[jchw]

I would be glad to see better table saw safety mechanisms, though I'm skeptical that 1. This will actually happen 2. That patent is the only one that will wind up mattering.

I can't help but wonder if a big part of the reason the number of incidents is so high is because we're intentionally hyperbolic about risks when it comes to warning labels, for liability reasons. As an example, many appliances will warn that you can never operate them with the covers off and doing so can cause death or serious injury. Okay fine, sure, it's not necessarily safe, and perhaps you could indeed kill yourself by accident doing so. However, in practice it's bullshit. People do this all the time, and you pretty much have to sometimes. How the hell are you even supposed to troubleshoot without being able to see what's wrong? Just guess?

So sometimes when it comes to warnings it's easy to empathize with the person who didn't take them very seriously, as we're pretty much conditioned to take warnings like this with a grain of salt.

Though honestly, when it comes to using a table saw, the thing I'm actually afraid of is kickback. Amputation risk is still very serious of course, but I feel safe enough with the many layers of mitigations I already use. I don't want to fall into complacency, but I also don't think I'm going to lose sleep over not having a SawStop table saw either. (I am not using my table saw often enough for it to be a terrible concern anyways.)

[GuB-42]

My grandfather is 90, he was a woodworker, he lost two fingers to a table saw. Few woodworkers of his age have 10 fingers. Workshops are much safer today and woodworkers can expect to end their career with all their fingers. That SawStop thing is one of the many things that can contribute to it.

The idea that safety features cause complacency has been debunked several times. Statistically, well designed safety features or equipment reduce accidents, even if it may cause some people to get complacent.

And you are right to be afraid of kickback, and one of the risks associated with kickbacks is inadvertently touching the blade, that is the issue SawStop is designed to address. The blade guard helps too, but AFAIK, there are many instances where you can't use it.

[bradly]

> The blade guard helps too, but AFAIK, there are many instances where you can't use it.

Blade guards are rarely used in shops I've worked in. I've even worked in a shop that removed the riving knifes on their saws as they got in the way of certain cuts and they didn't want to spend time taking them on and off.

[ckozlowski]

Stumpy Nubs over on YT gave some testimony where he believes that a well-made blade guard could prevent most injuries. He believes that it's a culture around not using them (or poorly-made ones) that is the source of most injuries.

Timestamped for convenience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxKkuDduYLk

[AlotOfReading]

Every tradesman knows people that actively refuse to use PPE and other safety equipment. There's are huge social stigmas against it in most crews.

[antihero]

Does that mean decorating helmets with union stuff is actually a great marketing win for safety?

[Spooky23]

Totally. It’s also evidence that the control has been accepted and incorporated into the workers identity/image.

You see it in utilities. Gas workers will helmet up swapping out a meter head.

[bluGill]

The blade guards on the cheap tablesaws are awful and everyone removes them. The good table saws come with guards that work much better (but still not perfect sometimes you have to remove them but most of the time they work well). You can buy a new table saw for under $100, a good blade guard can be bought separately for $300 so you see why a lot of saws have cheap guards. (note that the cheap tablesaw too light duty to support the good guard)

[Implicated]

What sort of cuts would cause you to need to remove the riving knife?

[rocqua]

Plunging cuts, and 'cove' cuts. Also smaller blades like dado stacks.

With a cove cut you move the fence to about a 30 degree angle to the blade, to get an elliptical cove along the length of a board. It's a rare thing to need. But if you really need a wide cove, it might be hard to get a router bit to do that.

[mym1990]

Very beginner woodworker here, but dados(or any kind of groove are the ones that immediately come to mind. Essentially anything that has the work piece going over the blade, but not cutting through completely.

[lukaslalinsky]

You can keep the riving knife for those cuts, it causes no issue. just can't use the blade guard. I honestly can't imagine a cut that would require the riving knife off.

[1-more]

Dado stack. It's a smaller diameter than the blade. You'd have to be pretty lazy to not just reinstall the riving knife when you put a normal blade back on, but I could see that happening.

[bradly]

Cove cuts.

[bamboozled]

Because as much as we know saw stop works. No one wants to actually find out if works.

Disclaimer: cabinet builder.

[bradly]

> I can't help but wonder if a big part of the reason the number of incidents is so high is because we're intentionally hyperbolic about risks

I've work in multiple production furniture shops and that has not been my experience. People are just moving fast, trying to get stuff done and things happen. Also, training safety in a non-educational setting is tough.

[jchw]

Yeah, see, I actually just simply don't know what the breakdown of the 30,000 incidents per year is. I would've guessed a large number of those incidents were from hobbyists and not professionals, and I would guess that the mistakes hobbyists make are different in origin from the mistakes professionals make, even if they have common threads. If it so happens that it's actually mostly professionals losing fingers, then I'm barking up the wrong tree with this.

[inferiorhuman]

I'd wager the opposite. A hobbyist will typically have a healthy fear of a table saw because one of the first things someone learns about a table saw is that it will fuck you up without a moment's notice.

A pro in a hurry? Not so much. It's the pro that's gonna remove the safety guard and riving knife, be invested in expensive blades they don't want to replace if the cartridge goes off accidentally, etc., etc.

[bluGill]

The pro knows the safety stuff too, but they get into a groove (we call it the zone in programming) and start to take shortcuts to go faster without noticing their fingers are getting closer and closer to the blade.

The hobbyist doesn't enough to get into a groove and so won't have that happen. However the hobbyist is doing many different cuts and so doesn't always remember how to do each safely.

[harrall]

I’ve also seen many hobbyists do cuts on table saws that seem to encourage danger and then they stand right in the way too. Then they complain that “no one could have predicted this.”

The worst one I’ve seen is someone cutting circles on a table saw (already normally a no) with their hand behind the blade on the side that pulls you in instead of cutting (the kickback side). And it pulls his fingers right into the blade. (Saved by SawStop though.)

Heathy fear does not mean they know how the saw works at all. So I’d say both sides are apt to lose fingers.

[inferiorhuman]

Perhaps it's a bathtub curve, but dollars to donuts you'll have an easier time convincing a newbie to not do dangerous shit than someone more experienced. Beyond just doing stupid shit (plunge cuts, circles, arguably dados, whatever) there's professional pressure. Take a look at the whole stone countertop industry (very) slowly coming to terms with silicosis.

Either way I think Sawstop is great. As a hobbyist I wish it were cheaper. Although to be fair a big part of the cost is that Sawstop doesn't sell low end saws — that's nothing to do with the safety tech.

[Hilift]

> I can't help but wonder if a big part of the reason the number of incidents is so high is because we're intentionally hyperbolic about risks when it comes to warning labels

Chainsaws have about the same number of annual ER visits as table saws. It's common to see someone using a chainsaw without most of the recommended safety gear. In those cases, it's probably money.