msandman

I keep thinking about what could go wrong -- taking too big a bite or pushing the wood too fast could cause the wood to twist out of control. What happens if the tenon splits from the sideways pressure? Would your hands end up hitting the side of a spinning blade?

This is best left to pros and/or people with a SawStop. It's not a great idea for weekend woodworkers (like me)

And I think there's a lot of truth in an earlier post suggesting that most of the time, one has a lot of tenons to cu for a project, and that this technique only saves time when you have just a few tenons to cut.

I owned a 1964 Chevy Corvair, the car Ralph Nader said was unsafe at any speed. And I'm here to tell you that Nader was right about the Corvair, which was tail-heavy and likely to do a 180 if the front wheels lost traction. (I did a couple of 180's on slick roads before I figured out that you had to grab the handbrake for a second if the tail started to wag.)

Nader's data was one of the major factors in the creation of federal safety standards for cars. Whatever you may say about Nader or the feds, those standards have saved alot of us from injury or death. The CPSC is after a smaller problem, but it's a problem nonetheless. Requiring a performance standard -- that the saw prevent serious injuries in a defineed situation -- is the least invasive way for a regulator to act. I have a riving knife on my cabinet saw and I use the guard on my worksite saw, but an improvement that added $100 to the cost woudl be OK with me.

You're certainly right that many of us use unguarded saws. I used my a contractor saw that way for maybe 20 years, but when I upgraded to a cabinet saw with a riving knife and an easy to change blade guard I started using the guard.

If the Whirlwind is easy to attach and remove, it may gain some adherents, but like the Shark Guard or any aftermarket device, it will have to be available with different mounts the many different models for saws.

As noted in other comments, 1/8th of a second is a long enough encounter with a spinning blade to do some damage, although the blade would presumably be slowing to zero during that time.

So... sounds interesting but let's see the details -- cost, practical extent of the protection i offers; ease of attachment & removal.

There's a lot of government bashing in this string. But really, we conform now to large numbers of regulations that are intended to protect us and they don't bother us at all. Example: Building codes. Without building codes, builders would cut corners with wiring, plumbing, insulation...

Does anyone think buiders (including some of us) would regulate themselves? How about credit card companies, or meat packers? Do you think they'd be honest with you in the absence of regulations? Unless you do think that, you have to believe in the logic of regulation.

The rational question is whether this particular change in regulations is justified. The inventors of the saw stop technology have chosen to offer high end products at high prices, which is the way most new technologies come to market. If their technology could be added to the average new contractor's saw for a couple of hundred dollars, I'd be happy to pay the extra cost as long as the overall cost did reduce the number of injuries, and as ong as there is good documentation regarding the extent of amputations.

Other comments compain about the fact that the saw stop technology ruins a $100 saw blade. Due to my inattention, a router bit tool ripped out one of my fingernails and a chunck of flesh last year. My finger is 98% back to normal function and 90% back to looking normal. But I sure would have preferred to have replaced the router rather than wait for my body to regrow the fingernail. You have to be nuts to think that saving you fingers or parts of them isn't wirth the cost of replacing a $100 blade and a $60 replacement cartridge.

I set up my shop in 1983 and the first major tool I bought was a 10" Delta radial arm saw. It was versatile but it was hard to keep it perfectly aligned. Today, sliding compound miter saws provide far better control and accuracy for cosscuts and miters, and a good table saw does the rest. Last year I finally took the radial saw down, replacing it with a 12" Bosch SCMS that sits on a cart and rolls out of the way, or to the work site. I think the radiam arm saw has outlived its usefulness.

I have the Porter Cable tabletop saw. I've used it mostly to cut laminated flooring (Pergo etc.) and occassiobally for heavier duty tasks.

If you're going to test these, some of the things to look for are rippping power, ripping width, table size, the ease of adjusting the fence accurately, ease of removing and replacing te guard and on-board storage so you don't lose parts when you move the saw. A reasonably priced portable stand with wheel is a nice accessory.

The PC saw is fine for thin laminates and maybe up to 3/4" plywood, but ripping 1-1/2" oak made it bog down dangerously. The fence is so-so but the table extends so you can cut 24" from a sheet, and it has very good storage for the fence, miter guage and a blade or two. It's about 6 years old so it doesn't have a riving knife; that would be a nice feature, although it has an easily mountable splitter and guard.

There are cheap ($100 - $150) tabletop saws made by Black & Decker and Sears, but they seem to be little more than a circular saw mounted upside down on a light duty table. I think those are dangerous tools particularly if you need to cut at a bevel. I inherited one left by a neighbor and it's worse than worthless, IMHO.