There’s a lot of fiddling and testing on scrap, but when that first joint slides home, when it gives you the resistance of tight surfaces that squeak together and that shoulder line closes up….well, damn. Maybe you cut your first tenons and, with the help of a router, you plunge some mortises. You’re knocking together bookshelves and cupboards. Suddenly, you’re plowing cabinet joints into poplar boards and sheets of plywood. You can’t afford a powered jointer yet, but there’s a jig for that too. You build a cross-cut sled and ditch that flimsy miter gauge. The more you read and watch videos about your saw, the more you realize how much it can do, how much potential it has. As you use the machine, you become more skillful and more confident. Some of those rip-cuts put your fingers awfully close to the spinning blade. That blade guard seems safe, but it’s a clumsy design and it gets in the way. Right away, some things make you a little nervous. You buy the best you can afford.Īt home, you set the tool up and make your first hesitant cuts. It’s the basis for a whole shop that will turn out crisp, strong furniture. No, you’ve watched the videos and you’ve seen the effortless, clean cuts that a table saw delivers. Maybe you stop for a moment and look at the hand saws, but these cheap tools with their neon-yellow handles don’t look capable of good work. You want to become a woodworker, so you go down to the home improvement store and buy a table saw. I have no desire to hear the same histrionics that pollute the message boards.For many of us the story is the same. I have disabled the comments on this post. Until then, I’m going to keep my SawStop, keep my fingers and keep my head buried in the sand when it comes to the politics of table saws. If you don’t think I’m right, dig deeply into the history of automobile safety technology and decide for yourself. All saws will have flesh-detecting technology. I think that in 50 years or so, this discussion will be moot. Once I realized how easy it would be for my left hand to slip forward on the cast-iron table of my Unisaw, I unplugged the machine and turned my back on it forever. In fact, I have an aftermarket splitter installed on it now.īut that is not enough once you have crossed over. I have kept the guard on it whenever I could. The Unisaw has served me unerringly for more than 12 years. The new saw arrived Wednesday, and it is sitting next to my soon-to-be-obsolete Unisaw. If you think that the SawStop company would ever cut me a deal (or that I would even ask for a discount), then you haven’t been reading my stuff long enough. I paid full retail, plus tax and shipping. I answered those above questions by purchasing a SawStop. ![]() Aren’t sawblades really disposable items when compared to fingers? ![]() Is a finger worth $3,000 (the price of a SawStop 3hp cabinet saw)?ģ. Is a finger worth $67 (the price of a misfired cartridge)?Ģ. And when it goes off, you are out of the cost of a cartridge and perhaps a sawblade. It might misfire if the cartridge is set too close to the blade for some strange reason. It can go off when you have pockets of wet glue in a lamination. But then what? Do I want to live with an amputation I could have easily avoided?ĭon’t be misled, the SawStop technology isn’t perfect. I can afford to pay for my own amputation and rehabilitation. I don’t care about the “cost to society” in my own case. So $3,000 is an awfully small one-time price to pay for an incredible added layer of protection. It would feel different to put my hand behind my wife’s head and kiss her. I would have more difficulty handling my hand tools. So here is why I broke down and bought a SawStop cabinet saw last week: It is the safest table saw on the market.Īfter witnessing some close calls during the last decade (I’ve not had one myself, really), I keep thinking what my life would be like without a finger or two. I have always been the kind of person who bristles when someone tries to force-feed me anything, even if it’s good for me. SawStop’s methods and my methods are not the same. There are no good guys or bad guys in this debate.) (And to be fair, many of the other machinery manufacturers have been working just as hard on the other side of the issue in the political and legislative world. So why the heck would someone like me buy a SawStop table saw? After all, the company has been working quite successfully to make its technology de rigueur on all table saws via legal and political channels. ![]() You can argue with me if you like, but I have set my stakes in the ground and am watching the rain outside my tent. If I invented a pill that cured cancer, I can assure you that I wouldn’t try to force it down your throat via legislation, regulation or some other governmental mandate.Īfter my early career as a newspaperman writing about government, politics and the way those intersect the corporate world, I have a distaste for almost all mandates.
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