dusty wrote:Getting back to the subject of this thread, I found
this and thought it might be of interest......
Pretty impressive! I like it!
But, I’d still prefer the Sawstop version. Here’s my logic:
The Whirlwind maker claims he can stop a spinning blade in 0.117 seconds. That’s impressive. But Sawstop advertises 3-5 milliseconds to stop the blade. That’s over 20 times faster. If you were feeding a board through the saw at 10 feet per minute, your finger would travel 0.23” before the whirlwind stopped the blade. On the Sawstop, your forward travel before the blade stopped and was retracted would be 0.010”. My index finger is about .625” diameter, so cutting into it 0.23” would be pretty catastrophic. 0.010” might be extremely painful, but it may very well be OK after it heals. Bad luck might make it a goner in either case.
The fact that the Sawstop ruins the blade is trivial to me. Even if I had a diamond-toothed, gold-plated titanium blade I’d still consider my hand and any of my fingers to be worth more to me.
I am in no way knocking the competing product. Clearly it is a wonderful invention and probably would work well – at a much lower cost – for many applications. I’d imagine the success of the Sawstop concept spawned this inventor’s research and development. But, I think the Sawstop – despite wrecking a blade – is a superior system. This is merely my opinion of course.
The Whirlwind would shine on a bandsaw. Or as a retrofit to older equipment.
While I love the concept of the Sawstop, I am not at all supportive of the mandate going forward. The Libertarian in me thinks this is just one more piece of regulation that is taking away personal responsibility and risk assessment. Woodworking machinery is dangerous. All of it. No amount of legislation will change that, but it can add significantly to the cost and inconvenience of the craft.
I will hedge my bets however and suggest that what a person does in their home with respect to safety, gaurds, technology, etc is one issue and what an employer does with his employees’ safety is another. I wouldn’t be behind a mandate for industry, but I can see the logic in it since liability and workman’s comp cost all of us money.
Gass is a lawyer, true. Believe it or not, not all lawyers are bad people. He’s also a PhD physicist which is something I can really respect. I don’t know his personal motivation for pushing the mandate. It very well may be greed. But it easily could be that he believes he can prevent some accidents.
I would imagine that if all manufacturers implemented the technology that the cost would drop significantly. But the $100 price point seems like a long ways off. In fairness to Sawstop, their saw is anything but a run-of-the-mill saw with a fancy braking feature. If you have to opportunity to visit a dealer and turn the hand wheels and look at how nicely it is built you’ll appreciate it is on par with a Powermatic or Unisaw. They are really, really nice machines.
The cost of the Sawstop seems excessive when compared to budget machines, but I look at its pricing the same way I look at some other pieces of equipment from yesteryear. Shopsmiths, Unisaws, Powermatics, John Deeres….they are all expensive. But you do get something for your money that you don’t from a $99 benchtop from harbor freight.
Sorry for the longwindedness…
Steve
PS – PowerPro demo in St. Louis next week!
Too far from San Diego.