Comment by coderjames
3 days ago
> the price seems way high.
How much is your child's finger worth?
I'm looking at getting a SawStop table saw so I can teach my child woodworking with slightly more peace-of-mind that if something goes wrong, they'll be less likely to lose one or more fingers. Kids get distracted, they forget what rules you've taught them in the past, accidents happen.
This is also a tool I'll consider purchasing to provide my child an introduction to the concepts before graduating to the bigger, louder, stronger wood saws.
Or skip the power tools to begin?
I use a:
https://bridgecitytools.com/products/jmpv2-jointmaker-pro
and have worked with a number of kids to make small projects using it (and hand saws/drills/yankee screwdrivers/braces/planes)
Their Chopstick Master is a great introduction.
There's an interesting planet money podcast[0] about SawStop and why it's not a bigger thing in the world. TLDR: the big power tool companies didn't want to pay to licence the tech, so evidently came to some mutual agreement to ignore it as a feature to save customer fingers.
[0]:https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5135668/planet-money-wh...