You are misremembering the news article (or possibly it was just terrible reporting). As a general rule, employers are immune from suit by employees. That’s what workers’ compensation is for. The only exceptions are where the employer has no WC coverage, denies that the injury is work-related, or deliberately injures the employee.
And Texas.
The actions were against the manufacturers, not employers.
From what I’ve read, there was only one successful action. I haven’t been able to find any support for anything you say about the history of such actions and in particular your suggestion that the actions originally succeeded (or usually succeeded) and only began to fail after it became exposed that Sawstop was paying for “research” (what research?).
From what I’ve read, owner of Sawstop was openly appearing as a witness giving testimony that the other saw manufacturers could have but did not use the Sawstop technology. The only controversy was that he was not charging a fee for his appearances.
From what I’ve read, the cases weren’t about whether Sawstop saws are safer (which is a no brainer) they were about whether a product manufacturer is liable for injuries caused by their product if their product doesn’t include an available but costly safety feature.
Eh. Yeah it’s expensive but how much would you pay for a hand?
I knew a guy who worked with wood pretty much every day. You didn’t talk to him while Bob Vila or whoever was making something on PBS. He was able to quit his job and make a living on the sales of his cabinets, benches, and whatnot. He was working on something during winter and forgot to roll up his long sleeves. The saw caught the edge of the right sleeve. It pulled his hand in from just under the pinky almost back to the thumb. They were able to re-attach the fingers/flap section to his hand but only the index finger and thumb were really functional.
I agree with the comments that safety features are no substitute for good work habits. I learned that the hard way working with other tools. Never use a soldering iron when you’re sleep deprived, by the way. No matter how good your work habits are, accidents can still happen. If you are a human, one day something important will get by you, even if you’re a pro at whatever you’re doing. If I worked with wood on a regular basis I think I would make the investment. Better to have it and not need it than to have a stump because you’re cheap.
Oh, and I don’t think SawStop existed at the time of the accident in the story.
It’s $60 bucks for the cartridge. It also destroys your saw blade. Saw blades have a pretty wide range of costs. Generally it’s about a $100 for a high quality 10" blade but someone could easily spend $200.
I haven’t looked at saw stops saws for a while. I think they only have a 10" Table saw. 12" Blades you can spend $300 bucks no problem.
One of the issues is the technology is not perfect. It does miss-trigger, a high moisture content in what you’re cutting could cause it to fire. You can turn the saw stop feature on and off so if you know you are cutting green wood you can avoid that. But if you grab a random board that’s and it happens to have a wet spot you didn’t foresee it’ll cost you a few hundred bucks.
In the woodworking industry the technology wasn’t received well because Saw-Stop lobbied to make it required in every manufacturers equipment and won’t sell the patent. So they wanted a company like Delta to be legally required buy and include Saw-Stop products in their saws. Because of this no other manufactures were willing to even work with Saw-Stop, so the only saws available with the technology are Saw-Stop Saws. As a basic table saw, Saw-Stops saws are decent and you definitely get what you pay for but they are not the best saws out there. Buyers have to chose between getting that particular safety feature or potentially better quality equipment and brand loyalty. Saw-Stops industrial saw is 4-5K Depending on features. You could spend 10K for a top end saw for a busy woodworking shop.
It’s not even a repair. The brake cartridges are “consumable” items akin to toner cartridges or wood pads on vise jaws. It takes about ten minutes or so to power down the saw, remove the blade and brake cartridge, then put in a new cartridge and blade - just the same as if you were switching from a regular blade to a dado set. From what I’ve heard, you may still have a usable blade once you pull the soft aluminum brake “pad” off the blade’s teeth.
I know a couple of guys with funny looking or short fingers that would have happily paid extra for something that would have made the difference between getting a boo-boo or losing half of their index finger.
From what I’ve read Sawstop wanted to licence their patented technology to manufacturers, but the manufacturers were reluctant and dragged their heels. Eventually Sawstop gave up and started manufacturing for itself. Do you have a cite to the contrary?
The local TechShop has a SawStop. For the uninformed, TechShop is bit like a gym membership for industrial equipment. So there are a lot of barely-trained amateurs using this stuff. I’ve little doubt that they’ve already saved a finger or two–the next time I’m there I’ll ask. I’m sure the savings in insurance more than outweigh the cost of the machine/cartridges/blades.
It was quite a long time ago, so I’m probably misremembering to a horrible degree.
Fair enough. Fuzzy memory corrected.
When was that lobbying attempt? Perhaps that news feature I (vaguely) remember was really about the ethics of trying to sell a product by getting the government to make it a requirement. I’m guessing the lobbying effort wasn’t successful, because…
So it seems like someone invented a safety device and was caught between “Hey, this could prevent zillions of injuries!” and “Wow! It would be really expensive to make my own saws that incorporate this!” and “Hey, this could make me millions if every manufacturer adopted it.” and settled on “Aha! So I’ll just work to get the law to require it!” and failed to do that and fell back on making their own line of saws (which aren’t otherwise phenomenal, see below) with the device included.
I apologize for the anti-capitalist rant, here, but if it’s really such an incredibly important safety device, perhaps the design should just have been released to the public without a patent (or licensing sold extremely cheap) so that every manufacturer could eagerly adopt the safety feature. I mean, which was more important to the inventor, reducing injuries or getting rich off the idea?
That seemed to be the reporting perspective, as well (or at least the counterargument to the Saw-Stop lobby if the reporters were actually being unbiassed). I also tend to think that mantra is true for everything from office ergonomics to extreme sports: Your brain is your first and best defense; keep it in top working condition at all times and learn to do things properly.
–G!
Oh, and Dr. Strangelove, what city are you in?
I’d love to get one of those memberships!
I’m in San Jose, but they have several locations around the country–a few in the CA Bay Area, as well as Detroit, Round Rock, Pittsburgh, Chandler, and Arlington. They have CNC machines, mills, lathes, laser cutters, 3D printers, and all kinds of other stuff (including standard workshop equipment like table saws).
Why don’t you try looking up some sources and posting some facts and cites instead of spouting what it “seems like” off the top of your damn head?
I’ve never seen a finger saved by a sawstop. But, when I worked as an Engineer at Gulfstream Aerospace, we retrofitted all our table saws with the technology. I got to see the hotdog demonstration in person and up close.
It was awesome. The sales guy seem hell bent on destroying the hotdog. First, he took a 1x6 and cut it in half as fast as he could push it through the blade. Then, he put a wiener on another 1x6 and pushed it at the blade just as fast.
BAM! The blade just disappeared. And, while there was a visible mark on the hotdog - I don’t think it would have broke the skin if it were an actual finger. I do gotta wonder how much faith the sales guy has in his product not to risk his own hand, though.
If I were investing, I’d want something guaranteed to work perfectly every time. If the sales guy had his doubts, should I?
So it stops before cutting hot dogs and hands, but not eyes? How unfortunate.
It sounds way too good to be true. I doubt it can be stop in time.
You think it’s all faked?
Firstly, according to wiki and other places, the owner of Sawstop did try it out with his own hand and it nicked his skin and he said it hurt like hell. The salesman can’t be expected to cut his hand every damn time he demos the machine.
Secondly, your whole line of thinking is a furphy: nobody is suggesting that once one has Sawstop one throws one’s fingers at the sawblade for shits and giggles. It’s a “last resort” failsafe, not something you are going to be relying on routinely. It just makes no sense whatsoever to discount such a thing just because there is some small chance it may not work. Let’s say the Sawstop fails to work every thousand times it should operate. That means you’ve made the tool 999 times safer. Why exactly is that not a very satisfactory improvement, just because there is the possibility of a freak incident in which you are both (a) unlucky enough to put your hand in the blade and (b) on one of the 1 in a 1000 times the Sawstop doesn’t work?
It’s nonsense. I don’t aim this comment specifically at you, brewha, but there’s a huge amount of drivel spouted about the Sawstop and other safety breakthroughs that, as far as I can tell, is based mostly on inherent conservatism and on reactionary instinct than on anything that makes any sense.
Why can’t it be both? A guy comes up with a clever idea which makes the world a better place, doesn’t he deserve to get rich from it? It seems to me that that’s what that whole “getting rich” thing is supposed to be for.
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Yeah - good point. The sales guy is almost guaranteed to at least get cut - and cut by a unsanitary saw blade. And, that best case. Worst case is that he loses a finger.
I saw the hotdog demo in person and was very impressed. But, truth be told - even if I did see 100 hotdogs stop that blade with barely a mark on them, I still don’t know that I’d risk my finger to test it! And from a sales perspective - if they demo’d the setup routinely, odds are there would be a failure eventually.
If you check out the sawstop website or the websites of any good woodworking magazine, you find hundreds of testimonials that woodworkers have posted, citing a “finger being saved”. Most of then describe the skin barely being broken, similar to a large splinter wound. The technology works! Just wish I could afford one.
Can you think of any product with one or more moving parts that is “guaranteed to work perfectly every time”? 