Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Are Benchtop Saws Gone?
Popular Woodworking: "The Carlos Osorio vs. One World Technologies Inc. et. al. lawsuit centers on whether the table saw being used when Osorio's accident occurred was defective. Osorio’s team claims the Ryobi BTS 15 was defective because there was no independent riving knife, no “user-friendly” guarding system and the saw did not incorporate SawStop technology or a similar technology that detects contact between a person and the spinning blade of a table saw, according to court records. The latter was the focus of the proceedings."
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3 comments:
Like we talked about in class today, having SawStop Technology should not be an excuse to be an idiot on the job. Its a power tool -- with a spinning blade, with lots of teeth -- IT WILL MAME YOU. We don't need me make smarter, more expensive saws, we need to train smarter, less dangerous carpenters. Boevers made a good point that if you train people to not respect the saw, and be cavalier about its use, then you set them up for a lifetime of bad habits and a rude awakening when it comes to the real world.
I completely agree with Jeremy. Developing tools for the purpose of letting us be stupid about safety is kind of foolish. This kind of saw, while useful, follows the same logic as coffee cups saying "Warning! Hot!" There are occasional shop accidents that do happen to experienced, careful carpenters, and this saw would be good for that kind of situation. (Especially considering that if the mechanism that stops you from getting cut is engaged, it completely ruins the VERY expensive saw blade.) But the fact that Orosio actually got a judge to listen to this is absurd. He was being careless on the job. Just because the industry does not make saws that make carelessness okay, that's not the saw company's fault!
So I've confirmed on the sawstop website that there is a bypass option on the new line for cutting conductive materials. I'm left to wonder, if they don't force you to engage the sawstop, why should others have to force you to buy it. This logic just doesn't hold up to me. If they want to work on making saws more safe, I think investing in anti-kickback attachments that are easily removable for non-through-cuts would make at least as much difference in safety for orders of magnitude less cost.
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