Donald Trump’s yes-men at the Consumer Product Safety Commission are withdrawing a series of proposed safety rules, including an appendage-saving safety mandate for table saws. This will mean thousands more fingers lost per year.
I had always been iffy on this, as the tech has been around for 25 years but is patented, so all manufacturers would be forced to pay a single person.
The linked article mentions this, but also said the patent holder has expressly said that if it becomes mandated tech to save people from injuries, the reason he invented the system, he will give up the patent to the public.
This is great to hear. Table saws are irreplaceable in woodworking. Fingers are pretty irreplaceable as well. I don’t know if any other machine comes close to a table saw for demanding my respect and full attention. It is just so fast, powerful, and the random structure of wood adds unpredictability to every cut. Anything else I’ve acclimated to using, but every time on the table saw I treat with the caution as if it were my first time.
Not sure how much saw stop would change that, I don’t want to really even be knicked by one, but that is way better than the current potential outcome.
To add to your comment: SawStop tried to sell their technology to all major saw producers originally. They all refused. That’s when SawStop started making their own saws and did a pretty good job of it. They’re high quality. It was at this point that SawStop had to protect their patent. Bosch tried to make their own and violated it. Ultimately, their goal has always been to save people from table saw accidents. It’s pretty generous to give up their patent if implemented industry-wide and speaks to the authenticity of their mission.
The technology is not without faults. Cutting wet wood, like pressure treated, might trip the brake. I believe there’s a way to turn off the mechanism for these instances. In that case, you have to replace the blade and brake. The blade could be recovered, but won’t be ready to continue working right away. You’d need back up blades and brakes on hand. But still, erring on the side of caution is better than not.
It’s a good case to self reflect on one’s feelings on patents. Bosch and others shouldn’t be able to steal his idea if we’re a society that values them. Even those here against patents typically could find his goal noble, and would likely be against a megacorp stealing from a single amateur inventor. At the same time, him giving it away from the start could have saved many people injuries.
I just skimmed the wiki and it’s interesting to read about some of the hang ups of negotiations like his patent license fees and disagreements on share of legal liabilities should a saw stop not function as designed.
I had heard about the blade damage, and it seems more things like the wet wood you’ve mentioned have surfaced since I got out of woodworking. Even so, it’s quicker, easier, and cheaper to patch or replace a saw than one’s hand, at least in America where we get the pleasure of paying directly for our misfortunes.
I absolutely agree that the cost of replacing a blade and brake is worth it. I cut the tips off two fingers over ten years ago. I know many people in the industry that have also lost fingers. The technology is great! I only pointed out the supposed downsides for context. It does seem that this issue is nuanced, but the technology definitely helps.
I lost a fingertip working in a supermarket deli. The part I cut off thankfully grew back, but it’s a reminder to watch my fingers!
I didn’t take your previous comment as being against the system. I’m fairly neutral as now I live in a place I can’t use any tools like this. It’s kind of crazy this hasn’t already become a law or someone to have found another way to do it without violating the patent. It’s not like the issue has gone away.
Altendorf has albeit only in large production shop sized saws last I checked.
That’s a heck of a saw!
The feedback the unit gives is pretty nice. Cameras in a dust prone environment and AI detection makes me a bit nervous, and price aside, I might prefer the less tech version of the saw stop, but very cool demo!
Wow, I spoke too soon! I just saw the demo of the slide unit at the end… Amazing engineering and craftsmanship! Thank you for sharing this!
I don’t know if any other machine comes close to a table saw for demanding my respect and full attention.
While not used nearly as often, a lathe can take a lot more than a finger.
Yeah. Table saws and lathes are typically the two scariest machines in a shop. Table saws tend to get more injuries purely because people tend to use them for mindless tasks. With a lathe, you’re hands-on and focused the entire time. So accidents tend to be because the piece snapped free and went flying across the shop at Mach Jesus. But table saws are just the right blend of powerful and utilitarian, to be really dangerous.
Oh. I need to cut 50 identical pieces. Set up a jig on your table saw, and have at it. You get into a pattern. Set material in jig, grab sled, push sled to cut, retract sled, move cut piece, repeat… But by piece 20 or 30, you’ve started to think about what you’re going to have for dinner tonight. Maybe there’s still some leftover soup in the fridge? But the wife won’t want that, because we had it yesterday. Maybe we could get a rotisserie chicken from the grocery sto- Aaaaaaand your thumb is gone, because you pushed the piece directly instead of pushing the sled.
good for me i just stay away from the danger tools :)
Very true. That’s something that will keep pulling you in.
Most of my lathe time was threading and knurling on a metal lathe, so more hands off than a wood lathe.
Yep. I’ve definitely seen what a large industrial lathe will do to a person. It very rapidly makes them into what I refer to as “human paste”
While I agree, surely the mandate can make this contingent, or override the patent in the best interests, or even establish the fee as small and fixed so that the owning companies gets some profit while not being able to block other manufacturers.
This can’t be a new situation. I’m sure there’s been government mandates where a single owner has a blocking patent. There’s probably a pattern of how to handle it
Seems like there is an override for federal/military use, not private industry, and the PTI (power tool industry lobby) seems very against being made to use the tech by fiat.
Of course the industry logic are against it. They were against airbags in cars for similar reasons. Sometimes that’s just too bad.
Anyhow, I was thinking more like
Interesting article! There are so many parties and motivating factors involved in all these things. No wonder patent law is its own field of practice!
Reminds me of all the format wars like Beta/VHS, DVD/DivX, and Blue Ray/HD-DVD. It’s not necessarily the best idea the wins, but the one the industry and/or consumers finds the most accessible or valuable.
In highschool woodshop (back when that still existed) many kids had fingers saved by the saw stop. One of my friends would have lost a finger if it weren’t for it
Sawstops make the difference between a couple stitches versus a life long adjustment
I thankfully never heard of any injuries at our high school. We did have the anti kickback wheels and the lifting blade guard and were taught to use push sticks and not standing directly behind the work, etc.
The table saw looks so simple, but there is no room for any margin of error and there is no opportunity for warning, and I think most people that don’t use power tools can’t quite appreciate that.
My woodshop class was before the sawstop came out. We had fairly open access to everything, but we just weren’t allowed to use the table saw. All cuts were done by the teacher.
Why don’t they just release it now, like when Volvo invented the three-point seatbelt? If it’s free and really that useful, everyone is likely to implement it regardless of mandate.
I think it’s to prevent brands that would just continue selling cheaper saws without it, as it increases the price of each unit (25% production cost plus 8% license are the numbers in the wiki). Having it mandated levels the playing field.
I’m not going to argue for or against that, and that may not be the exact reason. After 25 years, search results are full of such biased posts on both sides that I can’t find anything from the inventor.
Profit first, anything else a far second.
Except when it comes to tariffs.
Tariffs are easy profit for the regime. That’s their cut in exchange for all the favors to megacorps.
Murica first.
Bribes cost less than safety
I’m not saying active injury mitigation isn’t a wonderful thing that should be available to all. Just wanted to point out that one argument against this regulation is that the increased cost of table saw manufacture with it may lead to a resurgence in DIY table saws made from circular saws flipped upside down from those who can not afford the safer products. These DIY things were once much more common before prices fell and are even more dramatically less safe. Unintended consequences etc. May never come to be but felt it should be mentioned.
when I read the title I assumed this would be the start of the christofascist sharia law for small crimes against christianity.
Too early, I’ll come back again.
this will mean thousands more fingers lost per year.
No, this will mean we’ll continue to have thousands of fingers lost per year, not introduce additional incidents.
They are not removing a workplace safety requirement, they are preventing a new one from being implemented.
Gotta make sure real estate stays expensive by making sure construction is as unsafe as possible and minimizing long term prospects for construction workers.
That’s the same thing.
Thousands more fingers lost than there would be if this safety requirement were not implemented.
If a thing is not stopped then it continues to happen. Those future incidents are all in addition to the ones that happened in the past.
No it isn’t. Adding
… than there would be if this safety requirement were not implemented.
Makes it correct. This didn’t exist in the original article.
It doesn’t need to be said. Things that happen in the future are in addition to the things that happened in the past. “I ate scores of breakfasts this year. I will eat dozens more each month.” is not false. No need to add “… than I would if I stopped eating entirely.”
Lol. I can also say…
I will die today
And
I will die today if I drink this poison.
Pretty different meaning.
I think there’s a bit more nuance with this one. I’m all for safety and all that, but the fact that one company, SawStop, owns the patent for the blade stop system that they’re trying to mandate is a pretty big issue. Sure they’ve pledged to not enforce the patent if the mandate goes through, but that’s entirely on their word, nothing in writing. The cost of a saw would go up if they don’t waive the patent enforcement and manufacturers have to pay to license the technology (or some other related patent that the system can’t function without). Also, if the saw manufacturers are also making saw blades, they’d probably end up selling more blades as a result of the blade stop, since iirc, the system shunts a hardened steel block into the path of the blade as soon as it detects an electrical current from your finger (or a hot dog in all the demos lol), which stops and breaks the blade in the process. Dunno if that would make up for lost sales due to higher prices, tho.
None of this would effect table saws that already exist, and higher prices may drive people to buy more used stuff, rather than new stuff.
On top of dealing with the SawStop patent issues, there’s other things that could also help with table saw safety, like designing blade guards that people don’t want to remove cuz they get in the way, that aren’t addressed by this mandate. This NPR article from 2024 kinda talks a bit more about the whole issue around the blade stop mandate.
Not to say that this mandate shouldn’t happen, I’m more concerned about it being implemented in a way that won’t drive people away from buying saws with a blade stop system due to price
While I completely agree with your reasoning as far as it goes, I find it hard to believe this is the first incident of a proposed mandate where one company owns a blocking patent. There are reasonable ways to handle this, and most likely a pattern of previous examples. Why can’t the mandate take this into account.
Maybe the mandate could be contingent on them not enforcing their patent, maybe an independent testing entity, maybe everyone could compromise on smaller fees and objective qualifications so no one can be blocked. Heck, maybe it’s time to seize the patent by eminent domain, or to use that threat if needed for a fair negotiation
Make the technology free, as in speech and costs, otherwise it is a legislated monopoly and guaranteed corporate profits.
From the article: “SawStop pledged to Congress that it would waive patent protections in the event of an industry-wide finger-safety mandate.”
So what us stopping them from doing that without the mandate? There are two ways to interpret SawStop: SawStop are responsible for saving X number of fingers every year, and SawStop are solely responsible for ensuring that Y number of fingers are lost every year. Both are equally true and unless you are a SawStop board member or stock holder, you should admonish them more for the latter than you praise them for the former.
I don’t think it’s as simple as that. They offered to sell the technology to all major saw makers when they invented it. They were turned down. SawStop isn’t responsible for saws that don’t use their technology nor do they have to let major tool manufacturers steal their IP. They have offered to give it away if it’s mandated.
Ya but what about their fingers?
“What do you need them for anyway? You only need one to communicate with the libs in the only way you know how.”
But how will they make a profit without fingers?
That’s just a lazy excuse for not picking yourself up by your bootstraps
/s
