using that technology. Sadly the marketing (if you can even call it that) is so deplorable that I can't see myself buying one, even if I could afford it.

[leehljp]

I had an unusual accident about two years ago in which I carelessly reached in after the power was turned off and the blade was spinning down. . .

I wonder how the brake on a Sawstop reacts when power to the saw is turned off?

I use a push shoe, along with a guard and splitter.

I had a similar accident when I was about 8 years old - power cut off, reaching over . . . and it happened. Still have the scar and it took several stitches. They didn't have guards back then . . . that I can remember.

That was back in the days when little kids on small farms helped carry their weight - and they knew safety depended upon observation and active prevention. Still if an accident did happen, it was the fault of the user, even if he (or I) was a kid.

[tommyt654]

I had an unusual accident about two years ago in which I carelessly reached in after the power was turned off and the blade was spinning down. The guard was off because I was making a cut that could not be made with the guard on. Pure stupidity but I was very fortunate to suffer nothing more than a bad scratch - no stitches.

I wonder how the brake on a Sawstop reacts when power to the saw is turned off?

I use a push shoe, along with a guard and splitter.

I would suggest everyone here download and read the sawstop manual. Its available online.Theres a lot to digest and their warranty suggest that theres more to owning and operating a sawstop than meets the eye.

[radhak]

source: Woodnet here. I'm told this link my become dead....

Thanks for the link - a very hotly discussed thread there.

But what struck me most was
(a) That is a rough forum. They get pretty nasty in their disagreements there, and disagreements are petty, rife and blatant.
(b) There is a large clique of posters in that thread that are pretty much obsequious to Gass, and pretty much want to shush down anybody with the gall to question him (Gass) or his invention. One even says something like "we like to hear from heads of companies...don't scare them away..."

Bottomline, that was not a discussion; it was a hagiography on the sawstop.

As far as the sawstop itself goes, we have discussed it often here. As yet, there is no change in the positions of anybody in this whole issue - Steve Gass is too greedy, manufacturers are too stingy (or unable to pass the cost to their customers), and the battle is played out in courts of law.

Pity is, it's a great innovation weighed down by human wants and market considerations.

[JimD]

If the sawstop was considered to be like the guard or the splitter - a safety device you should use that will help you avoid injury - then I think it has a lot of merit. The issue I see with it is beyond the cost - which is high obviously intended to make "Steve" rich. (He pretends to want to prevent injuries but his pricing tells us his real motive). If you pay several hundred dollars more for a saw to get this device, you have a reasonable right to expect it to work. So if you still get hurt, regardless of what you are doing, then you would sue the saw manufacturer, possibly also "Steve". But if I remember right the license from Steve absolves him of all liability if his device fails to function correctly. So the manufacturer pays Steve, you pay the manufacturer, but if you get hurt, Steve is fat and happy, you are injured, your supplier is worried about a lawsuit.

I suspect that the insurance companies providing coverage to the table saw manufacturers will decide this. I think they are worried about whether this increases or decreases liability. I believe it could easily increase it.

If the cost were much lower, then you would not need to make big overblown claims about it's worth, and it would be easier to manage the liability issue.

Jim

[pelligrini]

I'm no big fan of Gass, especially after that Ryobi case, but I do like the Sawstop saw. Even without the blade stopping tech, it seems well designed and is well built. I would be interested in seeing someone do a paper on the data in the sawstop reports.

I am having a hard time putting those statistics from Gass' quote into perspective. Was he saying that 18% of 70% of 1000 reported blade contact injuries were using the guard? I still can't put a lot of meaning to his last paragraph either.