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Should we be concerned?

UncleOlaf

Sorry. I do not have links. I was referring to word of mouth from my friends who are not on this forum(?!), but who had watched at least one YouTube video about possible new laws requiring SawStop-like safety measures on new saws. Such a thing, they suggested, would be a death knell for ShopSmith and others of similar size.

JPG

Yes that requirement for NEW production would be a bummer, but selling replacement parts(reasonably priced) could possibly be a way to survive(at a greatly reduced scale). And making new stuff/accessories as well.

BuckeyeDennis

JPG wrote Yes that requirement for NEW production would be a bummer, but selling replacement parts(reasonably priced) could possibly be a way to survive(at a greatly reduced scale). And making new stuff/accessories as well.

Or market the machines with one less function. I doubt that saw blades and arbors are a major profit center for SS. Then, of course, after the sale, customers could still make "unauthorized modifications" to their machines. :D Or use a stand-alone table saw for that function.

JPG

So stand by for the Mark 6.

tucsonguy

The slow decline of the Shopsmith brand is largely the result of these factors:

1) The increase in wealth of the average user. In 1950, many of our grandfathers ran these machines in their basement or garage, because they didn't have the space and could not afford standalone tools. Today, most homeowners have larger houses, big garages, and workshops, and can afford multiple standalone tools. As a result, the market share for Shopsmith has steadily decreased.

2) Chinese (and Japanese and Taiwanese) tools. Shopsmith is still largely made here in America. With inflation over the past 70 years, the Shopsmith is still not much more expensive (with inflation factored in) than it was back in the 1960s. However, the influx of cheap tools made in societies thay pay their workers 25 cents an hour has made the Shopsmith much more expensive relative to the cheap tools on the market. Over the past 70 years the cost of individual tools has dropped significantly; you can now buy standalone tools for a fraction of the price you would have paid for them in 1960. So the competition has gotten much fiercer, and Shopsmith's decision to keep making their machines in the USA has made them much less competitive.

Since the 1980s, Shopsmith has reduced its costs by slowly dropping tools and SPTs that don't sell well enough to justify their cost of production. The first casualties were the over and under table router systems that Shopsmith made, which were fine tools, but couldn't compete against cheap hand held routers and cheap small tabletop router tables. The planers have been dropped for the same reason, they can't make them as cheaply as Bosch or Ryobi can over in China. The scrollsaw has been dropped in favor of a 3rd party scrollsaw because clearly Shopsmith could not afford to upgrade the engineering of its scrollsaw to a modern parallel-arm scroll saw design.

We are going to see more SPTs dropped from the line-up, I'm afraid... I don't know how much longer Shopsmith can afford to produce a heavy cast iron jointer when they compete with cheap tabletop versions using aluminum and plastic.

A huge problem lies in the very near future - if Congress passes a law requiring table saws to all have safety braking systems, I doubt if Shopsmith will be able to afford the engineering to make their own version - or be able to afford the cost of licensing the technology.

Personally, I think Shopsmith needs to take the Harley-Davidson approach. Firstly they should lobby Congress to be exempt from the safety system law, secondly they should market their product as quality, made-in-America goods, and actually spend their engineering dollars on making a better, more accurate, more flexible system than they have now.

But finally, they have to convince the average American toolbuyer to buy Shopsmith even if it costs more. And sadly, the average American tool buyer is far too willing to buy cheap junk from HF or Home Depot even as they claim that they love "made in America".

JPG

The 'average American tool buyer' is identical to the 'average American furniture buyer'.

Current average anything buyer today is clueless regarding quality(or it's value).

All that said, photographically created plastic table tops are quite pretty. I still prefer the real thing although it is far less durable/tolerant of spills and dropped objects.

adrianpglover

I know a few years ago (probably over a decade now, as I'm forgetting how old I am) California was getting petitioned by SawStop to require blade brakes on all new saws, making them the sole provider to the state until other vendors catch up. I just searched online to see what's happening at the national level and it looks like the Consumer Product Safety Commission is proposing a rule to require this. SawStop has a patent on the technology that seems to be rather broad (the view of the article writer, not mine as I haven't read the patent) and has gone after competitors (namely Bosch) who have infringed upon it. They say they'll open up the patent to everyone if this rule gets passed, but that just means that they have a corner on the entire market for around a year before the other vendors can catch up.

I will say one thing about the new site: I haven't checked out the updated pricing, but I am glad to see that they've removed the shipping costs for a lot of the smaller repair parts. It just doesn't fit with today's expectations of buying things online what with Amazon, Walmart, and the like these days.

DLB

It bears mentioning that CPSC has been working on this Table Saw AIM rule for about 20 years off and on. Industry's comments to the latest round seem to suggest that litigation may be likely if CPSC goes forward with what they had at the time. My view is that this could become a rule very soon or never. There are already some very detailed discussions of this proposed rule here on the forum, and I didn't see anything new from CPSC or otherwise in the news when I looked. As far as I know the ball is in CPSC's court to consider the numerous comments they received and determine next steps, if any.

- David

RFGuy

DLB wrote It bears mentioning that CPSC has been working on this Table Saw AIM rule for about 20 years off and on. Industry's comments to the latest round seem to suggest that litigation may be likely if CPSC goes forward with what they had at the time. My view is that this could become a rule very soon or never. There are already some very detailed discussions of this proposed rule here on the forum, and I didn't see anything new from CPSC or otherwise in the news when I looked. As far as I know the ball is in CPSC's court to consider the numerous comments they received and determine next steps, if any.

- David

Yeah, it is interesting that this topic resurfaced again on the forum. IF anyone is feeling particularly masochistic, they can read the previous forum thread relating to this proposed CPSC action, SawStop, Shopsmith, patent law, etc., etc.

https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?p=313561#p313561

HopefulSSer

I can't recall if this was discussed in our last thread but back in April there was a bipartisan bill introduced to Congress to block the CPSC from implementing that rule:

https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/legislators-introduce-bill-postpone-saw-safety-rule

I don't know the status of the bill. I couldn't find anything more recent articles than those announcing its introduction.

adrianpglover

From the article in the link, the name of the bill is "Preserving Woodworking Traditions and Blocking Government-Mandated Monopolies Act". A quick google search comes up with the congress.gov link that gives all useful information on the bill itself and actions taken, such as the bill being recorded as H.R. 8181 of the 118th Congress. So far, there are 3 actions recorded - introduction to the house, referral to a committee, and further referral to subcommittee. Not sure on the status beyond that.

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