We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has extended the comment period for the proposed new rule on table saw safety until February 10, 2012. This action is in response to a request from the Power Tool Institute for more information about the injury data used by the commission in determining the need for such a rule. The full statement from CPSC is available here. An additional 800 pages of data has been released to the PTI under the Freedom of Information Act, and this data will be available soon on the CPSC website. We’ll be studying this data as soon as possible, and will be reporting on what it contains here.
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
As usual with a committee of any kind but ezpecially a beauacratic committee the problem is NOT addressed. You cannot pass regulations and laws for machines because they don’t care. The people who are left behind to enforce the new laws are the same people who are sticking their hands and fingers in the blades etc. Why don’t you address the real problem and that is individual responsibility of the person running the machine.The machine unfortunately does not know the difference between a finger and a board and will cut whatever is put in front of it,so guess who is responsible for what goes in front of it? If the lawyer who is pushing saw stop down our throats is really and truly interested in safety and not profit, maybe he will agree to pay for all the new blades and replacement parts out of his profits every time saw stop saves someone from their own stupidity. Short of being hit by lightning, every accident is preventable. They are due to neglect, carelessness, indifference, and just plain dumbness. Any person who is not aware of the dangers of spinning blades of any kind should not even be in a shop let alone trying to work in one. Let’s concentrate on educating people on how to use machinery instead of trying to regulate brains into places where they are not currently residing.
There are literally millions of “inherently dangerous” tools and other things that people use everyday. Do we really want to go down this road? Anybody ever read Heinlein’s “I, Robot” or watch the movie? Remember the only logical outcome of the 3 Laws of Robotics?
Having been a woodworker for the last 30 years running a small custom shop this issue is definitely a tricky one. I have taught many people to use the table saw in both my business and classroom settings.
I can not imagine being able to operate my business(costs) especially during the start-up years when I might have needed 3 SawStop type machines. In these 30 plus years in and around shops I have seen or heard about only 2 bad accidents. One was my husband who did not like me to teach him about saw safety or the use of push sticks, too bad because it was too simple. The other was a young man in a warehouse with no guidance and an old saw.
I myself have logged many many hours using tools, practicing safe tool use, and have been blessed never to have been injured. I respect the tools and use safety devices as much as possible.
Will the government make these requirements to all tools/machines? Can we make these requirements for schools and larger business?
Just my thoughts,
Lois Snyder
http://www.mywoodworkingtutor.com
all the laws and regulations that the gov. can put on to the table saw will not cure the problem because there is no cure for STUPIDITY.
When you have persons that don’t use the grey matter that is between thier ears for anything other then to hold thier ears apart they get injured and then its always someone elses fault that it happened not thiers. So get a lawyer that wants to make abig name for himself to file a lawsuit and you will win big for being stupid.
I have a better idea let pass a law that makes it the responsibilaty of each indvidual to take responsibilaty for thier own actions instead of blaming someone else.
After about forty years having woodworking as a hobby, which is now turning into a “part-time” endeavor (gallery quality jewelry boxes, I hope), I’ve never had a table saw accident. That is, until this year. Within the past six months, and a recent as mid -September, I’ve managed to (in order) cut into the tip of my left index finger (no doctor required), sustained a rather deep gouge to my left thumb (needed doctor’s help to stem the bleeding), via kick-back even as the blade was winding down. And lastly, and most serious, the removal of the upper portion of my right pinkie through sheer dumbness, while cutting miter joints via a sacrificial fence. My saw (Ryobi BT3100) has an aftermarket riving knife and excellent blade guard (The Shark, made and sold by the Leeway Workshop. Unfortunately, the guard was sitting on a shelf, not where it was suppose to be.
I attribute these accidents to my familiarity with the table saw and the lack of attention that comes with the complacency one adopts after many years of accident free working. I believe that this is the reason I never injured myself in my early years.
To cut (no pun intended) a long story shorter, safety measures are needed, but when they become clumsy or inhibit the flow of what you’re doing, they’re going to sit unused on a shelf.
I’m not sure that SawStop is the way to go, but right now, it appears to be the best way to save all the body parts you were born with.
The only “road block” to buying a SawStop is price. Yes I know hospital costs far greater than the cost of the saw make the SawStop a lot more financially sane, but with this miserable economy and the “it’s never going to happen to me” mind-set a strong reason not to purchase one.
Government standards will definitely increase the price of table saws, and leave us without any choice, other then spending the extra money and then finding a way NOT to use this “expensive” new safeguard.
Having lost the tips of three fingers on my left hand about 10 years ago to a table saw and now owning a SawStop cabinet saw I cannot imagine a woodworker not wanting the technology that can keep a person safe when using a table saw. When the SawStop table saw became available my wife did not ask “if” I were going to get one, but “when.” Whether it is SawStop or some other technology that can be adapted to any table saw, band saw, chop saw or router … I will always have it in my shop. Preventing life changing injuries is the way to go. Even the City of Seattle has bought the SawStop for their public works shops because their liabilit insurance costs went down.