Comment by humansareok1
8 months ago
Cynical take is that the SawStop feature adds enough cost to budget table saws that they will no longer be economically viable and you can only purchase mid-high end tables saws going forward.
8 months ago
Cynical take is that the SawStop feature adds enough cost to budget table saws that they will no longer be economically viable and you can only purchase mid-high end tables saws going forward.
This is pretty true. Sawstop adds more to the cost of a low end table saw than a low end table saw is worth.
Then I guess the question really is: do we think (probably less experienced) consumers should be able to buy table saws that can easily accidentally cut their fingers off, in a way that is preventable but too costly?
Better take away kitchen knives too.
Also, you can get a push stick for pennies. There's never an actual reason you need to put your fingers anywhere close to a moving blade.
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All table saws including cheap ones come with a stick used to do the termination of the cut and the instruction manual also says to use the stick. SawStop is probably more useful for experienced contractors pushing the limit to do faster cuts
You can hurt yourself with a whole array of tools, especially in construction. A sawzall is a pretty horrifying gadget really, for example, and that's likely more popular among homeowners than a table saw.
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More experienced customers are likely using the saw more often so I wouldn’t presume this only or primarily benefits the inexperienced.
First digit amputation (100% recoverable) I caused myself happened after spending most of my life using a knife because I just got complacent and was cooking when I knew I was extremely fatigued. Wood is also a natural product where natural variance can cause a table saw to operate in unexpected ways that catch people off guard.
The hobbyist table saw owners I know (myself included) tend to be more careful around a saw. We have the luxury of time to setup and think about our cuts (and less complacency) than the folks shoving wood through a saw to meet a deadline or because the boss is telling them they need to make X amount of cabinets per day.
Gotta love false dichotomies. There are anti-kickback and guard solutions on the market today. They suck on the cheaper saws but it would be a hell of a lot less expensive to fix that than add a saw stop.
I would prefer woodworkers pay more for table saws than I have to pay for their reconstructive surgeries via higher health insurance premiums.
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But does it actually cost that much more or does SawStop just price their saws at a premium for having a premium feature?
My understanding is that the excess cost isn't so much the safety device itself but that cheap, flimsy table saws can't handle the extreme torque created by stopping the saw more-or-less instantly, so the device is limited to higher end equipment that's heavier and has better build quality.
If it costs 200$ to add the device and modify the saw to accept it and the original saw cost 300$ you've got a pretty massive increase. Also from some deep dive I saw apparently SawStop has basically cornered the entire premium market and the only market left for other saw makers was the low end range.
Another cynical take would be that SawStop has secretly invested heavily in a saw blade manufacturers to profit from more blades being destroyed when the stop event occurs.
Competitor's versions of this don't destroy the blade. The reason competition no longer exist is because SawStop sued based on the limb detection, not the blade repositioning tech.
Expect better than SawStop to appear when able, and this issue to go away.
I'm actually kind of surprised that any implementation destroyed the blade. Like I don't actually care that the blade is moving, I care where the blade is moving. It seems like a trigger to yank the blade under the table would be the easier and more obvious way to do it.
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I have had two brake activations in as many weeks, one on a dado stack (don’t ask). Neither destroyed the blade. Both blades will be back in service within a week.
Just putting out there: the popular idea that blades are always trash after an activation is not true.
That said, cheap big box store blades without carbide teeth will die a horrible death.
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