A couple of days ago I was cutting a base for a bookcase. I had the blade set up to cut a 45. While I was cutting, I experienced an activation of my saw. At first, I didn’t know what happened. I felt the saw vibrate as it made a pop. I thought “what the hell was that”, then I thought “where did the blade go”, then “oh shXt”. What happened is that while I was cutting the 45 the blade made contact with the aluminum miter gauge and tripped the saw. It was the first time I used the saw on a 45 and I didn’t make a practice run to see if the gauge would contact the blade. The blade barely nicked the gauge. Taking the blade off the saw along with the brake was a PIA. I had to force it off with a piece of wood uisng it as a lever. Fortunately the blade isn’t bent. I’m getting it sharpened and four teeth put back on. I’ll see how it performs when I get it back. I’ve seen demos of a SawStop where they activate the blade but experiencing it real life is actually kind of cool. When you see the demo, you anticipate the trip but when it happens in real life it’s so fast you have no idea of what happened at first.
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Replies
Glad to hear you are OK and your Stopsaw worked as advertised.. Seems to be a very common occurrence for Stopsaw brake to be triggered by miter gauges with extension fences.. Or said another way, it must be very common to mistakenly cut miter gauge extension fences..
Wow, that sure went kerCHUNK, didn't it? Hope your blade comes back from the dentist OK.
How many spare brakes do you keep on hand? Cost?
When I got the saw it came with two spare cartridges and one dado cartridge. It's a long story about how I actually bought the saw but a replacement brake is about $69.00
That's less expensive than I
That's less expensive than I had thought.
"...but experiencing it real life is actually kind of cool."
Cool? Really?
Let's recap: You sawed your miter gauge, ruined a saw blade, have to replace the SawStop cartridge, abruptly ended a shop session during which I assume you expected to get some work done, again, all because you sawed your own miter gauge.
I'm looking for "cool" in that entire scenario and just don't see it. Sorry.
Marsup,
It was cool because the cartridge really didn't cost me anything, it was free when I got the saw. I still have another spare. The blade wasn't totally destroyed. Only needs four teeth need replaced for $12.00. My $200 miter gauge wasn't cut into which would have bummed me out. And I have peace of mind knowing that the saw actually works in case I need it.
It was cool for me.
Great that you weren't hurt.
Great that you weren't hurt. Although I don't own a SS, I am fond of hearing stories of the brake engaging as it one more example of benefit versus catastrophe. By that I mean (with no real stats to back me up) that given the number of accidents occurring on TSs in general, and that to some degree this number would be added to by a SS without a brake, the odds of injury are ever so lightly being dimminished by it's technology since it's introduction. I haven't yet heard of any SS accidents (involving blade contact) where the outcome has been medically negative.
It may have been a touch wiser to test your miter pass before cutting though but hindsight is just that. Doubt you will forget it now and for those who don't have SSs, lessons to learn and practice -every time :)
Boilerbay
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