Wednesday, September 25, 2013

SawStop

I saw this in the recent remake of Arthur (which isn't as bad as I feared, pretty good actually).
3,000 people US people per year loose fingers to saws! Ten per day (not ten fingers, ten people. Probably more fingers).
The machine feels the electric change if a body touches the blade and stops. The reaction time is amazing.
I know I wouldn't let my kids play with a table saw which didn't have this feature.     :-)



7 comments:

Ken said...

Each year after Fathers Day the ambulances get a lot of callouts from guys who have been gifted various power tools and used them improperly. The craze for doing your own home renovations has also increased the number of injuries. A lot of people just don't have any concept of how dangerous these tools can be.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I guess not. Me, they terrify. Stand next to one, swing your arm carelessly, lose a finger or two.

I worked with industrial sandblasting for several years. That won't easily take a finger off, but in several seconds it'll clear one to the bone. I have scars on the same place on both my knees because it's hard to find a neutral place to point the durn thing (most you can't turn off from the handle) when crawling around under a truck or such.

TC [Girl] said...

:-( Yes...I have seen this, before and wished my dad had had it, when he was a Carpenter, as he lost fingers do a tricky angle cut... Whether he was rushing or there just wasn't any easy way ("back then") to hold it, I have no idea; just remember the trauma of a severed finger!! Fortunately, if the amputated "digit(s)" are able to be recovered (and they usually can be), it is best to just wrap them in a wet paper towel; throw them in a bag of ice; and run like hell to the nearest hospital!! Most times, they can be re-attached!! :-D

TC [Girl] said...

...the recent remake of Arthur (which isn't as bad as I feared, pretty good actually).

I only thought - although Mirren did a fine job - that it would have been nicest if they had found a man to "fill the shoes" of "dearly departed" Hobson...although, perhaps that is why they didn't try to... I, still, think it would have been funnier w/another tart/smug Butler, like him... Nobody could hold a candle to that original, though; both Dudley and John Gielgud were perfectly cast; what a pair!! My favorite line, in the entire movie (I was quite impressionable, in that decade! lol! ;-) Hobson: "Perhaps you would like me to come in there and wash your dick for you, you little shit!"

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

... haven't come across that yet. Wasn't htat in the first one?

TC [Girl] said...

Yup; I was referencing same, just before that quote, too. :-)

Anonymous said...

I would hope that neither you nor anyone else would be letting your kids "play" with a table saw with or without a sawstop. Anyway, this device has been the cause of some disdain here in the USA. Shortly after it appeared (it is patented BTW) there was a lawsuit by a man who cut his finger off against a table saw manufacturer, on the grounds that they were negligent by NOT putting sawstop on their products and therefore liable for his act of cutting his own finger off.