Have wrestled with my craftsmen table saw for the past 30 years and have decided to upgrade to a cabinet saw. Am considering the Sawstop. Now being somewhat of the devils advocate, I thinking, what if the company goes belly-up in two or three years, will I still be able to use the saw with the safety feature disabled ? Will the cartridges no longer be available ? Hate to be pessimistic, but that’s a pretty large purchase. And by the way, my wife is urging me to get the Sawstop, the cost is not a factor to her, what a wife ! What are others thoughts on this company, will they be around in ten years ? Those that have purchased, are you happy with this saw ? Thanks.
Rob
Replies
rob, I saw on their site that you could turn the sawstop feature off for cutting metal, etc... so worst case, I guess you'd just flip that switch and run it as a traditional table saw without their main safety feature.
There is a thread in the archives on this company and its owner.
In an interview, the owner says it was never his intention to go into manufacturing - he simply wanted to sell the patent and make his money that way. He admits he reluctantly went into manufacturing because nobody was interested in buying his patent. I believe the owner is an attorney and was in practice when he invented the SawStop mechanism.
The text of the interview, or a link to the interview, is in the archived thread. I'd suggest you read everything in the thread before you decide to buy a SawStop under the assumption the company will have longevity and a parts inventory for years to come.
Edited 8/8/2006 3:04 pm ET by BossCrunk
As another poster has pointed out, you can turn off the main safety feature if you can't buy brakes any more. You'll still have a true riving knife.
I sort of considered the SawStop last year when buying a cabinet saw. I decided against it for three reasons: First, I was concerned (like BossCrunk) about the company's dedication and likely longevity. Second, the price is substantially higher than that of what I bought (Unisaw). Third, I didn't really need the safety feature; with care, I could be plenty safe with a Unisaw.
Well, a year, a table saw accident (totally my fault, stupid operation, but the SawStop would still have saved me) and six months of rehab later, I wish I'd plumped for the SawStop.
If you're good and smart, you'll probably never trip that brake, and maybe you'll feel like you blew the extra $$ for nothing. In fact, I wish that on you if you buy the SawStop... but should a moment of bad judgement or inattention cause you to do something potentially damaging and the SawStop's technology prevents serious injury, you're gonna be very glad you bought it.
Obviously I don't own one, but if I had it to do over, I would. I may still buy one some day. I hope you can talk with someone who actually has used one for some time, to get an idea of what the machine is like to work with.
John D,
So what your saying is....if you had bought the Sawstop, and even if the cartridges were no longer available today...you probably would have gotten a ten-twenty fold payback on your initial investment?
What I'm saying is, in my own PARTICULAR set of circumstances, with my bad decision and all, if I'd bought the SawStop I'd have saved myself an injury. I'm no longer in a financial position to alter the decision, so I'm just working carefully with the Unisaw. Heck, you still have to work carefully with a SawStop too.
I'm not rolling in tears here, just saying that the SawStop was looking pretty good to me from the rehab clinic. :)My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
JohnD,
I'm sorry about your injury.
I was trying to use your story, from a slightly different angle, to make a point to rpholland. That is, if the Sawstop prevents one injury...isn't that worth it? Sure it'd be nice if they survive for a long time and the cartridges available, but if they don't they don't ...he'd still be ahead with Sawstop.
Dear R,
I own a PM 66 and love it, but would trade it in a heartbeat for the Sawstop. My theory is that I would buy the saw with, perhaps a half a dozen or so extra cartridges, so even if they went under, I would still have the safety feature. So, unless I got incredibly unlucky or careless over the next ten or twenty years, it would seem unlikely that I would go through all of the cartridges. If I did, that might indicate that I need a new hobby!
Best,
John
john...maybe you should by 10 or 20 of the cartridges....just in case...
10 for real emergencies, and 10 for just funnin' around with hot dogs? ;o)Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. Frank Lloyd Wright
Rob,
The Saw Stop has a conventional magnetic switch for the motor that is tied into the safety circuitry. It would be fairly simple to disconnect the safety wiring and rewire the saw with a standard push button start/stop switch.
The rest of the saw is well built and probably would never need anything other than bearings and belts. The bearings are almost certainly standard sized and available anywhere. Belts might be trickier, though they look conventional. If you wanted to play it safe, order a couple of sets of spare belts and you won't have to worry in your lifetime.
Probably a third of the woodworking machines in use are so old that their manufacturers are either no longer in business or don't stock parts, so I wouldn't worry too much about the Saw Stop becoming an orphan, lots of orphaned machines just keep on running, unaware that they became obsolete half a century ago.
It would probably be safe to assume that the developers of the Saw Stop, after devoting years of time, and a lot of money, in bringing the saw to market, aren't going to give up on the machine at this point, and they will be trying very hard to keep the business viable. Probably the biggest single threat to their business is too many people waiting to see if they survive before buying one of their saws.
John White, Shop Manager, Fine Woodworking Magazine
Read the old threads as suggested. A lot of info there if my memory serves.
The shop I work in has a Sawstop. It is a very nice saw. It compares with or exceeds other saws in its class. Time will tell about the company's longevity. I have to believe that if they did go away some other group would pick-up where they left off. It seems to me that parts for most contemporary tools are available whether the tool is still made or not. Of course there are exceptions but I'm not sure it is something that would prevent me from buying. I also wonder how far behind major manufacturers are to adopting such technology.
Knowing what I do about cabinet saws and how unforgiving they are when in contact with flesh, I like knowing that I may have an advantage if something goes wrong. I was under the assumption that knowing about the safety feature may prompt me to take chances I normally wouldn't take. This isn't the case. I don't care how many bells and whistles a saw has. When that blade is humming a built in apprehension is present despite my years of experience.
Good luck with whatever you choose,
-Paul
Part of the reason old Delta and Powermatic machines are still sought after is the availability of parts. This is especially true of Delta, I understand. Apparently, even though the company has been sold and merged many times, the inventory of old parts remained part of each deal and is largely intact.
Whether or not you will 'wear out' a SawStop brand tablesaw in your lifetime only you can decide.
Rob, you may not be aware, so I'll bring up this point: There is a contingent of folk around here who are vehemently against the Saw Stop for the sole reason that the owner, at one time, tried to get the featured required by regulation to be installed on saws in the U.S. Most of these folks will tell you up front that's why they wouldn't buy one, but some will discourage you using other justifications.
There are 2 sides to the historical story, and I'm certainly not saying I agree with what the owner did. Just shedding some light on the politics of some recommendations you might receive.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Thanks for the reminder,,, you're right,,, being a lawyer I think he either sued or was going to sue major players in the industry to MAKE them have to use the SawStop on their machines. Or he instituted some sort of OSHA action, some legal bull$hit I recall now.
When this fell through, he reluctantly (his word) went into the manufacture of actual saws.
Yep, a lovely bloke. He invented an interesting and apparently effective device and then started filing lawsuits.
Edited 8/9/2006 10:13 am ET by BossCrunk
No law suits to my knowledge. Completely unfair to start that rumor. Yes, he did try to get them mandated. Bad idea, considering the backlash. But the industry Big Boys didn't exactly play fair with him either. I've tried and tried to find the article that described their dumbhead dealings, but have never relocated it.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4182602
Look down the left hand side of the page to see Gass's petition to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Edited 8/9/2006 11:56 am ET by BossCrunk
I don't get your point. Are you maintaining that the petition constitutes a law suit?forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Yes, since a determination by the CPSC has the effect of law his petition could be generically termed a 'lawsuit' by reasonable people.
The CPSC had/has the power to make this man an instant millionaire just like the court does in a personal injury lawsuit.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.... you get the picture I assume.
For the matter at hand, it made no difference that he was pleading his case before the CPSC or a federal district court. The CPSC has jurisdiction over the matter. That was his venue. If a federal district court had jurisdiction or routinely made the determination he was requesting, in my opinion, that wouldn't have deterred the man one second.
As a patent and trademark attorney (again, correct me if I'm wrong) he is no stranger to the federal court system.
Edited 8/9/2006 7:55 pm ET by BossCrunk
Edited 8/9/2006 7:56 pm ET by BossCrunk
Sorry, but I respectfully disagree that most reasonable people would say that a lawsuit and a petition for enacting new legislation are the same as they are not remotely related processes of law.
Greg, I'm sure you're right. I'd also say that legislation, in this case, would have been much more effective for Mr. Gass than suing some named party, for instance WMH, or a group of tablesaw manufacturers.
Legislation would have covered everybody currently selling tools in the U.S. and anybody contemplating selling tools in the U.S. instead of just parties to a suit.
What do you think?
Edited 8/10/2006 10:54 am ET by BossCrunk
I have mixed feelings about the situation. On one hand, I am generally very much against legislation designed to protect me from myself. On the other hand, I am disappointed that the safest saws available in the U.S. are priced out of the reach of many hobby woodworkers such as myself. There is just no good excuse for the fact that most saws manufactured for the U.S. market have not seen significant advances in safety technology for the past 50+ years. Contrast this with the advanced European saws that do have government-mandated safety features, which I assume are still affordable for European consumers. I personally wish the SawStop folks much success as it really is a nice saw, even without the blade brake technology. I hope they have enough of an impact on the market that they ultimately drive a shift to safer tools for all of us.
The tablesaw is basically a ripping machine. You might consider adding a set of stock feeders to your set up. Yes, you'll have to spend more money - about the cost differential between a SawStop saw and another maker's comparable tablesaw for a good set of feeders.
The idea of having a machine feed the material to the machine makes intuitive sense to me. It's indisputably safer than hand feeding stock.
A sliding table with stock clamps takes care of crosscutting operations - your hands are miles from the blade, usually positioned on the back fence of the table well to the left of the blade.
I would rather rely on these devices than an electronic brake whose effectiveness might degrade over time in a shop environment. Mr. Gass's invention has made it 'safe' to get one's hands close to the spinning blade of a tablesaw, which doesn't seem particularly logical to me. But I don't take anything away from the device itself. Assuming it never fails, I'd say it is quite an accomplishment. I still have an aversion to getting my hands close to a tablesaw blade.
Edited 8/10/2006 1:15 pm ET by BossCrunk
My first WWing tool was a table saw, but it was NOT basically a ripping machine. It did much more duty than that. Your further text supports the idea that a table saw has many other uses. Though my tool arsenal has grown, the saw still does multiple duty. Interestingly, most of its other jobs require removing the blade guard.I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of keeping hands & fingers away from the spinning blade as the basis of saw (make that "power tool") safety. That is my current mindset & it seems to be working well. Would owning a Sawstop cause us to devalue this idea? Do airbags cause us to drive more carelessly & faster? I refuse to express my opinion on this subject, but I encourage all to think about it & TO OBSERVE OTHERS BEHAVIOR.I recently cut a finger slightly on my bandsaw. I discovered the hard way that its moving blade is exposed much more than I had realized. Why don't we rail about bandsaw safety? As an inexperienced youth, I got a cut (minor) from a tablesaw & another from a jointer. Someone I knew got his arm sucked into his Powermatic planer. Can't it be argued that ALL such tools should be equipped with an instantaneous stopping device? Or maybe ownership & operation should be licensed as are driving privileges? On the other hand, given human nature, will either measure have much effect?Questioningly, Cadiddlehopper
Just out of morbid curiosity how was the arm? Did a sleeve get caught or did he just get his fingers in the rollers? Could'nt have been good.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
He lost the workable part of it & was hospitalized. He was quite mature at the time & is now deceased. A sad aspect of the story is that he bought it from a company I worked for at the time. The company, a government contractor, closed its foundry & WW shop associated therewith. As good will (or influence) measures, the company sold the WW machinery to government employees. This man bought the planer.Cadiddlehopper
Would owning a Sawstop cause us to devalue this idea?
Probably. Hand feeding stock on the tablesaw is the problem. If you don't use your hands to feed the stock then how can they be injured?
The SawStop does nothing to discourage this inherently dangerous practice. Let a machine run the wood past the blade and it becomes basically impossible to get hurt.
You can remove the stock feeders and still use your tenoning jig -they're safe - hands very far away from the blade if used correctly. Crosscuts and joinery crosscuts work fine off a sled so there shouldn't be a problem there. Again, very safe, plenty of places to put your hands well away from the blade.
Edited 8/12/2006 5:29 pm ET by BossCrunk
Two var. spd feeders can be had for about the premium on the saw stop. Some advantages in addition to the safety you mentioned are smoother cuts and the ability to get an extra base and use the feeder on the shaper or router table gaining the same benefits. Parts are readily available and not single sourced.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Boss I've decide I like you style. But I wonder how you go unchallenged on these posts sometimes.
Question: Do you own a power feeder for your table saw?
I agree it is much safer to use a power feeder to feed stock. However for better or worse hand feeding stock into a table saw is an accepted practice.
You seem to assert that having safety devices makes people careless, and actually increases the danger. I admit I find this just plane silly. Name one instance when a properly functioning and properly used safety device actually decreased the safety of an item. This is like saying I drive faster in my new car because it has a better frontal crash test rating. Silly.
The SawStop does nothing to discourage this inherently dangerous practice. (Hand Feeding)
Safety devices like riving knives, SawStop, and even blade guards are about making hand feeding safer. By your logic we should ban all these, so that we are discouraged to hand feed?
This is like saying I drive faster in my new car because it has a better frontal crash test rating. Silly.Don't be certain that this is silly. Maybe in your case it is. There is no proof that others aren't different from yourself.Cadiddlehopper
Don't be certain that this is silly. Maybe in your case it is. There is no proof that others aren't different from yourself.
Most bad drivers I know are bad drivers regardless of the vehicle. Living dangerously seems to be a lifestyle for them.
Do you change they agressivness of your driving because you have safety features to fall back on? The distinction here is the active thought that 'the safety device will save me'. I should note as well that most people that have started these threads are looking for imporoved safety, not to 'expand' their working style.
In terms of SawStop I'm certain there will be a few yahoo's that will perposly touch the blade to see what happens. I belive in the vast majority of cases people will still have a healthy fear of the spinning blade.
In the businesses I owned and ran, all machines that were susceptible to the use of power feeders either had the ones offered by the manufacturer or retro-fits.
I work by hand in my home shop.
While the things you mentioned make hand feeding SAFER that does not mean that hand feeding is not the problem. In fact, those very devices illuminate the issue of hand feeding and its inherent danger.
The logic is simple - if your hands don't get close to the blade/cutters then the machine can't cut them off.
Until people start driving their Saab's across my shop floor I won't worry about whether airbags make people more careless drivers. The road and the shop are two different places.
Edited 8/14/2006 9:40 am ET by BossCrunk
The logic is simple - if your hands don't get close to the blade/cutters then the machine can't cut them off.
I'm not disputing this. Logically it makes sense, but it is not the common practice. In my travels (limited as they are) I have never seen a power feeder on a table saw.
Hand feeding is not as safe as power feeding, but getting people to change the way they work is near impossible. I guess my view is that we should make the accepted practice safe, while educating people to better/safer alternatives.
The road and the shop are two different places.
Safety is universal. Safety on the road is a well establish analogy.
I'm not disputing this. Logically it makes sense, but it is not the common practice.
There is a saying in commercial woodworking that it's the small machines that cause the big accidents. The bigger and better machines almost always come with power feed integral in the design. The small shapers, moulders, tablesaws, router tables, etc. set up to run small jobs or cuts for larger jobs are where almost all the accidents occur.
Power feeders for the machinery you are likely running are sold by Delta and Grizzly.
When stock is not fed by hand then fingers and hands are not amputated by machinery.
Why are you worried about doing things the way everybody else does? I understand that you've never seen one in use, but power feeders exist. People buy them. Macro trends in woodshop safety practices will mean little to you if you lop off the thumb and index finger of your hand in a tablesaw accident.
My recommendation, again, is to keep your hands away from the blade instead of looking for devices that purport to make it safe (er) to get your hands close to a sawblade, shaper cutter, et al. Quit hand-feeding stock to a machine. Let a machine feed the machine.
The skill in the craft is the design and layout of a project not standing in front of a machine delivering wood. Point being is that you can use power feeders and not be 'cheating.'
Arguing analogies takes the spotlight off the issue at hand (woodshop safety).
Edited 8/14/2006 4:31 pm ET by BossCrunk
Boss I don't know where you are going with this. I've agreed with you that power feeding is a safer practice than hand feeding. I think we all understand that if your hands are not near the blade and the wood is properly held down and supported you are much safer.
I also know power feeders exist. I never doubted that. People do buy them. I never doubted that. What I am saying is that of my local woodworking peers not one has a power feeder on the table saw. It is not a common practice, and I do not see it becoming common for years to come. It's unfortunate and I urge you to bring this up more often when people discuss table saw safety.
Why are you worried about doing things the way everybody else does?
Because everybody else also includes my friends, my family and my neighbours. I can not stop them from having accidents or doing stupid things. But I can advocate a worthwhile safety devices that could prevent a serious injury.
" I guess my view is that we should make the accepted practice safe, while educating people to better/safer alternatives.The road and the shop are two different places.Safety is universal. Safety on the road is a well establish analogy."Actually, no. As BossCrunk said, the road and the shop are two totally different environments. You talk about educating people: you can educate the people in your shop to make them safer workers. But you can't educate people on the road to make them better drivers; it's not allowed. As it stands, any non-English-speaking illegal immigrant can go in the DMV office and get a driver's license and drive a car, legally, even though they can't understand anyone at the DMV or any of the road signs. And there's uncounted others who don't have licenses or insurance, and of course there's absolutely no enforcement to stop this. Don't forget all the other people doing illegal and/or dangerous things on the road, like drunk driving, excessive speeding (more than the typical 10 over), reckless driving, etc. Intentionally reckless acts are preventable in the shop, but they're not preventable on the road. So just like it makes sense for a soldier to wear as much body armor as he can carry, it also makes sense to have as much safety equipment in your car as possible; after all, our roadways in this country are pretty much a war zone, with many, many times more people killed on the roads every year than have died (on our side) in the Iraq war.
As used, the analogy holds. A car with increased safety devices does not cause people to drive more dangerously. I think if I come up with any analogy you will knock it down claiming extreme differences.
How about these:
- A Table saw splitter does not make people try to cause kickback.
- A V-chip in your TV does not cause you to watch more R rated TV.
- A railing on a deck does not cause more people to fall over the edge.
- A guard on a mitre saw does not make me take off my safety glasses.
As I said, safety is universal. It starts with yourself. Proper awareness, proper technique.
I got a big kick out of the mental picture of the first example :)
With regard to the railing I think a case could be made that the railing does encourage dangerous behavior. People will perch their butts on a inch wide railing and sway back and forth keeping their balance, while a high edge with no railing most people will stay back from.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Edited 8/15/2006 2:02 am by dgreen
With regard to the railing I think a case could be made that the railing does encourage dangerous behavior.
Yeah... I suppose. I knew it was the best example. I built a deck a few years back, it was only a foot off the ground. No railing. I had a few close friends over for beverages. Would you believe that evening almost every single one of us went over the edge! The best was a friend who came running out of the house and right off the edge at full speed, didn't spill a drop and by the time he hit the ground was trying to get another sip. I have since put up a rail. Nobody has fallen off. However I can see a day when I'm having beverages with friends and somebody goes over the top of the railing (now 5+ feet high rather than 1 foot).
It's a clear misuse of the railing when someone sits on it. Maybe to discourage it we should but a few sharp points on it like they do for birds... :)
We've come way off topic again. In the end regarding the SawStop if we really wanted to understand it's value we would only have to poll people who have had serious table saw accidents and see what they thought of it.
"With regard to the railing I think a case could be made that the railing does encourage dangerous behavior. People will perch their butts on a inch wide railing and sway back and forth keeping their balance, while a high edge with no railing most people will stay back from."According to the park rangers at the Grand Canyon, this is actually the case there. If you've been there before, you'll know the Rim Trail has several lookout points with railings to prevent you falling to your death, but along the trail there's countless places where there's no railing at all with a deadly drop. Apparently, nearly all the deaths (and there are many) occur at the railings, because some idiot climbs over the railing to get a photo or whatever. At the sheer drops with no railings, people are paranoid and stay away from the edge, so there's been very few deaths there.This probably isn't a very good comparison to a deck a few feet off the ground, however, but it's an interesting story.
I have to agree, I don't know that the road is a good analogy. Besides I've seen people in their 4 wheel drive SUVs drive very fast on snowy roads, assuming I guess that if they have the traction to go they will also have the traction to stop. The same on wet roads and ABS brakes, people know that the brakes work better and therefore wait longer to apply them. I think people do tend to take more risks when they feel there is a level of safety built in. I't kind of like technical climbing with or without a rope, which one encourages more risk taking?
I'm not saying a Saw Stop couldn't save fingers, I am saying that I believe people would have a greater tendency to take a risk thinking that they won't get cut. My concern is that the same "risky" behavior would carry over to other equipment that doesn't have that same safety level. Safety is a habit, it's a way of working, it's a mind set that you will evaluate situations and only do what is safe. Anything that detracts from that thought process is negative feedback.
With all that said, if I had a commercial shop with employees, I would have any and every device possible to prevent injury, be it power feeders or a Saw Stop or what ever other technology is developed to prevent personal injury.
"...his petition could be generically termed a 'lawsuit' by reasonable people...." ROFL!!! That's hysterically funny.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Thank you very much for providing the reference to the petition.
However, I drew a conclusion completely different from yours. The petition is clear in calling for product specifications that are met by the SawStop system, but it would be met by any other system that achieved the same results. The petition does not call for the SawStop system to be mandated. Such regulations take a long time to be imposed, and other companies would have ample time to deploy their own engineers and consultants to devise a competing solution (I would be amazed if they didn't start after the first time they saw Gass's invention demonstrated). Patents do not protect basic scientific principles, no matter how novel their discovery. Only implementations can be patented.
I personally would not have joined the petition, in line with my libertarian inclinations, but I would never claim that someone who did is "evil". I noticed at least seven medical doctors signed the petition out of over 300 other people. Are they all, every one, also evil? Are you sure that all of them would become rich as a result of a successful petition? In any case, I believe it is utter nonsense to think that many people equate such a petition with litigation.
JD
Mr. Gass thought he had hay to make with the CPSC. Call it whatever you like. Semantics aside, he made no hay with them, at least, and I'm quite comfortable letting the marketplace sort this out.
I'm sure he'd appreciate sales of the SawStop more than moral support.
Mixed feelings about this.There are those who will be outraged that the SS developer tried to mandate the technology- and I can understand their feelings... up to a point. On the other hand, there has been essentially no improvement in TS safety that I can see for the past 30+ years, at least in the US/Canada. Riving knives are uncommon on TS in North America... the guards included as standard equipment by manufacturers are, as far as I can tell, pieces of crap that do little to reduce injury, impair visisibility, often cause the stock to bind and are designed mainly as a liability defense. They are so pitiful that there is an active third party market in better guards with dust collection capabilities.It would be asier to accept the arguments of the free market exponents, if the market worked in the area of safety. Unfortunately, manufacturers have been far more interested in marketing baubles and paint colors than in improving safety. This has been a problem with many products. American car makers fought seat belts, lap belts, padded dashboards, shielded gas tanks, air bags, passenger air bags... the list is endless. What led to the adoption of these safety measures was federally mandated safety regs. There are some areas where the market does not lead to the best result, safety is one of them.As for SS, I remain skeptical. The best result is that SS starts making a dent in the market, and causes other manufacturers to upgrade their designs (as Powermatic has). Whether or not the brake is licensed by say General or Delta- why not a good riving knife and a well designed guard with dc capability- both, IMHO, would go a long way towards reducing injuries.Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
I'm all for federal mandation of safety standards if 1) the benefit is clear and obvious, and 2) the technology is not patented.The problem with SawStop and Gass's attempt to mandate it through the CPSC is that his technology is patented, and because of that he stood to make a lot of money by having it mandated. If he were to allow manufacturers to use the technology royalty-free, then I'd be all for making it a required standand.Pushing stuff on people by legislative mandate in order to personally enrich yourself is evil, plain and simple.If he wants to make money on his invention, then he can put his product out in the free market, and let the market decide if his technology is worth the money. But if he really wants to make saws safer for everyone, then he needs to make it royalty-free so there's no economic disincentive for manufacturers to implement it. There is no in-between here.I do agree that American manufacturers (through their Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturing partners) are notoriously slow to adopt new safety technologies such as the riving knife (which certainly isn't "new"; it's been around for decades). But saws with riving knives certainly are available, though most of them are made in Europe and are expensive and one is only available from Home Depot and is much smaller and lighter-duty than a traditional cabinet saw, so if people really want them, they're out there.
The problem with SawStop and Gass's attempt to mandate it through the CPSC is that his technology is patented, and because of that he stood to make a lot of money by having it mandated. If he were to allow manufacturers to use the technology royalty-free, then I'd be all for making it a required standand.
Pushing stuff on people by legislative mandate in order to personally enrich yourself is evil, plain and simple.
Amen and several of the public comments on Gass's petition said the same thing.
I disagree with you about patented technology. If someone develops a new technology, and it is a clear advance over existing methods, they deserve to be compensated for their intellectual property. If someone develops a superior safety technology, and can make a compelling case to regulators that it will improve safety substantially, then the regulatory case should be decided on its merits, not on whether the inventor will gain from it. Companies may license the technology- but they are not obliged to. They can develop a different approach to a brake, or enhance other safety features (such as guards), or mitigate risk in other ways. What the North American manufacturers did is... next to nothing.By your argument, anyone who developed technology that improved safety and wanted to patent it would be SOL- and the public would be the loser. The pressure of outside development is an incentive to companies to improve their own safety programs. Right now, the marketing suits at B&D, Jet, etc are telling their senior management that "safety doesn't sell", that the money should be put into other things, and that is exactly what the companies are doing. In this particular area, the market does not work. If the companies had to compete on safety, the public would be the winner. Reasonable regulation has worked in many other areas, and is badly needed in power tools. Would you buy a car that was $300 cheaper beacuse it doesn't have an air bag? If it was $75 cheaper and it didn't have safety belts? What about an infant car seat that was half price- but hadn't passed FTC inspection? Or a prescription medicine that was generic, and cheaper, but whose manufacturing plant wasn't FDA approved... a house whose wiring was never checked by a building inspector? We accept regulation because there are somethings that the market does not do well.Whether SS and its inventor makes money or not is of less interest to me than whether we address the absolute indifference that TS manufacturers have shown towards safety for the past two generations.Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Glaucon
I agree with much of what you say, but the analogy to autos has me thinking. If these are analogous, then we can look forward to safety "selling" power tools in a few years much like safety is very hotly advertised for automobiles today. Unfortunately, we might have to go through a period of ugly bumpers, ill fitting seat belts, and total lack of style along the way.
So, is SS to TS as Volvo is to autos?
Rennie
Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. Frank Lloyd Wright
Edited 8/9/2006 5:48 pm by Rennie
Here we go again with all the lawyer bashing mythology. The simple reason lawsuits happen here is that we've chosen this system to effect change. In Europe all those saftey devices are mandated by regulation. I have to say I'm amazed at all these criticisms of the SS guy. How nice, well meaning, generous do you believe the manuf. to be?
Safety doesn't sell. If it did, people would be buying up European cabinet saws left and right, and ignoring the Deltas and Grizzlys.Regulation has worked in other areas, with caveats. No one's getting rich off overpriced airbag or seatbelt patent licenses. No one's getting rich off mandated child seat technology. Building inspection does not involve IP (intellectual property) in any way; the national building code is publicly available and doesn't require you to implement any expensive patented technologies.Sawstop is different; this is a case of an attempt to mandate royalties for a private individual. I'm not personally aware of any time in history when this has been the case, though I may be wrong. In my field (computers), we deal with a lot of standards. Though they aren't government-mandated, they're industry standards which can be just as important and binding because if you want your laptop computer to work with your wireless (WiFi) router, they both have to implement the standards properly. In this field, the idea of standardizing patented technology is highly shunned. RAMBUS tried to push through something like this several years ago by proposing patented memory technology to JEDEC, the applicable standards committee, without telling them they had several patents on it. A big legal fight ensued after the cat got out of the bag because RAMBUS tried to force manufacturers to pay royalties. After that incident, standardization of patented technologies will probably not ever happen again.Of course, I can see your argument here: no one will be able to make new technologies because the standards committees won't accept patented technologies! Oh no! No, that's not true. Companies in the industry always want to advance the state of the art, and they make money not on patents (not most of them anyway, only the patent trolls), but on sales of product. So to advance the state of the art, they develop new technologies and push to get them standardized (which helps push their vision of the the future instead of someone else's; USB vs. Firewire is a good example of this). Point is, we're not likely to ever see a situation where all new computers suddenly cost $500 more because they use a patented hard drive interface or whatever, and there's simply no choice because all the manufacturers have standardized on this new interface which one little company has a patent on. The industry will either ignore the patented technology, or develop something similar which isn't covered by the patent claims.I'm sorry, but the idea of the government forcing anyone to use patented technology is simply repugnant and disgusting. When the government required automakers to install airbags, they worded the requirement in such a way that only "passive safety devices" were required, not airbags. There was no specific implementation required; many car companies actually installed "automatic seat belts" (those horrible mouse-belts) until they moved on to airbags, in order to comply with the regulation. Why did they move to airbags instead of using the probably cheaper motorized belts? Because customers hated the motorized belts, and liked airbags. Maybe you don't remember, but I do: airbags were a feature demanded by customers at the time. People wanted safer cars, and also got insurance discounts for them. Voila: the market worked after all, in a way. But suppose the government did as you suggest, and required a very specific implementation of airbags, that just happen to be covered by someone's patent. (Let's just ignore that the politician heading the committee that mandated this patent received a generous "campaign contribution" from the company that owns the patent.) Suddenly, all new cars cost $5000 more than the cars from last year, because of the hefty license fees. After all, with automakers required to license their patent, or be forced out of business, why should the patent holder offer low license fees?Yes, it sucks that we're missing out on new technologies because of patents, but that's a problem with the patent system in general. At least we can use them 20 years later after the patent expires, until we figure out how to fix the broken mess that is the USPTO. Forcing people to pay patent fees in order to buy specific products which are necessary for their livelihood is just wrong.
Are you saying that someone who spends a lot of time and money to invent something new should have to watch as people reverse engineer it, manufacturer a knock-off and sell it cheaper because they don't have the up front costs of developing the product in the first place???Patents are designed to provide incentive for R&D that consists of something more than you can be first to market until the knock-offs show up. You can certainly debate how much protection/incentive is needed but I'm not sure you make a terribly strong case for leaving technological advancement to the purely altruistic among us who live for the simple joy of building a better mousetrap (and don't mind starving for the effort).Mat
"Are you saying that someone who spends a lot of time and money to invent something new should have to watch as people reverse engineer it, manufacturer a knock-off and sell it cheaper because they don't have the up front costs of developing the product in the first place???"No, that's not what I'm saying at all.You seem to not understand the patent system very well. Let me attempt to educate you: if an item is patented, there is no need to reverse-engineer it. In order to obtain a patent, you have to disclose how the item is designed in your disclosure, and this becomes part of the patent. The system is designed that way, as the intention is to grant an inventor limited protection for his invention, in return for disclosing all the details about how to implement the invention. This way, you can't keep it a secret, and after that limited term expires, everyone else can do the same thing and we all ("society") can benefit. That's the bargain. If you want to keep your invention a secret, then you can't get a patent. You can make it a "trade secret", however, but there's not nearly as much legal protection given to trade secrets. If someone reverse-engineers the formula for Coca-Cola (the most famous trade secret), there's nothing Coke can do about it.So your fears about knock-offs are obviously quite ridiculous. Competitors can make knock-offs all they want, but they can't sell them legally unless they pay an agreed-upon royalty. Why else would someone get a patent?However, if your invention isn't good enough that people want to voluntarily spend their hard-earned money on it, then what makes you think you "deserve" to profit from it? This seems to be the core of the argument here. Some people, like you apparently, seem to think that any time someone invents something, the government should not only give them a patent and the monopoly that entails, but the government should also pass a law requiring people to use this patented technology, whether they like it or not, no matter what the cost of this patent is. I'm sorry, but in my view, that's wrong. I don't care if someone invents a device that prevents all injury from auto accidents; the government has no business mandating that everyone use that specific technology, at least until the patent term has expired, or the inventor has given up the patent in the interests of public safety. By your logic, I could invent this wonderful device, get the government to mandate it, and then charge $100k per car for manufacturers to implement it. Of course, no one could afford a new car any more, and all the automakers except Ferrari would be forced out of business, but if that's the law, what are you going to do about it? Of course, we'd have all these people defending me, saying "how much is your life worth? $100k is cheap compared to losing your life! dwolsten deserves to profit from his life-saving invention!"BTW, do you drive a Volvo, or similarly safe car? Why not? If you don't drive a car that costs over $60k, with all the latest safety features (like 10+ airbags), then it seems to me that you're a hypocrite. Sorry, but not being able to afford a $60k car isn't an excuse; how much is your life worth, or your family's lives?
dwolsten, I understand the patent system just fine. I understood your prior arguments to be critical of the patent system and was wondering what your alternative was.
Maybe your being critical not of the patent system but rather the idea the the government would mandate either a safety device at all or at least a safety device which is patented. I'm not sure whether your critical of government safety standards period? (let the free market decide) or whether its the idea that a patent holder might get the benefit of a mandated device? You tell me.
I'm guessing that the government won't mandate any 100k safety devices on cars any time soon. But what if somebody patented a safety device that cost 100 bucks and made cars much safer? Would it be o.k. then for the government to insist on their use?
I'm not confident that 'market forces' will necessarily result in safe products. If you don't think that the government should mandate seatbelts, do you think the government (and our tax dollars) should be used to pay someone who chooses not to buy a car with seatbelts medical bills, DSS benefits? SSI benefits?
I'm tired of the kind of person who argues I shouldn't have to wear my seatbelt if I don't want to but then, when they have an accident and medical bills and can't go back to work that same person all the sudden firmly believes in the role of government in their lives (they want 100% of the safety net and no regulation of their behavior).
One basic flaw in the free market idea, is that it assumes people have 'perfect information' and that the risks/rewards of a particular product are completely known, leaving the consumer to vote with their dollars. Do you think product manufacturers provide this information? and to the extent they do provide some, is this voluntary or compelled by the government?
I'm not sure your experience in the computer industry translates very well to tool or car safety. Obviously, there is a balance to be struck in safety regulation. When is the last time you evaluated the safety of plane design or manufacture before you took a flight? or conducting any experimentation to evaluate the safety of a drug prescribed to you? MattP.S.- I'm not saying the government should mandate SawStop. On a percentage basis, it would probably be a substantial percentage of the cost of low end saws in particular (by the way, the government didn't mandate SawStop) but if a SawStop type device cost $10 to implement, I would want the government to mandate it not only so that I didn't unknowingly buy a saw without it but also so I wouldn't have to pay for the consequences of some yahoos who decided that they'd rather have a pack of smokes and a six-pack.
Who pays when an illegal immigrant has an accident?
We do. Interestingly (sort of), in New York at least, an illegal immigrant can sue under the New York State Labor law for construction site accidents and claim lost wages based on his inability to continue to work illegally within the country. Go figure.Although, it's been so long since I posted in this thread, I'm not sure what your point is. Is it that we should a)have SawStop to stop illegal immigrants from cutting off their fingers and having to pay them; or b) we shouldn't have SawStop because, even if we have to pay, it's much better to have more illegal immigrants without fingers to preserve jobs for U.S. citizens????I'm not sure I get the point or maybe it was just a question.Matt
This way, you can't keep it a secret, and after that limited term expires, everyone else can do the same thing and we all ("society") can benefit.
Your correct about patents, but I take exception to this comment. By getting a patent it is made public and it immediately begins to benefit the public. You do not have to wait for it to expire before reaping the benefits. I could easily license the SawStop technology and begin producing my own line of saws now. Yes I would have to pay, but that's the incentive to develop new inventions. Further I could take his patent and improve on it, and get my own patent. To produce the item I would still owe licensing fees to Goss for the original patent.
So your fears about knock-offs are obviously quite ridiculous. Competitors can make knock-offs all they want, but they can't sell them legally unless they pay an agreed-upon royalty. Why else would someone get a patent?
I'm confused Mat was arguing the importance of having a patent. By your own admission it would be legal for someone to create a kick off if there were no patent. This statement seems to support getting patents and protecting intellectual property.
However, if your invention isn't good enough that people want to voluntarily spend their hard-earned money on it, then what makes you think you "deserve" to profit from it? This seems to be the core of the argument here.
I don't think this is the core of the argument at all. You seem to be ignoring the finer points of the issue. Until Goss began producing his own line of saws people didn't;t have the opportunity to 'spend their hard earned money'. The industry decided what would be appropriate for them. Further the question of if the invention is good or bad hasn't been raised by you. The overall consensus seems to be that it is good, however there are some questions about Goss's business practices. Which ultimately is the real question of SawStop.
Some people, like you apparently, seem to think that any time someone invents something, the government should not only give them a patent and the monopoly that entails, but the government should also pass a law requiring people to use this patented technology, whether they like it or not, no matter what the cost of this patent is.
As I've noted the mandate never asked to require people to use the patented technology. The patent laws provide a monopoly on producing an item to encourage innovation. The monopoly is clearly not infinite and realistically lasts for less than 20 years of the products life span (marketing and development time cut into it). I see nothing wrong with rewarding people for good ideas.
The question of government mandating certain safety features is always a sore spot with people. In my opinion Safety doesn't sell. The government has a responsibility to enact reasonable laws and mandates to protect it's citizens. Further safety devices are like insurance, there is a cost/value question to them. It would be unreasonable cost to implement a 100K device on a car, but would be reasonable to implement a $1000 or a $500.
BTW, do you drive a Volvo, or similarly safe car? Why not? If you don't drive a car that costs over $60k, with all the latest safety features (like 10+ airbags), then it seems to me that you're a hypocrite. Sorry, but not being able to afford a $60k car isn't an excuse; how much is your life worth, or your family's lives?
This is a strawman tactic. I hate these.
First Mat never said anything about safety, he only discussed patents. Secondly you're arguing that because he doesn't own something he can not afford that he is a hypocrite! Sorry that will not cut it here.
I don't believe there is anything in our constitution that can be remotely construed to give the government authority to protect us from ourselves or the free market. You have a responsibility to use tools safely and to be a thinking person. To have the government take money from responsible people to protect idiots is outright theft. When you protect idiots from themselves you diminish the quality of the gene pool and ultimately breed more sheeple/idiots. I'm no fan of Ronald Reagan but he did say something I agree with, the scariest words in the world are " I'm from the government and I'm here to help". Let the free market decide or don't bitch when your government mandated blunt rubber safety ax won't cut anything.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Let the free market reign my buttocks. Why don't we have:1) multiple toll roads going everywhere so that people have choice instead of forcing us to pay the for the roads the government chooses to build?
2) why don't we make a voluntary contribution to the army of our choice so that we're not forced to pay for the government's choice of arms and conflict?
3) Why do we have the FDA (I'm sure people would be able to figure out the safety of their prescription drugs and make good economic choices)?
4) Why do we have pollution regulations (I'm sure when factory owners are deciding how much to pollute, the free market forces somehow force the owners to take into account damage being done downwind)?
5) Why not have competitive fire and police (you decide whether or not to pay into the system depending on how lucky you feel and how comfortable you are with a gun)?
6) why break up monopolies or regulate the prices 'natural monopolies' can charge? (if their lucky enough to get on top and its a product people need, they ought to be able to charge as much as they want and prevent new players from entering the market)? Government has a role in safety for at least two basic reasons: 1) people can't possibly inform themselves about and judge the safety of every product they use every day (and once you know this, you also know that 'free market' forces won't work correctly to drive the marketplace to safer products); and 2) other people bear the cost of individuals bad safety choices even if they hurt themselves, when they can't pay for their medical and go on the dole, don't pay taxes, can't support their dependents, etc.
Also, liability potential has a tendency to encourage manufacturers to stagnate at a equilibrium 'state of the art' product where they can sit comfortably and argue in court they built a car or table saw as safe as all the others and meeting industry standards.
There's a cost to living in society both economic and in personal freedom. You have to pay your taxes (basically because of the free rider problem (people love to use common services and not pay for them)). You also can't drive 100 mph down the freeway, smoke crack, yell fire in a crowded theatre, build a factory in an area zoned residential or god forbid, drive a car without wearing your seatbelt (without risk of a ticket).
You can't have the benefits of society without the costs. If the worst thing the government does is tell me I have to wear a seatbelt, I'm o.k. with that (I suspect they have done and do a lot worse).MattP.S.---If you don't believe people can't accurately apply free market forces to safety, ask yourself, "How much are seatbelts worth in your car?" To answer economically you would need to know: What's the probability of an accident? What's the probability that the accident will be of a type where a seatbelt lessens your injuries? On average, how much will it lessen your injuries? What's the difference in medical costs and economic loss (reduced or eliminated wages) likely to be created by the less severe injuries with a seatbelt versus those injuries you would suffer without? I think once you've calculated those answers you've got a pretty good idea how much seatbelts mean to you from an 'economic' and 'free market' perspective (and this assumes that there is someplace honest for you to get the information necessary to do those calculations---I suspect those selling cars without seatbelts would argue they're overrated while those selling with seatbelts would exaggerate their benefit).
I don't believe there is anything in our constitution that can be remotely construed to give the government authority to protect us from ourselves or the free market. You have a responsibility to use tools safely and to be a thinking person. To have the government take money from responsible people to protect idiots is outright theft. When you protect idiots from themselves you diminish the quality of the gene pool and ultimately breed more sheeple/idiots. I'm no fan of Ronald Reagan but he did say something I agree with, the scariest words in the world are " I'm from the government and I'm here to help". Let the free market decide or don't bitch when your government mandated blunt rubber safety ax won't cut anything.
The government enacts many laws to protect us from ourselves, and to protect others from us! Speed limits, minimum standards for fire alarms, fire rating protection on materials... These are all unconstitutional? Last time I paid a speeding fine, I should have fought it! LOL
Weren't we in a recesion while regan was in power? Probably not the best example to quote for free markets. I think even the free market needs the occasional guiding once in awhile. The general public can be misinformed or uninformed on issues which could lead to poor directions. For instance, some people still believe that you are saer not wearing your seatbelt while driving. Clearly this is wrong, and there is data to prove it. If this were the prevailing view then a car manufacturers would not be required to put them in (as they are not important), a law to mandate that they are put in is the correct thing.
AAh yes comments from the sheeple. Had you been able to read my post you would have comprehended from my clear language that I am not a fan of Reagan. If you are stupid enough to drive at excessive speed you need to die as a result of your stupidity so as not to pollute the gene pool with your progeny. There is no constitutional mandate to relieve me of my hard earned dollars to make sure you are taken care of as a result of you doing something stupid. We are overpopulated with stupid people who think they have a right to other peoples money . You should be free to do whatever you wish, research your drugs or blindly take whatever is sold on the market. You should not be free to take the money of others to pay for the consequences of your choices. If you want to live in such a society fine but as I repeat that is not how this country was founded, this individual power was usurped by politicians and has no basis in our constitution. Follow your reasoning to it's logical conclusion and take your mandated professional course to get your mandated license to operate your mandated safe saw with its mandated safe rubber blade in your mandated safe rubber room. If you still manage to get hurt don't forget to get your mandated dole stolen from the people who actually figured out on their own that it pays to work safely and managed in spite of public schools how to read and think and learn basic electricity. The government has no legitimate role other than to promote commerce and the common defense.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Wow, your world must be really simple. The question is with so many stupid people in the world, how did you figure out that you were smart? Was it just an enlightened day when you said "Wow, I think I'm better than everyone, I must be SMRT. Yes SMRT, that's what I am." I trust that your mother thinks you're smart, and I guess that's enough.
What I find amusing is that you would allow yourself to be subjected to the whims of the 'stupid' with their 'quality' Wal-Mart goods, and their lowest price is best attitude.
I apologize for glossing over your large paragraph, I was in a bit of a rush. The key I was trying to get at is that the public as a whole can be misinformed. Regardless of how smart or informed you are, you will be drown out by the 'stupid' masses.
Finally, I admit that I'm Canadian. So I have never read your constitution before today. However you need to go no further than the preamble...
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
It is a beautiful document.
Hi Buster,
I wish my world was that simple! As to being smart I never really felt I was but I have two certificates that say I'm in the top two percent of intelligence. Those certificates and 5 dollars will get me a cup of coffee. My mother does think I'm smart but she also thinks I'm good looking which puts her judgement into question. I refuse to shop at Wal Mart and do try to put my money where it will do at least some social good. I totally agree with you that I am drowned out by the masses which only serves to make my point that we are artificially skewing mother natures survival of the fittest plan which worked so well for so long. Promote the general welfare was not meant by our founders to mean micro manage our lives, I'm impressed that you cared enough to look up the document and I would refer you to the Federalist papers and the rest of the constitution if such matters are of interest to you. I am ashamed to say I know little of the Canadian government but your response has kindled an interest to read some of your history. I agree our constitution is a beautiful document, I only wish more of our citizens were more familiar with it and more of our politicians took seriously their oath to defend it. I also was in a rush when I responded and apologize if it seemed like a personal slight. I appreciate your thoughtful response and commend you for looking up the document. I hope you will do some more reading on that subject and I hope even more that as your neighbors we do a better job of living up to the principles that were set forth therein. Thanks again for your response.
PS I also have a certificate from the government that says I'm sane and responsible for my actions which I got for saying some very unpopular things. I'm not any more sure they were right about that than they were the IQ tests.
Sorry about the long paragraphs, been so busy it's all I can do to manage spelling and punctuation!
Yours in Liberty
Don
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Edited 8/11/2006 3:18 am by dgreen
Hi Don,Not to argue with your philosophy, but I would like to clarify oneof your statements."Survival of the fittest" is not a plan of mother nature.There's a common impression that evolution (which is what I assume you refer to as Mother Nature's plan) means "survival of the fittest", and in using the term "survival of the fittest", one is quoting Darwin. The thing is, Darwin never used that term.Darwin's theory states that in any population there are variations within individuals. If, due to the interaction between the individuals and the environment, the variations in one subgroup of a population provide an advantage towards reproduction, those traits are more likely to be carried on to the next generation. Through subsequent generations, if those variations continue to be advantageous, those characteristics will become more common in the population as a whole. Keep in mind that those variations may cease to be advantageous if the environment changes. That's ALL he says. Darwin had no concept of genes or genetics at the time that he wrote The Origin of Species in 1863. Gregor Mendel was in the midst of doing his pea plant experiments at the time, but Mendel's work did not really come to light until the beginning of the 20th century, long after The Origin of Species was published. Furthermore, Darwin does not say that this variation confers some sort of "superiority" to any group of individuals to others in the group. This misapplication of Darwin's theories to society has caused a lot of trouble in the past, including the justification of the colonial system, laws that discriminate on the basis of race, and the Holocaust. In fact, the phrase "survival of the fittest" does not come from Darwin, but from one of his contemporaries, Herbert Spencer, one of the first "Social Darwinists", in an attempt to justify the colonial system, and the European domination of much of the rest of the world. Since you advocate reading original documents, you can read Darwin's original work at http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/.
"...he wrote The Origin of Species in 1863."Published in 1859. Stupid spell check.
Promote the general welfare was not meant by our founders to mean micro manage our lives...
I agree, and is not my wish nor was it my intention to imply that the government has any right to micro manage. I believe that they have the responsibility to create reasonable standards. What is reasonable is determined by the people, so long as it does not impinge on the basic human rights of others. I belive that fact that we disagree with each other about what is reasonable is actually a good thing, I would hope on a governmental scale that our varying opinions would balance things out.
Anyway, I think we have hijacked this thread far enough. If you would like to continue this discussion please feel free to use the 'reply via e-mail' at the bottom.
Buster
dgreen, Wow, two smart-guy certificates and I have none. It must be a difficult decision for you whether to hang them over the mantel or to put them in a fire-safe lock box to ensure their safety.
Maybe, just maybe, you find the world so easy to comprehend because you're assuming vastly oversimplified model of it rather than your towering intellect.
Why wait for stupid people to die in car accidents and from doing other stupid things, why not just shoot everyone who doesn't have a smart-guy certificate? What do I have to do to get one? Can you get one on-line?
The world has about 6.5 billion people. Assuming 2 percent are smarter than you, maybe you ought to leave the running of the world to the 160,000,000 people smarter than you are.
It's not my normal practice to get personal but, come on, the argument that you have two certificates that make you right and the rest of us idiots (or least 98 out of 100 of the rest of us) is just nonsense.Matt
It was never my argument that the certificates made me smarter or better than anyone else, if you take the time to read the previous posts you would see that they were an answer to a question put to me. You can have my certificates if you want them, I consider two squares of toilet paper to have more practical value. I don't mind you getting personal but at least read through the posts to see what is being discussed. If you want your own certificate contact Mensa. As far as letting others run the world thats part of the problem, people abdicating their own responsibility. And by the way intelligence does not guarantee common sense or honesty, I would rather have an honest politician with common sense than an intelligent crook in office.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
When anyone pretends to believe in holy quality of the "free market," I always ask them if it would be okay for me to buy the house next to theirs and open up a liquor store or a 7-11. Even businesses don't believe in "free market" principles. Look at all the anti-competitive practices (Microsoft, collusion of vitamin produces, etc.), the lobbying for favorable regulation, the calls for restrictionist tariffs, etc.
The market rarely solves safety issues in a manner that seems just to the general consumer. Why? Because the cost of safety is usually charged to the consumer or society as a whole as an externality. Lawsuits stop the practice that created the harm but rarely do lawsuits recoup the loss born by victims and society as a whole. Regulations that mandate a safety standard without a specific resolution allow the market players to compete for the most efficacious solution. The clean air regulations in California spawned the hybrid cars now offered not the high cost of gas.
For those who hate the idea of the government trying to protect them, FWW has had articles on how to build your own table saw. This is the cheapest and most libertarian solution to your concerns.
Eric
dgreen, I saw the question posed to you, "how did you figure out that you were smart?" I just thought your response that you had two certificates to prove it was more than a little over the top. while you seem to profess that they mean nothing (the toilet paper and cup of coffee comments), the fact that you brought them up (or bothered to obtain them in the first place) would seem to suggest some 'false modesty' on your part.
Your posts just struck me as condescending and patronizing. My reading of the question, "how did you figure out that you were smart?" was that the poster was suggesting that you were coming across as arrogant, not that he was interesting in hearing about your report cards or certificates.
But, we seem to have left behind the topic of 'how far should the government go in regulating safety and other conduct' which wasn't even the subject of the original post in the first place, so maybe its time to let this thread die a graceful death and move on to less controversial topics like abortion, the war in Iraq and Israel.
Sorry to all for being part of the degradation of this thread.Matt
Matt-FWIW- there are, IMHO, two extremes in this argument. On the one side are those who have an ideology that is so entrenched that no amount of evidence or practical findings can sway them from their belief system. On the other extreme are those who have no real guiding principles, but simply do whatever works without attention to a larger organizing principle. An example is found among politicians. Some are so wedded to their position that even manifest terrible results will in no way cause them to reconsider (think Dick Cheney or Josef Stalin). Others are so driven by craven expediency, that they will do whatever is pleasing for the moment without regard to long term or larger consequences (insert name of your congressman here).Most people exist somewhere in between. We have beliefs, opinions and values, but if evidence accumulates that points to negative consequences to our belief system, we tend to consider the evidence. If it is convincing, we modify our beliefs or change our opinions to take into account these new findings. We strike a balance between idealism and empiricism- and Americans are pretty well known for our practical turn of mind. The 1920s was the hey-day of laissez faire capitalism, but the speculative excesses of that era contributed to the development of government regulation in banking and exchanges (FDIC, SEC, etc) that continue to the present. Prior to WWII, the prevailing sentiment in the US was isolationist, the effects of the war led to a sea change in opinion that led to NATO, containment etc.Professor Green (quite green) is of that cast of idealogues who is impervious to clinical results. He has his belief system (and by golly certificates to prove it), and nothing will change it. The government should never regulate- speed limits, air bags, vaccines- they do not fit into his world view. If someone owns a safety patent, then the government should not require any improvement in safety from which the patent holder might benefit finacially. Even if thousands of people might be protected or saved- it is more important that the patent holder not gain from his intellectual property than the general welfare might benefit.Narcissists of this type are always right- they need not listen to others or even look at evidence that contradicts their ideology. Like the Taliban, they have figured it out and the matter (or at least thier mind) is closed.Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Glaucon,
You've stepped over the line equating Cheney and Stalin.
Stalin was personally responsible for the torture and death of millions of his own people. Cheney only shot one lawyer, and almost missed!Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. Frank Lloyd Wright
G,
I like your post as it says meaningful things and contains logic that quotes reasonable premises. I too am disappointed by Don's seeming blind spot on the need for a society and the benefits of civilisation. (Don, how long would you and your boat last in one of the many "countries" that currently exist without the benefits of real and democratic government? I feel you might go down in flames, despite the certificates and cries of, "This is not in accordance with the constitution").
Still, anarchists have a point and there is a lot to be said for eschewing the worst aspects of the nanny state. Myself, I would send all the social security claimants known as "government consultants" off to get a real job (making furniture or bricks perhaps) and save a great deal of tax. Also, there would be no laws protecting big business from those in need of their product but who have been excluded from a position within their enforced monoculture of producer-consumer society, invented only a century or so ago, by greedy and selfish folk.
As to TS safety, I like one that has guards, riving knives and other stuff that takes account of me (and all you lads & lasses too) being merely fallible human beans.
I know my various certificates mean only that I once pleased this or that professor in this or that arcane subject of interest mostly to them and their pals - chaps who live in a pleasant spot called "the groves of academe" and therefore not too able to judge a person's fitness for the world at large; or ability to avoid a TS accident.
It isn't possible to certify fitness to live in the real world, as only nature, nurture, memes and happenstance can do that. You get the certificate of success or failure when you die. Its awarded by family, friends and the other folk that you helped or hindered in your passage through life.
I hope the gremlins haven't heard any of this boasting about an imagined infallability, with tablesaws or life in general. Gremlins just love to hoist one on one's own petard, which may mean just embarrasment before one's peers (if you're lucky); or may mean a lot of pain, suffering and regret concerning one's previous intransigence and idealogical posturing.
Lataxe, staring rather drop-jawed at a microcosm of America.
Sir:
I am surprised that you would equate my desire to have the government follow it's own laws to anarchy. I do see the good in civilisation and society but fail to see the benefit of an income redistributing government . I think it stifles innovation and progress and improperly rewards the non-productive and unthinking. Most of our neccesities are already monopolized. However, my original point was that we should have personal choice and responsibilty rather than government mandated "choice". I do believe laws are neccesary, the speeding laws mentioned earlier are a good example, what I don't think is right is income distribution to promote the health and welfare of the reckless driver. I think you are reading more into the certificate brouhaha than was intended by my post, it was put forth as a repart'e to a sarcastic question. I too believe you can't certify fitness to live in the real world and a reading of my posts should make it clear how little weight I attach to said certificates. Some of the most intelligent people I've met are a danger to themselves and equipment while holding a blunt screwdriver.
If we don't stand up for our constitution here then what is the use of going to another country where as you say they may not even have that set of laws to protect us from government.
Hope this serves to clarify things.
Don
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
dgreen,
This has been an interesting discussion with both sides presenting good arguments. Back in the early/middle 80's I felt overwhelmed by the Gov't intrusions into our lives and wondered what was wrong with me. I went to a conference where theologians presented the two opposing theologies of "Why are we here"...all I can say is it was a real eye-opener. These theologies precede philosophy and, therefore, all other disciplines, however in every discipline you can detect the divergent points of view related to the two theologies.With the Sawstop I think it's a good idea, however Boss makes an excellent point...there are other ways to protect digits.From a business point of view, I don't know of many that don't want some kind of monopoly..it's just easier if you can eliminate the competition. If we just compare healthcare with IT over the past forty years we see the impact on advances and cost. Healthcare is very well protected with all kinds of rules, IT is not....which has delivered greater value?There is a third dimension that has not been discussed. I became very aware of this issue while running an occupational medicine program ...which took care of the injuries on the assembly line at Ford's So. Chicago plant. There were about 1800 employees and, on average, 450 injuries visits per month...mostly repetitive stress. We had the ability to change those jobs and reduce the peoples pain. We were told in no uncertain terms neither the management or union wanted those changes....they had to have a place to put problem employees. So the question is who going to pay for these employees in the retirement years...and the medicare cost? Across the board were seeing 55 plus persons being dismissed from their jobs to save on the companies healthcare cost. Personally I support capitol punishment for managers that have knowingly caused injury to others.
Don,
Apologies concerning the certificate thing - I should have read you more carefully (especially between the lines).
On the constitution thing - I have (as do Britains historically) a great suspicion of them. This is because they are like bibles - written in a different time and place (the past is a foreign country) and open to many different, sometimes opposite, interpretations.
In the real world, all plans rapidly become redundant and by-the-bye, including 5-year plans of totalitarian states and government plans supposedly applicable for all time (such as constitutions). The real world demands real politic, including being saved from ourselves and the money to pay for the saving.
Save us from planners, bean counters and all their parsimonious ilk! Save us from their spoiling of the good ship Society for the sake a happ'orth of tax and dogged adherence to a mad plan. Give us wise politicians who can change their minds and know when the public are just being mean, stupid or puppeted by a fashionable meme of the damaging kind.
Governments need cash to govern. If you allow that governing sometimes requires both the stupid (or merely uneducated) to be saved from their ignorance, not to mention the exploitations of money-obsessed capitalist madmen, than you must allow some of your tax to go to such measures. Can you imagine the alternative? (You don't have to - just consider any one of a large number of Third World states - or even China, just now entering its Victorian age).
If you're worried about wasted taxes, have a look at what Government spends on the private sector consultancy industry. Talk about money to the stupid and unproductive.
Lataxe
Thanks for your kind words.Unfortunately, as the poet says "all appears yellow to the jaundiced eye"- some folks come in with a fixed position, and see only what supports their preexisting notions. Recent opinion polls in the U.S. show that about a third of Americans still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction prior to the invasion 3 years ago. It doesn't matter how often or how thoroughly such a position is debunked- they will cling to their beliefs no matter what. I remember in 2004 an Indiana voter who was asked about his decisison to vote for Geo Bush as he left the polls, was queried about the war and WMD. He replied: "nothing anyone can say will make me change my mind about the (presence) of weapons of mass destruction." It eptomizes the issue: not only will he not change his opinion, he will not even consider any new facts. I cite this as an example of thinking, not for its political content.If someone rejects the possibility of new facts or evidence in revising their opinion of something- such as safety- then there is no point in further discussion.Personally, I tend to inhabit a fairly empiric (evidence-based) world. I look at TS made in North America, and I see absolutely no changes in safety from ~1965-2005- I have used Unisaws built at both ends of this period, and other than the fact that the older saws seemed to have better castings and flatter tables, I can't see any other differences. From this I conclude, that the market will not encourage safety innovation among manufacturers.As for the nanny state, I believe in personal responsibility, but I also think that government has a supporting role in safety and externalities, supplementing the deficienceis of the market. When someone in a production shop amputates their fingers or hand, we all pay for that accident. If he is unable to work and goes on unemployment, we pay for that in taxes. His employer will pay for workman's comp and liability insurance, and we will pay for that when we buy goods made by that industry. We accept restrictions on how fast we drive, what medicines we can legally purchase, our need to be licensed and insured to operate a motor vehicle, etc. Overall this has led to a safer and happier (utilitarian) society.I would not favor the feds mandating that the SawStop brake be included in any new TS, but I doubt that they will do so. I suspect that, like passive restriants required in automobiles, they will require a certain level of safety and leave it to the manufacturers to design acceptable solutions (e.g. passive restraints: active seat belts vs air bags). For some, SawStop will be the right solution (if I were equipping a high school or trade school shop, that's what I would favor). For other applications, improved guards or sliders/jigs that keep hands and figures away from the blade may be better. I'm agnostic as to the specific approach.Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
If someone rejects the possibility of new facts or evidence in revising their opinion of something- such as safety- then there is no point in further discussion.
I don't see anyone here blindly refusing to accept any new facts. We just have several different opinions that are based on the facts that are all currently agreed upon. There's no new facts that have been presented that I've seen which should substantially change anyone's opinion. Just because someone doesn't agree with your opinion, no matter how much you try to convince them, doesn't mean they're inflexible.
I look at TS made in North America, and I see absolutely no changes in safety from ~1965-2005- I have used Unisaws built at both ends of this period
That's weird. To my knowledge, there are NO table saws made in North America (except maybe industrial-size Generals) currently. Unisaws have probably been made in China for at least 5 or 10 years.
If you mean table saws made by North American companies, why are you restricting yourself to these? There's lots of European companies making table saws, such as Hammer, Mini-Max, Laguna, etc. I believe these saws have experienced many changes in safety in the past 40 years. Perhaps you should take a look at those.
From this I conclude, that the market will not encourage safety innovation among manufacturers.
I think your conclusion is flawed. There is clearly a market for safety, as evidenced by the aforementioned European saws. These companies certainly aren't going out of business, and are in fact selling machinery not just in Europe, but also here in NA, so any arguments about European government regulations are obviously invalid.
Just because the established American-owned manufacturers are ignoring safety doesn't mean there's no market for it. This reminds me a lot of the history of American automakers. In the 70s, they thought that small cars, fuel efficiency, and quality wouldn't sell. The Japanese automakers thought differently. We all know how that played out for the American companies. Sounds like the American tool companies are repeating history's mistakes. From what I've read about SawStop, they've sold several thousand of their saws, and their sales are increasing. At nearly $3k each, that's a pretty decent revenue for a small, new start-up company like that. That tells me there's certainly a market for safety, even here in the US where price usually reigns supreme.
The European safety features are not market driven, but are based on extensive regulations in Europe. It fact, some of the European manufacturers are making modifications, on export versions, to reduce at least one safety feature in order to market more effectively in the US. A few models now will accept dado blades, which are forbidden in Europe.
There's no new facts that have been presented that I've seen which should substantially change anyone's opinion.
True, true. We've all expressed a bunch of opinions. Which don't hold much ground. From you're view what facts have been presented?
To my knowledge, there are NO table saws made in North America...
I think that was a slip, but I felt it was clear he was referring to saws from North American companies. North American Saws vs. European saws has been a topic of discussion before. The consensus seems to be that European saws are safer.
I think your conclusion is flawed. There is clearly a market for safety, as evidenced by the aforementioned European saws.
I think your conclusions flawed! European saws adhere to government regulations, the market did not dictate them. If there really was a large market for safety there would be more imported European saws in our shops.
I do think that there is a market developing for safety (I'll gladly be included in that). As with your analogy to fuel efficient cars, I hope it doesn't take 20 years to mature. Part of the problem is that our wallets have to agree with our saw purchase.
You may have seen the episode of the Simpsons when the have a salesperson come by to make the house safe. She shows Homer the bill, and it cuts to them standing at the door. She says to him: "Mr. Simpson can you really put a price on your families safety." He responds: "You wouldn't think so, yet here we are."
Dwol (and Glaucon),
Recently I have been reading Daniel Dennet concerning the evolutionary items known as memes - basically patterns of thought, concepts and the like that behave in "thought space" as genes behave in biological space.
Amongst many of other points, there are a couple that seem particularly relevant to some of the discussions and tool-loyalty stuff that goes on within Knots.
The first is that some meme-plexes (robust and well evolved large collections of mutually supporting ideas) are very tough and contain self-preservation mechanisms that basically cause their hosts to reject alternative memplexes. Religions and ideologies are two obvious examples; but they manifest at lower levels, such as loyalty to a certain political stance with firm rejection of any competitors. Some chaps seem to be infected with American TS loyalty or even a certain political stance concerning helping the neighbours. It ain't them, though, it's their memplex (which doesn't do logic or evidence).
Another point is that, within a particular meme-ecology (a market being a good example of such an ecology) some evolved memplexes, once they inhabit certain areas of that ecology's design-space, automatically prevent alternative memplexes evolving into that same space. In the USA market, 1920 style TS seem to have filled up the TS design space and the alternatives (eg European TS with safety stuff and sliding tables) can't get a foothold (yet). Of course, if the Customs let in the Cane Toad TS, the American ones will be displaced!
Well, its one way (rather simplified, I confess) to look at it.
Lataxe, a student of weird American Philosophers.
Lataxe, you just might be onto something. I have felt for a long time that America sees itself as a industrial entity. Things marked as "industrial strength "sell better.We organize our "shops" to increase "productivity". Its part of our national psyche.We love industrial single purpose machines. I think the manufacturers know this, and know its tough to overcome.So you get the same tools today that were featured in my old Delta catalog.(it introduced their new 14 inch band saw and named their table saw the unisaw) It is hard to sell innovation.
"I have felt for a long time that America sees itself as a industrial entity. Things marked as "industrial strength "sell better."Yeah, you still see a lot of that in advertising too. It's kinda funny, because we don't really make anything in America any more, except maybe buildings and bridges. Once the corporations figure out how to make buildings in another country and ship them over here, all the construction workers will be looking for work at Wal-Mart too. I wouldn't be too surprised to start seeing huge barges loaded with manufactured houses floating into our ports soon.
"We don't really make anything in America anymore"
Don't you believe it. You make waves and they travel round the world and end up carrying polution back to your shores.
Edited 8/18/2006 1:44 pm ET by mufti
Seattles new bridge was made in Korea, came in on a barge. Would'nt surprise me a bit if houses were next.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Well Ddub you are right , you can sell anything in America.I remember back in 1985 standing in my office in the parts department of a GM dealership talking to the dealer when in walked a customer sporting a big shiny .45 . He wanted to shoot old Bob because he had figured out that $4800.00 was more than he should have paid for a 78 monza with 200,000 miles.Old Bob never flinched. He then said "son you have made a mistake and paid way to much for that car. There is only one thing you can do. " The customer replied "what's that ?". Bob said "trade up". Two hours later the customer left in a 79 Cordoba complete with ragged out rich Corinthian leather and a $7500.00 loan.Old Bob was a crook but he taught me a lot about people and their desire to get something for nothing.
The one thing we do have is space. American homes, and their two and three car garages, or their 1,000 sq. ft. basements are well suited for single purpose equipment in shops. (Don't know actual statistics for other parts of the world, but I would bet the over-2,400 square foot median single family home built in 2004 is larger that the similar statistic in any other country, and over 80% of those median and larger houses do have a 2 car or larger garage.)
Edited 8/19/2006 8:34 am ET by SteveSchoene
Good morning Steve, You are right about the space. One of my neighbors is a recent immigrant from Belgium. He tells me the size of our homes and yards amaze him.
I like single purpose machines. I just think that I was taught to like them. Sales professionals have used ties to industry as a sales technique for years. Look at 30s delta catalogues or Grizzlies newest and you will see lots of product ties to industry.Like Grizzly or not that guy sells some product.
I assume that by single purpose machines we are referring to equipment other than a Shop Smith, correct? If one were engaged in the manufacture of bird houses and doll furniture, I believe a multi purpose machine would work just fine. Beyond that, the tables and fences, etc. are just not sized to handle the boards necessary to make standard sized furniture and cabinetry. Perhaps there is multi purpose equipment out there somewhere that is appropriately sized, but I'm not aware of it. I think we develop a work style and it's difficult to change after a time. Many hobby woodworkers started out with an inexpensive table saw and added other machines as we grew in the hobby, the multi purpose machines were probably our of our initial price range. Now we have developed work habits and a multi purpose machine would seem awkward to us now.
If you were looking to fill a new shop, would you first think along the lines of traditional stand alone equipment or maybe some big European combination machines. I think most Americans would think single purpose first.There is nothing wrong with that. We just tend to have that bias.This bias would make it hard to sell a 16inch jointer /planer combination machine for instance. People are naturally resistant to change. Like I said before "I like single purpose machines" Its just hard to sell change so companies don't like to risk it.Look at how long its taken to get just a few saws to be equipped with riving knives.When we look for a table saw,we tend to look for something that resembles an old industrial model.The more cast iron the better.This is not a bad thing. I just wonder if we could not get better equipment if we changed our mindset a little. How about the introduction of some new materials.Maybe lighter,stronger,quieter. How about eliminating vibration instead of dampening it with cast iron.Something to think about anyway.
AB,
You note that, "People are naturally resistant to change". Well, I think that is true in societies that are still of a very traditional bent; or where innovation and change can be too costly because most people are economically very poor and vulnerable to failure or extra costs.
What surprises me is that there is, as described by many in this thread, so much resistance to change within a society like that of the USA, which prides itself on being modern in every way, especially in engineering. (Consider the achievements of NASA amongst many others). Moreover, the public at large more or less demands constant change all the time in everything these days. "New! Improved!!"
Is it American woodworkers that are particularly reactionary perhaps - coming largely from a tradition (revived by FWW to a large extent) in which old methods are favoured, not least because they do still work well, even today (eg hand tool woodworking)? Or is it really the manipulations of the marketing men of Delta et al, who are too lazy to innovate and evolve, like every other decent engineering organisation?
I suppose the puzzle is really why the American WW industry (or parts of it) is so reactionary, when many other areas of American production are the most innovative in the world (eg software production).
But why do some of you put up with Model T tablesaws? After all, you don't have to have a Ferrari or a Felder to get modern engineering in either a car or a TS. Call Mr Scheppach or Mr Metabo on the phone, to see very nice TS for a lot less than those of Mr Felder. They are a bit like BMWs or VWs, in quality.
Lataxe
I am a big fan of Metabo tools but unfortunately on this side of the pond we don't get to pick from the full range of their products. If you go to the metabousa.com website and look at the US catalog you will see a lot of things missing. No cabinet saws for us for example. I am seeing more European tools in use over here all the time both in home and commercial shops. Maybe some of the reason for Delta and Powermatics hold over us is their well deserved reputation for longevity. True not much innovation or built in safety but you can still get parts for every Unisaw ever made. Also many of us over the age of say 40 were exposed to these brands in school shops which back in the sixties were poulated with a lot of gov. surplus big iron. I'm not sure we can attribute much of it to marketing genius, are they running Delta's ads over there? The one with the guy working in the dark? Or the one with the guy working in the dark without pants? Much of Nasa's successful work was done with imported German engineering by the way!
Wow what a run on paragraph, I better get back out to the shop.
dgreen
Using his Unisaw with both lights and pants.(and aftermarket safety gear)
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
D,
I agree that there's nothing wrong with a tool (or any other item) that serves its purpose well and lasts a long time. Before the Industrial Revolution, most engineering was like that. In fact, even some Victorian engineering is still admirable (and extant).
Eventually Henry Ford and his generation had their way and "planned obsolescence" became the norm. This has generally led to a market place full of dross and tat, but lots of profit and marketing activity. It has its benefits I suppose - sometimes the market-driven "innovation" actually does produce a better thing, as opposed to the same thing disguised with another colour or shape (and price tag).
Even the most venerable good traditions need to contain an element of innovation. They have to evolve so that they leech away the bad and adopt the good - including "bads that were once good" and "goods that were once bad" - circumstances change and so must the definition of good and bad, to meet them.
Some traditions do become ossified, though; and the American TS design seems to be one such, for some reason or other. It was once "good" (probably the best TS in the world) but is now "bad" (there are much better designed saws elsewhere in the world).
I mean, a Unisaw could still be a long lasting beefy thing of precision and power if it came with a riving knife, sliding table and even a safety brake of the SS variety. If all saws had those things, they would probably be just as cheap as they are now, as mass production and buyer take-up makes the extra costs tiny, per item sold. American WWs would be happier and safer. Their shops would not be full of large plywood cross cut jigs and so forth.
Personally I'm waiting to see if the Europeans adopt the SS brake or something similar. It would fit with their ethos of protecting us idiots from ourselves. :-) As a self-confessed idiot, I would acquiesce and buy one.
Lataxe
"What surprises me is that there is, as described by many in this thread, so much resistance to change within a society like that of the USA, which prides itself on being modern in every way, especially in engineering. (Consider the achievements of NASA amongst many others). Moreover, the public at large more or less demands constant change all the time in everything these days. "New! Improved!!""Have you been in a coma for the past 40 years? America does NOT pride itself on engineering prowess, and hasn't since the NASA days (that was back in the 60s, BTW). Look at engineering schools today and you'll find that American students simply don't enroll in them any more; it's not seen as a worthwhile profession, it doesn't pay very well, and since all the "downsizing" moves has no job security. NASA is a terrible example: the peak of America's space program was the late 60s/early 70s during the Apollo program. Very little has come even close to matching the successes of the Moon landings, and the Space Shuttle was just a bad idea. It'd be nice if we did really cool stuff like that again, but for the past 30 years we haven't been very interested in investing in NASA, and now that Bush wants to land on Mars and the Moon, all the talent has retired or died and no one has bothered to take their places (and there still doesn't seem to be any actual dollar investment to match the mandate).If you want real engineering prowess, look to the two places that have held that honor for the entire 20th century: Japan and Germany.
dwolsten,
While I agree with most of what you say about engineers, it's not quite as bleak as it may appear on the surface. It is true that corporations down sized their technical staff...because their stock value went up when they did...and management was being incented to increase the stock value.
However, the DOD(yes the infamous Dept. of Defense)has done a lot to keep this vital resource employed and on the cutting edge....you don't hear a lot about the outputs of the IBM's, Lockheed, Boeings, etc. but, believe me, it would knock your socks off. The talent in those places is unbelievable...and they are constantly being trained and updated. Lockheed alone has to spend 1 billion a year on research...What has become an issue is that the engineers don't have a hands on working knowledge (read: mechanical experience)with the concept. During WWII a lot of this hands on talent came from the farms..they were great at designing solutions that actually worked.
Dwol,
I have been in a coma of sorts for the last 40 years - I blame the 60s. :-)
Nevertheless, I think you are a little harsh on NASA and its shuttle (not to mention the various probes, satellites and so forth). And (as pointed out by another poster) your aerospace industry is no dodo.
Perhaps there is more complexity than my simple argument implies - there must be different causes and effects going on within various parts of the US engineering tradition as a whole. Some parts of that tradition have been decimated by "market forces" (as they have here in Britain). But there is still plenty of technology-based activity that is leading edge in the US, despite the success of Japan and the resilient tradition of Germany.
Lataxe, an optomist today.
The shuttle was absolutely a terrible idea. It's far more expensive for us to send people up with the Shuttle than it is for the Russians, with their disposable Soyuz rockets, and the shuttle is far more complex and prone to error (notice how many people have died on it, compared to the Soyuz or Apollo launches). The main problem with the Shuttle is the requirements the military placed on it in the 70s, because they wanted something for launching and recovering spy satellites. Notice that the recent plans for a new moon mission and the Mars mission call for vehicles very similar to the Russians' and our old Apollo rockets, with small capsules.Yes, our probes launched in the 70s such as the Voyager probes, have been extremely successful, with Voyager 1 now past the solar system and nearly in intergalactic space, and still working. Some of our more recent probes, such as the ones on Mars, have also been very successful (though some have not). But we sent out probes in the 60s, and even 50s if I'm not mistaken. While the Mars probes are certainly a good contribution, they seem to pale next to the manned Apollo missions. It's been a long time since we've sent humans past LEO (low-earth orbit).It's only been recently, with the Chinese and Indians working on manned Moon missions of their own, that we finally decided to get off our butts and do some decent manned missions again. The problem is, take a look at all the scientists and engineers those two countries produce in their schools, compared to how many we produce. It doesn't look good. In those countries, it's considered prestigious to be a scientist or engineer. In this country, it's considered a crappy, boring job.You're right about the aerospace industry, however. We do seem to be on or near the leading edge there, although that's dominated by defense. Europe is providing some stiff competition, however, in the forms of Airbus and Eurocopter (which probably produces the best non-military helicopters in the world). Another poster mentioned the DOD and all the engineers the entire defense sector employs. However, I'm not sure that's sufficient to keep a strong, world-leading economy afloat. The Soviets were also known for having a disproportionately large military/defense, and their economy didn't do too well.dwolsten, a pessimist today (and most days).
The US never valued engineers as highly as doctors, and our gov. has invested heavily in medical research. It's clear the US is the leader by far in medical and biotech research. I think we've made a calculated judgment that these areas will become more and more important in the years ahead rather than engineering feats like space flight. It remains to be seen if this bet is correct. I suspect it is.
I suspect it isn't. Medical technology only serves to keep people alive and healthy. But we don't have a shortage of people; in fact, we have way too many. Not that I want to go back to Medieval medicine and 30-year lifespans, but still, most newer medical technology doesn't benefit very many people; only the extremely old (who don't have long to live anyway no matter what you do), and victims of accidents and disease, which isn't a very large percentage of the population.Besides, most peoples' health problems are caused by bad habits (smoking, overeating), or a poor environment (too much pollution, and unhealthy foods which are the norm these days). Medicine is just a band-aid for this.But two things that everyone needs that we do have shortages of are raw materials (mainly metals like copper, and also more valuable metals like platinum) and more importantly, energy. There's lots of both of these out in space, and there's no environmental aspects to worry about. Who cares if you strip-mine an asteroid? One idea that's been kicked around is to build a huge solar power station on the Moon, and beam the energy back to earth via microwaves. Without an atmosphere, the amount of solar energy hitting the moon's surface is immense, and once an installation like that was in place, we wouldn't need to fight over fossil fuels. And who knows what other resources and applications there are, that haven't been thought of yet just because so few people have even been in space.Getting off this planet and seeing what else is out there is the key to the next stage of human societal development. Ignoring this with our budgeting for national programs is not a good idea.
The benefits of being healthy are dramatically more important to me, and I suspect to most of us, than having more "things" that require the use of energy or metals, exotic or not.
Tell that to all the people who have died in the Oil Wars. Or the people who have died as a result of our involvement in oil-rich foreign countries. Or better yet all the millions of city-dwelling people suffering from poor health because of environmentally unclean energy (i.e., burning fossil fuels--smog). Or all the people working themselves to death to pay for high energy bills (fuel, electricity, etc.). Or all the people that have less-than-decent standards of living because of a poor economy, caused by lack of cheap energy.The health improvement, to the entire population, of cheap, clean energy would be FAR greater than any medical innovations within several lifetimes.Besides, I haven't seen very many truly useful medical advances in the past several decades. By truly useful, I mean advances which benefit a large portion of the population. All the truly revolutionary medical advances occurred in the first half of the 20th century: Penicillin and other antibiotics, vaccines for diseases such as typhoid, polio, measles, mumps, smallpox, etc. These are advances which greatly improved the average lifespan for the average individual, and greatly reduced the death rate. Recently, most medical stuff has gotten so expensive that it's out of reach for much of the population. That's not very useful unless you happen to be rich.
Even by the standards of your previous post, this is beyond moronic. No one can be unintentially this vacuous and obtuse- you must be doing this as a shill.Would it matter if someone pointed out the number of years, of productive lives added that the conquest of communicable diseases has added to the US and its economy? Are you too fatuous to recognize that >80% of the pacemakers and implantable defibrillators are designed, engineered and manufactured in the U.S.? That this is also true of CT and MRI scanners? That these latter machines have replaced exploratory surgery and reduced morbidity and mortality? Even brain surgery- while I can understand why you would not want your head scanned, but surely others should be permitted. Which of these would you be willing to give up? Which cancer drugs? Would you feel the same if it were a loved one or a son or daughter who was at risk? Can you possibly be this daft?It is a source of some comfort to realize that when you roll your car over, or cut your hand off on a TS or awaken to find yourself unable to move one side of your body- or hopefully, unable to speak- that instead of running up an expensive hospital bill, we can send you a roll of pennies and keep you at home- with your @%#$&* copper. You can save it up for your next extraplanetary trip.GlauconIf you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Edited 8/22/2006 6:33 pm ET by Glaucon
Don't be such a moron.I never said all those things aren't useful, just that their usefulness to the entire population is not as great as if energy being cheap and clean. If you're too stupid to understand the effect of energy prices on the global economy, then just shut up and save your juvenile comments about "extraplanetary trips".
Edited 8/22/2006 6:47 pm ET by dwolsten
The proportion of economic growth generated by improvements in health care in the past century far outweigh the contribution of additions to the capital stock. Cheap energy is only one factor in economic growth. In many parts of the world there are still factors of significantly greater importance to sustained economic growth. Improved health is probably one of them in much of the less developed world. While the jury is not yet in, certainly the bio-genetics research that created the green revolution has put paid to the degree of starvation widely forecast half a century ago. Yes, avoidance of starvation has put strain on other resources, including energy, but to call that a bad thing is too callous for words.
To suggest that medical research and medical resources should be curtailed because the distribution of medical care is skewed against poor people is to propose the precisely backward solution to a serious societal problem. The better solution is to improve the delivery system.
Steve,I appreciate your argument. Some interesting facts:1. ~20-40% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa are HIV positive.
2. This has contributed in large measure to a decline in life expectancy, an explosion in the numbers of orphans, and a corresponding decrease in literacy and secondary school education.
3. While other factors such as trade policy, war and drought have also beleagured Africa, the size of the HIV problem is almost unique,and other regions with similar political and weather problems have fared much better.A modest suggestion:dwolsten should move to Zaire- it's not another planet, but it might as well be. He won't need to spend any money on health care (there isn't any) and it's got lots of copper.Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Doc,
Didn't I hear Bono (lead singer of the bad U2 and political activist) say this year that over 1 million human lives in Africa had been saved because of US aid in AIDS/ HIV medicine? Does that sound correct? Wasn't that medicine developed in the USA? I'm thinking mostly in San Diego County, because back in the early 1990s, I used to go to school with a lot of people there who were working on that stuff.
For dwolsten - if you have that many kickbacks, you're doing something wrong. I wouldn't make a career out of calling other people morons. I've never had a kickback with the saw I'm using now, and I've had it for what,...six years now. I've sawed quite a bit of stuff, too. Why? Well, 1: I use splitter, if at all possible; and 2: I don't do stuff which causes kickback.
But I still like the Sawstop. I particularly like the "investment" argument. The argument that goes: why not spend $3500 now when a very freak accident could cost $45K to $100K? That's the argument that gets me the easiest. Also the thought of trying to play guitar with stumps instead of fingers - hell, I'd be restricted to Neil Young songs.
Good luck, Ed
"Hell, I'd be restricted to Neil Young songs." Too funny. Takes me back, that.
Man, it's hot in here. Why's Glaucon on the rampage? An idle question, sorry it just popped out. "When all else fails, call people names" I guess.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Girl,
Yes, those boys are letting their testosterone flow a bit. Of course, neither of them are morons or anything like - rather intelligent, sensitive and caring chaps really, despite recent fist waving.
They are just passionate about some things they both seem to have close personal experience of. Me, I find their real argument (the stuff stripped of the excess emotions) quite enlightening and hope to read more.
But now I think they should kiss and make up a bit. :-)
Uncle Lataxe
Uncle, I have lost track of this discussion due to attention span deficiency. Would you be kind enough to render a quick precis?Philip Marcou
Phillip,
I guess Nuncle Lataxe is still trying to research and gather up all the loose ends of this discussion and organize them into some sort of coherent structure. Deep in the center of his Sassenach brain there is some sort of genetic British impulse that he should tell us wayward cousin Yanks exactly what kind of tablesaw we should be using and he should lay down the law on this issue with a kind of thunderous Anglo-Saxon voice of final judgement. But he just can't yet pull all the loose ends together.
My own opinion is that this thread should be viewed somewhat like a James Joyce novel - not necessarily an organized structure but more a "pastiche" of thoughts and opinions. To seek a definitive thread of logic in this thread from the beginning to end is a fool's errand.
Well I think I will drive over to IWF 2006 in Atlanta tomorrow, rather than await Uncle Lataxe's summation. The Hitachi girl, the Sawstop hotdog demo every hour,...a trip to Highland Hardware,...an Atlanta Braves game,.... Does it get much better? I will be looking at a whole mess of woodworking machinery and tools and innovations. More than you could shake a stick at, as they say in these parts,....
Good luck, Ed, an inveterate Elizabethan
Ed,
You are right and I fear I never intended to try to summarise the thread, even for that lazy boy Philip, who must read a few of the Joycean posts hisself. My own ends are as loose as anything and keeping them together is quite difficult enough.
I recommend Glaucon's and Dwolsten's posts especially - they say lots of interesting stuff that is nowt to do with tablesaws; and give a great insight (to daft old Limeys like moi) concerning Americans' worries about themselves. Good stuff, if a little heated towards the end.
I do hope they make up and keep talking.
As to insisting you should all have a modern tablesaw - well, "you know it makes sense" as the now ancient British advert exorting us all to wearing our seat belts used to say. If I was Very Rich Indeed I would buy you all one for Christmas and sign the card, "From a kindly old uncle; enjoy you're sliding cross cut table". Then you would all like me, except for the real diehards, who would cut their own fingers off instead with their Unisaws, to prove a point. :-)
Lataxe, actually poor as anything because of a bad bout of plane and saw lust.
PS Lecturin, in a reedy and pontifical voice, is just one of my many hobbies. Others include: shouting at motorists; and chasing cheeky youths with a stick. Have a good time in Atlantis, by the way, and give my regards to King Arthur and Lancelot.
"Others include: shouting at motorists...."
View Imageforestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
What would we do without you, Uncle Lataxe?
Glad to see you are getting into hand tools, the really fun part of woodworking if you are not trying to make money. Those blurry objects that you see going by as you slide down the slippery slope are bushes and rock outcroppings which serve as handholds, and the last chances to attempt to slow down the tool acquisition. If you choose to ignore them, then my advice on the eternal question of "Which to buy?" is my standard answer: "One of each, of course."
Have fun, take care, Ed
Ed,
If you should fall foul of any euthenasia policy that may come about as a result of this thread, please make sure you leave all your "ones of each" to me, a poor victim of tool sellers everywhere. I have got to the bottom of the slippery slope but am rolling slowly now towards the precipice, down which I dimly see Philip Marcou, Mike Wenzloff and others rubbing their hands eagerly together and shouting to Their Men to up the production rate, get the champagne in and so forth.
I will be asking Forest Girl to find me a mug that says, "I've got one, go away" on it.
Or perhaps I will blow the wad on a SawStop and the planes et al will have to wait until a rich uncle dies (a long wait, as they are all poor folk).
Lataxe, destined for debtors prison and then the Soylent factory or even New Zealand, on the convict boat they still send there, apparently.
I have nothing constructive to add. I just thought it would be cool to be post #200.
From the simple pleasures for simple minds dept.....
RennieRegard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. Frank Lloyd Wright
<"Why's Glaucon on the rampage?">Not an idle question at all. How about:"Medical technology only serves to keep people alive and healthy. But we don't have a shortage of people; in fact, we have way too many." "...most newer medical technology doesn't benefit very many people; only the extremely old (who don't have long to live anyway no matter what you do)...""But two things that everyone needs that we do have shortages of are raw materials (mainly metals like copper...""One idea that's been kicked around is to build a huge solar power station on the Moon, and beam the energy back to earth via microwaves..." "Getting off this planet and seeing what else is out there is the key to the next stage of human societal development."******************One assumes that this brave new world of "human societal development" will deal with the problem of "too many" people. Perhaps we could just euthanize our old people (after all, they're going to die anyway) and convert them into an energy source. We could call it "Oilent green".Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
"One assumes that this brave new world of "human societal development" will deal with the problem of "too many" people."I think we're there. I just read that Saw Stop is introducing a chastity belt based on their saw technology at the Atlanta show -- hot dog demo and all.
G,
There are days when I think the ladywife is going to burn me on her garden bonfire, thus keeping the frost off the rhubarb but also removing an annoying old pest (me). I could not complain, in all honesty, as I can be a nuisance.
I know Dwolsten has rather hardened views on some things but that doesn't make him a moron, just infested/invested with different memes from yours (and mine, on most of the point you mention, at least).
Even an old hippie like me can accept some of his points - though not those more extreme ones you quote, at least in their bald form. One might agree that The Reverend Malthus had a point, though; and moon colonies are not impossible just radical. This does not necessarily imply a policy of euthenasia or spending 99% of the Government's income on expeditions into space rather than saving a good bit for health care (as perhaps DW will agree....?)
In all events, I don't think he will be persuaded of much with a bite from a wild dog of a word like "moron".
If you will allow me to leckshur just a bit (a bit more :-), can I suggest that you take a dislike to DW's opinions rather than to the chap himself. After all, he might have a change of mind, should someone persuade him. Also he says some other things that presumably you might find common ground on?
Lataxe, trying to mediate for some reason
But two things that everyone needs that we do have shortages of are raw materials (mainly metals like copper, and also more valuable metals like platinum) and more importantly, energy. There's lots of both of these out in space, and there's no environmental aspects to worry about. Who cares if you strip-mine an asteroid? One idea that's been kicked around is to build a huge solar power station on the Moon, and beam the energy back to earth via microwaves. Without an atmosphere, the amount of solar energy hitting the moon's surface is immense, and once an installation like that was in place, we wouldn't need to fight over fossil fuels. And who knows what other resources and applications there are, that haven't been thought of yet just because so few people have even been in space.
I'll try t give a serious response to this message. This will never happen in our lifetimes. The science involved here is questionable at best. It's a grand idea, but one developed by people with no sense of economics.
Why would anyone want to spend BILLIONS of dollars to get to an asteroid to get copper worth less than $3/lb? Think how much copper would have to be there just to break even.
As for putting a solar station on the moon... why not just put solar generating stations on Earth? Lots of solar energy hits the earth as well, and it would be much cheaper.
Anyway, I have no idea how someone gets from SawStop to this. But my suggestion is that you stop watching 'In the Future...' shows and focus more on reality.
Buster,It is unlikely that I have watched as much Star Trek as dwolsten, but in the event, one of my undergraduate degrees is in (quantum) physics. So as to his proposal for a solar power station on the moon, that would beam its energy back to the earth, I would offer a few observations (also known as facts):1. About 165,000 TW (terawatts) of solar energy strikes the earth at any given moment.
2. After taking into account atmospheric and cloud absorption/reflection, ~125,000 TW actually reach the surface of the earth.
3. In a given year, humans use about 15 TW of energy (or about 0.01% of the amount of solar energy that arrives at any given MOMENT).
4. The foundation of all life on earth- photosynthesis- produces about 100 TW in a year (about 7 times as much as humans use).
5. The moon's radius is about one fourth of the earth's, it's surface area is about 7% the size of the earth's. Even without atmospheric losses, the moon only receives about 10% of the solar energy incipient upon the earth. This raises a question as to why anyone would want to go there to build a "solar energy plant", when the earth seems a bit more handy.
6. Microwaves are a poor choice for energy transmission. The energy density of an electromagnetic wave/photon is determined by its frequency, and by the number of photons (intensity). Visible (optical) light carries ~100,000 times more energy per photon than microwaves. As you approach higher MW frequencies, atmospheric scatter blocks their transmission.
7. EM energy decreases at the square of the distance (inverse square law). Since the moon is 385,000 km away, the loss of energy from this MW transmission station will be considerable (this is a good thing, as it will prevent the earth from getting cooked by dwolsten's energy plant). This might be why no one has done this before. On the other hand perhaps a series of #8 gauge COPPER transmission cables, each about 400,000 km long might work. Just have to find that copper... perhaps on an asteroid?My point is that the idea is ridiculous on its face. When someone starts spouting opinions about resource conservation and health care policy, it's worth not taking them at face value. Anyone who can spout such drivel about energy shouldn't be taken seriously regarding medical care or major tool purchases. If you don't think too good, then don't think too much.GlauconIf you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Edited 8/23/2006 7:58 pm ET by Glaucon
My abject apologies for the sin of being smart and for having the unmitigated gall to think that I know best how to spend my money. I will immediately report to a government education center for a lobotomy so I will fit in better.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Wow, two smart-guy certificates and I have none. It must be a difficult decision for you whether to hang them over the mantel or to put them in a fire-safe lock box to ensure their safety.
I have no interest in this p*ssing match, in general, or the sub-spar you and dgreen are having, but I have to say this is one of the funniest lines I've read in years.My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
The heading of this section is Power Tools and Machinery - Sawstop. Maybe it should say something like Comments of the Smart and Stuped.
P.S. I have a certificate from the 3rd grade for coming in 2nd in a spelling bee, but I never considered myself smart, but I starting to feel better about it after reading some of this stuff.If seems a lot of people have too much time and a lot of hostility they are trying to get out. Maybe they have been running their saws too much. Have cold one.
All right .... fess up now .. is that bait or a typo or a demonstration of why you came in 2nd? :)
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Life is good....and funny. I gotta go, my saw is running.
I confess I got a little carried away. Maybe its the little of woodworking (or other hobby) time recently. Normally, I don't get sucked into these things. Honest. Search my posting history.Matt
<"...If you are stupid enough to drive at excessive speed you need to die as a result of your stupidity so as not to pollute the gene pool with your progeny. There is no constitutional mandate to relieve me of my hard earned dollars to make sure you are taken care of as a result of you doing something stupid.">"We are overpopulated with stupid people..."Look in the mirror, genius.The problem with your argument (arguments, actually) is that you assume the actions of stupid people only affect themselves (or other stupid people, so lookout). If someone is driving drunk at 100 mph down the wrong side of the interstate, they seem to have high affinity for running into a bus filled with elementary school children- so what about them? Are they just collateral damage? Or are you willing to spend a little of your hand earned tax dollars on an ambulance or two for some 7 year olds?Suppose someone decides to save money on a car by buying one without air bags and seat belts (assuming we lived in your perfect laissez faire world). He takes off on a trip with his 3 year old granddaughter on the front seat- and not in an infant carrier- and has an accident. She goes through the windshield and ends up with a cervical spinal card dissection and a closed head injury. She winds up on a vent in an ICU, but hey- at least there were no government mandates. Only trouble is, she ends up on Medicaid, and her $350k annual care bill comes out of your hard earned tax money. Unless you want to abolish that as well. In which case, we should simply not bring her to a hospital, but let her die in the field, and bury her at the side of the road. Maybe we could spring for a little wooden roadside cross- vountary donations, only of course. But after all, she has come from a "stupid gene pool", so this is really an anti-pollution measure. If you think this is a contrived example, I can tell you it is not from personal experience. The populations of neuro ICUs have filled with young, male motorcyclists who eschewed helmets once those bad government mandates ("helmet laws") were repealed. Only trouble is, most of them are un- or underinsured, so their care is paid for by (wait for it)- taxpayers. Unless they get unplugged and their organs get donated (in California they are called "donorcycles").Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
You keep making my point for me. Idiots do what idiots do whether there are laws in place or not. You seem to be willing to have your pocket picked to enable them to breed more of the same. There are still ambulances in a free market. If you want to take up a collection to pay someones bills you have every right to do so but you do not have the right to compel others to contribute.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
You cannot possibly be as obtuse as you pretend to be.You simply can't ignore evidence that you find inconvenient to your argument. "Idiots" do stupid things that affect all of us. One reason for government to constrain stupid actions is that it protects all of us. It is not perfect, but it works reasonably well, and yes, it costs some money- and it yields some of our own personal perogatives to government- that is the social contract. It is not some new radical liberal idea- it originated in the 17th century.I think it is as well to point out to our international posters that your views are, fortunately, those of a (lunatic) fringe, and not representative of most Americans. Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Thats me... member of the minority lunatic fringe, believer in personal responsibility and common sense.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
<"Thats me... member of the minority lunatic fringe, believer in personal responsibility and common sense.">Common sense is not so common. Sense of any kind hasn't contaminated your arguments. Lunatic, yes. Pompous, yes. Narcissistic and patronizing, certainly. Sensible- not so much.GlauconIf you don't think too good, then don't think too much...Edited 8/11/2006 1:54 pm ET by Glaucon
Edited 8/11/2006 2:36 pm ET by Glaucon
Maybe sense would be more common if we were'nt so intent on using other peoples money to protect and nurture those who have no sense.
As for the rest of your post, you either have not read the rest of the thread, were not able to comprehend it or you are using words too big for you.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
We are all more or less stupid about most things.
Fortunately, most of us do happen to be a little less stupid about some things. Take woodworking for example. If I'm smart enough to know how to sharpen and use hand tools, I can choose to save money and work more safely by not using a table saw at all.
But I'm glad that in those areas where I lack even the most basic knowledge, the government has set some standards. I cannot perform surgery on myself. I cannot inspect every meat packing plant where my hamburger comes from. I consider it progress that in the course of my lifetime, standards have been applied to an increasingly wide range of human activity.
50 years ago, when I was a kid, most cars did not even have seat belts. Today I can choose to buy the safest car I can afford, but I still cannot guarantee that another parent who might be giving my teenager a ride home from school tonight will have made the same choice. However, at least I do know that any car he'll be riding in is virtually certain to have seat belts. My confidence that he'll actually wear one comes from my confidence in him and the way we raised him.
So, safety standards do not eliminate personal freedom and responsibility. They support a higher level of confidence that we can step beyond the limits of our own knowledge & personal control without quite as much risk of disaster.
Well said. Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
"The government enacts many laws to protect us from ourselves, and to protect others from us! Speed limits, minimum standards for fire alarms, fire rating protection on materials... These are all unconstitutional? Last time I paid a speeding fine, I should have fought it! LOL"Hold on here... there's a world of difference between protecting people from themselves and protecting people from each other. I certainly consider it the government's job to protect me from other people; that's why we have police, after all. Traffic laws etc. theoretically are also for this purpose (although it seems like they're usually used for building revenue rather than increasing safety, but that's another argument): if people were allowed to drive around without regard for traffic laws, OTHER people would be hurt and killed. I'm not worried about the drunk driver getting killed; in fact, I hope for drunk drivers to get themselves killed; good riddance, I say. I'm worried about the innocent (non-drunk) people that the drunk driver usually kills in the process.Don't confuse protecting people from themselves and from each other. I don't want to be protected from myself unless so many people are doing something dangerous that it's causing a really serious problem. I do, however, want to be protected from other people so I don't have to become a vigilante or a victim. Yesterday's case of the Islamic British bombers being caught before they could carry out their plan is a great example of a government doing what it's supposed to: protecting the people from an outside threat.As for tablesaws: safety devices on tablesaws don't protect innocent people, only the user. Unless you're dumb enough to let your 3-year-old kid use your tablesaw, you're the only one who will get hurt by your saw not having some safety device.
dwolsten, It's not that easy to separate rules which protect only the user making the purchase decision from rules which protect the 'innocent other'.
Car seatbelts protect not only the wearer but also prevent the driver from being dislodged from behind the wheel with the car going out of control, possibly injuring or killing others.
Your table saw argument assumes that the purchaser is also the user. What about employees who, because they need the job, use the table saws of their employer's choice? Should the government have the right to tell employers what safety devices have to be encorporated into saws since the buyer is not the user, but not private purchasers who purchase saws for their own use?
Should someone who purposefully wants to buy a patently unsafe piece of equipment have to sign a waiver and agreement that he won't accept public benefits or use public goods (or sue the manufacturer) if he injures himself and becomes a non-productive member of society? Should his dependants have to sign such a pledge themselves? The agreement could read something like: I, the undersigned, understand that I am buying a patently unsafe widget, exposing myself to increased harm and likely disability to save ___ dollars and excercise my personal freedom of choice (and freedom from government control).
In exchange for maintaining my indepedence (right to engage in stupidity), I hereby, together with my dependents, agree that in the event I become disabled through the use of my patently unsafe widget, that:
1) neither I nor my dependants will accept any medical treatment for which I cannot pay;
2) neither I nor my dependants will accept any disability or social service benefits of any type;
3) neither I nor my dependants will use public goods which I can no longer afford to pay taxes to support including, but not limited to:
a) roads;
b) public schools;
c) public libraries, parks, etc;
d) police or firemen;
e) etc............... In the event I breach any of the terms of this agreement and accidently or intentionally use any public service or support which, by virtue of my choice to use unsafe equipment, I can longer contribute towards, I hereby agree to sell whatever functioning bodily organs may have survived my unfortunate accident in the first place to reimburse taxpayers for my use of publically provided goods and services._________________
(name)A little long-winded I know. But, you get the point. It's actually pretty darn hard to come up with a safety rule/requirement that only potentially negatively effects the individual making the 'free choice' to disregard it.Matt
"This way, you can't keep it a secret, and after that limited term expires, everyone else can do the same thing and we all ("society") can benefit.
Your correct about patents, but I take exception to this comment. By getting a patent it is made public and it immediately begins to benefit the public. You do not have to wait for it to expire before reaping the benefits. I could easily license the SawStop technology and begin producing my own line of saws now. Yes I would have to pay, but that's the incentive to develop new inventions."I don't see why you take exception; I don't disagree with anything here. The point behind patents is to prevent people from keeping inventions secret forever, and the secret potentially being lost somehow (like when the inventor dies). In exchange, the inventor gets a limited-term monopoly."So your fears about knock-offs are obviously quite ridiculous. Competitors can make knock-offs all they want, but they can't sell them legally unless they pay an agreed-upon royalty. Why else would someone get a patent?
I'm confused Mat was arguing the importance of having a patent. By your own admission it would be legal for someone to create a kick off if there were no patent. This statement seems to support getting patents and protecting intellectual property."A kick-off is what they do in the beginning of a football game. I think you mean a "knock-off".Anyway, I really don't understand what you're getting at here. There seemed to be some fear over knock-offs, and I pointed out that that's not possible with the current patent laws. After all, that's why patents exist: to prevent someone from just making copies and selling them cheaper. I don't believe I made any judgments on whether patents are good or not in that statement, though if the system works properly, it seems like a good idea to me. I do think the system has a lot of problems these days, but that's another argument altogether.<i>Until Goss began producing his own line of saws people didn't;t have the opportunity to 'spend their hard earned money'. The industry decided what would be appropriate for them.</i>Yeah, so? That's an unfortunate reality in the business world; what you think is best for everyone may not be what the established players want to sell. It's not the government's job to tell people what they're allowed to buy and sell, unless you live in a command economy. Of course, you can always start your own company selling your patented invention, which is what Goss did, which is fine. Now people who want this device can buy one (if they can afford it)."Further the question of if the invention is good or bad hasn't been raised by you."Of course not; it's not part of my problem with Goss. My only problem is that he went to the government to attempt to mandate his technology."I see nothing wrong with rewarding people for good ideas."But you don't see anything wrong with the government forcing the public to reward people for supposedly good ideas? I do."The government has a responsibility to enact reasonable laws and mandates to protect it's citizens. Further safety devices are like insurance, there is a cost/value question to them. It would be unreasonable cost to implement a 100K device on a car, but would be reasonable to implement a $1000 or a $500."What about a $10,000 device? Is that reasonable? Because a $250 device on a tablesaw is a much larger fraction of the item's whole value than a $250 item on a $20k-40k car, or a $250 item on a $200k house. You can buy an entire tablesaw for $250."This is a strawman tactic. I hate these."No, it's not.
Somewhere around 50,000 people die every year in the US in auto accidents, and lots more are maimed and injured. How many people are killed on tablesaws? Zero. How many are injured? A significant number, I'm sure, but nothing like the number in auto accidents.I don't know you, but I'll take a guess that you're American (or maybe Canadian), and have a car, and drive to work like the other 90+% of us working people. Your chances of getting seriously hurt in your car are much greater than getting hurt on your tablesaw.So if you're worried about getting hurt on your saw, and are willing to spend top dollar to avoid that, why don't you do the same with your vehicle?"Secondly you're arguing that because he doesn't own something he can not afford that he is a hypocrite!"Yes, it's absolutely hypocritical. Sorry, but not everyone can afford a $3500 tablesaw. I can't afford one, and I'm an engineer. My saw cost $300. So I absolutely resent being told I need a tablesaw that's worth as much as my car, and that the government should make that the only choice. So if you can't afford a $90k Mercedes S-series with umpteen airbags, then you have no business telling people that the government should mandate a $3500 saw.
Patents don't have to be used. A great many of them are used to block competitors from producing certain products--to block alternate products or methods, making the monopoly stronger. Hard to argue that the public is immediately benefiting in those cases. Neither does the patent holder have to licence the product. He can just say no.
I think it is fairer to say that patents grant the inventor a short term monopoly to encourage invention more than to make inventions public. Very few inventions could be maintained as a trade secret even without the patent disclosure. As soon as they are produced, or used to produce a product the knowledge is going to be pretty much known. (Obviously there are exceptions.)
I don't see why you take exception; I don't disagree with anything here. The point behind patents is to prevent people from keeping inventions secret forever, and the secret potentially being lost somehow (like when the inventor dies). In exchange, the inventor gets a limited-term monopoly.
In your original post it seemed worded that one had to wait 20 years to benefit. Otherwise we are in agreement.
A kick-off is what they do in the beginning of a football game. I think you mean a "knock-off".
Stupid spell checker... LOL
Anyway, I really don't understand what you're getting at here. There seemed to be some fear over knock-offs, and I pointed out that that's not possible with the current patent laws.
You were trying to counter the original point, but in the end agreed with him. The original poster was referring to the fact that the patent provides protection.
Yeah, so? That's an unfortunate reality in the business world; what you think is best for everyone may not be what the established players want to sell.
I was only checking here to see if by marketing his own line of saws he was doing things on the free market. I wanted to ensure our definitions jived. Gass (Goss?) is now doing thing the way you'd like him to, and you still put up an objection. Don't you ever give second chances?
Gass felt he invented something worthwhile, and judging from the buzz I hear about it many people agree. However we fail to see any of the major saw manufacturers picking it up. This begs the question why? Perhaps Gass is asking too much, which is a possibility. Perhaps they see its as possible liability. The important thing is that the free market never got to make the decision, some thin necked nerd at the company made it. Gass's error was to try to mandate it himself, had anybody else done it (you or I) we wouldn't be having this discussion.
It's not the government's job to tell people what they're allowed to buy and sell, unless you live in a command economy.
You'd rather trust a company who's sole purpose is to make money? At least you elected the government. Theoretically they represent you.
"Further the question of if the invention is good or bad hasn't been raised by you."
Of course not; it's not part of my problem with Gass. My only problem is that he went to the government to attempt to mandate his technology.
Okay... You should re-read your earlier threads. My initial reply was to: However, if your invention isn't good enough that people want to voluntarily spend their hard-earned money on it, then what makes you think you "deserve" to profit from it? This seems to be the core of the argument here. To me this raises whether Gass's invention is 'good enough', however you had not touched on that point. My response was that the invention never had the opportunity to be 'good enough' as it never made it to the public. You imply that the invention is not good enough, which is why I question you on this point.
"I see nothing wrong with rewarding people for good ideas."
But you don't see anything wrong with the government forcing the public to reward people for supposedly good ideas? I do.
I think you're taking my quote out of context. I am ONLY talking about the patent laws here. Here is my full paragraph:
As I've noted the mandate never asked to require people to use the patented technology. The patent laws provide a monopoly on producing an item to encourage innovation. The monopoly is clearly not infinite and realistically lasts for less than 20 years of the products life span (marketing and development time cut into it). I see nothing wrong with rewarding people for good ideas.
The mandate is not the reward. The patent itself is the reward. If you can not see the value in patents, you should read up on them more.
What about a $10,000 device? Is that reasonable? Because a $250 device on a tablesaw is a much larger fraction of the item's whole value than a $250 item on a $20k-40k car, or a $250 item on a $200k house. You can buy an entire tablesaw for $250.
No a $10,000 device would not be reasonable. Your value of $250 is made up, a licensing fee of 8% is mentioned in the mandate. A $250 would therefore have a $20 licensing fee added. Regardless a reasonable mandate in my opinion would not include jobsite/portable table saws as they may be exposed to damp conditions that would adversely affect the inventions use. That is my opinion of course.
Strawman tactic-
Set up the strawman: Safety conscious people must drive Volvos (or other similar cars) with 10+ airbags...
Knock down the straw man: You do not drive a Volvo.
Connect the Strawman: You do not drive a Volvo, so you are not safety conscious...
Regardless we are talking about table saw accidents. Vehicles are a different category, cars must pass government standards before they are allowed on the roads. The government enacts many safety standards, governs and licenses their use. To this point you have shown no proof that there are not patents regarding safety features on cars. I would suggest that you do further research before using this analogy. For instance the first patents for air bags were issued during WW II.
"Secondly you're arguing that because he doesn't own something he can not afford that he is a hypocrite!"
Yes, it's absolutely hypocritical. Sorry, but not everyone can afford a $3500 tablesaw.
Hypocrite: a person who professes beliefs and opinions that they do not hold.
A person can be safety conscious and still not drive a Mercedes. I don't and I am very safety conscious. I buy the safest cars and tools I can afford. I profess the belief that safety is important, and I do everything in my means to hold to it. It is out of my means to drive a $60,000 - $90,000 car.
Secondly a $3500 Table saw is not your only choice, nor would it be. In fact I understand SawStop will be releasing their contractor saw soon for under $1000. If a reasonable mandate you would still have choices between different saw manufacturers, as they would all have to meet this standard.
"I was only checking here to see if by marketing his own line of saws he was doing things on the free market. I wanted to ensure our definitions jived. Gass (Goss?) is now doing thing the way you'd like him to, and you still put up an objection. Don't you ever give second chances?"Absolutely not. The only time I believe in second chances is when people give a sincere apology for their misdeeds. A lot of corporations are guilty of really evil things, and I try not to ever buy from them. Even if their behavior has changed, I'm still waiting for public apologies from them."Gass's error was to try to mandate it himself, had anybody else done it (you or I) we wouldn't be having this discussion."Exactly right."You'd rather trust a company who's sole purpose is to make money? At least you elected the government. Theoretically they represent you."A democratic government is really just tyranny by the majority. But no, I don't trust any one company. However, in the free market system, there's multiple companies out there all competing for my money. So hopefully one of them will offer a product that meets my needs, at a price I can afford. Usually companies will try to improve their product and add features that customers want, so that they can get more customers. It doesn't always work (especially in cases where there's a cartel, like with the oil industry and the music/media industries), but it's a lot better than a command economy with monopolies in every industry."t is out of my means to drive a $60,000 - $90,000 car.
Secondly a $3500 Table saw is not your only choice, nor would it be. In fact I understand SawStop will be releasing their contractor saw soon for under $1000. If a reasonable mandate you would still have choices between different saw manufacturers, as they would all have to meet this standard."It's out of my means to drive a $60k car, or to buy a $1000 tablesaw. If the technology were mandated, yes, all saw manufacturers would have to meet the standard, but if the license fee is high, that could mean the end of $300 tablesaws, and force all saws to be over $1k. That's not much different from a mandate forcing all cars to suddenly jump in price from a low-end $20k to a minimum $60k. Also, as I pointed out in another message, cars are usually financed, so $1k in safety equipment doesn't add that much to your payments. But no one finances tablesaws; you usually buy them with cash, unless you're the kind to keep high balances on your high-interest credit cards.Of course, this is all speculation since we don't know exactly what it'd cost to add Gass' device to every saw (license fee plus actual engineering and production costs).
From an earlier message:
Companies in the industry always want to advance the state of the art, and they make money not on patents (not most of them anyway, only the patent trolls), but on sales of product.
Not all companies are in the computer industry. Lots of companies make money licensing inventions to other companies. Even in the high tech industry, TV's are often made by multiple companies using technology licenses from another. Industry standards can also be used to suppress technology, which is Goss's argument.
As well you contradict yourself in this message:
Safety doesn't sell.
People wanted safer cars, and also got insurance discounts for them.
In your comment on cars, you imply that safety sells.
When the government required automakers to install airbags, they worded the requirement in such a way that only "passive safety devices" were required, not airbags.
You really should check the wording of the petition on the link BossCrunk posted. The requirements do not state "SawStop", rather set forth a set of requirements. As I posted in the earlier message, one could develop a system that meets these requirements that is not SawStop. Perhaps a thermal system or even a camera driven system. Therefore your analogy is not valid.
">Safety doesn't sell.
>People wanted safer cars, and also got insurance discounts for them.
In your comment on cars, you imply that safety sells."Safety sells in cars, but it doesn't (apparently) in table saws. The people who buy tablesaws are not representative of the average car buyer (especially since women are the majority of car buyers these days, and many of them have kids, so safety is a much bigger concern to them than the average tablesaw buyer, who's probably a middle-aged hobbyist male working in his garage with a small budget).I wouldn't have a problem with a petition if the one working, patented technology that currently meets the requirements weren't owned by the same guy who started the petition. It's an obvious conflict of interest.
Safety doesn't sell in cars. Most the the major safety advances have come only from mandates. Even back in the 50's, when Dupont had developed safety glass, Dupont (a major owner of GM stock) couldn't persuade GM to adopt the product until mandated.
Riving knives are now being mandated. They will phase in over time but will be coming. The Powermatic 2000 is just the first. New patents will begin to differentiate saws from US producers, the knockoff products from Grizzley et. al. will have to disappear, but since the new riving knife designs will be protected they, or someone, will have to engineer new designs. Very interesting times are a coming for tablesaw manufacturers.
"Safety doesn't sell in cars. Most the the major safety advances have come only from mandates. Even back in the 50's, when Dupont had developed safety glass, Dupont (a major owner of GM stock) couldn't persuade GM to adopt the product until mandated."I disagree. Your example is from the 50s, which was notorious for being a time when people didn't think about safety. Heck, drunk driving wasn't even considered a problem back then: "it was the alcohol that did it!" Fast forward to the 90s and later: safety is a selling point now. Why do you think so many soccer moms are buying gigantic SUVs? (I know, they're not necessarily safe, especially in a collision with a brick wall, but they have the appearance of safety through greater mass, and generally are safer in a collision with a much smaller vehicle.) Or why high-end cars have so many airbags, when the government only requires two (to my knowledge)? Or why safety is probably the biggest part of Volvo's reputation? I'm (barely) old enough to remember the days when people didn't routinely wear seat belts, and safety was scoffed at, but people in general are far more safety-conscious now.But there's still an important matter of economics. Safety doesn't add that much to the price of a car as a percentage, and more importantly, cars are usually financed. Who takes out a loan to buy a tablesaw?
Lets attempt to bring this thread back to topic...
There is obviously a controversy regarding the SawStop invention.
I personally think the invention is worthwhile. I believe that accidents happen even when you're mentally there, and doing the right thing. I also believe that regardless of how much we profess we do everything safely, we don't. We try our best, but it's the moment of inattention, a wood that splinters or warp unexpectedly, or a comfort level grown too high with a machine.
I have not used but seen the saw, and it appears to be a solid. I think that they went the correct direction by building a high quality cabinet saw rather than some cheap knockoff. That's a first impression, I will leave the reviews to those that use it on a regular basis.
The idea has been presented that if the device is in place then people may allow their hands to get closer to the blade. I find this absurd. I do not drive my car any differently because it has a seatbelt and an airbag. I do not believe that any safety device replace the fundamentals of use. I think that anyone who would alter their technique when using a sawstop table saw should not be using a table saw at all. Again I repeat, safety devices should not alter the fundamentals of safe work.
Two points have be brought up that should be considered:
I think BossCrunk made reference to the fact that the mechanism itself may degrade over time. The second is that Gass had no intention of manufacturing the Saws, and I wonder if the technology is accepted if he would continue to do so. This of course has a direct consequence to the availability of parts, although one would hope that the expendables were somewhat standard.
Discussing the role of government is beyond the scope of determining weather to use the SawStop. Table saws already have rules governing their manufacturing (guards and splitter), so this is a moot point and should not factor into whether the saw is purchased. Regardless of the invention or bankruptcy of SawStop, the standards have been in place and will remain in place.
Regarding the SawStop companies ethics by attempting to get a mandate for a "similar" safety features use. I think this is a personal choice. My personal opinion is that we have not heard the full story.
W ask two questions, from the perspective of business ethics: Is it ethical for Gass to try to force the device on the manufacturers? (Probably not) Is it ethical for manufacturers to withhold a safety device for fear of profit loss or lawsuits? (Probably not) Again I say 'probably not' as I do not know the whole story. I think both the industry and Mr Gass are acting in the best interests of themselves, we as consumers have to decided whether our interests are in line with Gass or the other manufacturers.
Have fun and stay safe.
Buster
I assume that if Gass's original petition and public comments are available online then the text of the CPSC ruling is available as well. I don't have time to look for it, but I'd bet it's a good read and would fill in a lot of blanks.
What I find interesting is that Dgreen responds tocritiques of his/her arguments as ad hominen attacks on his/her intelligence and feels the need to trot out proof of his/her mental acuity. And claiming others advocate for his/her labotomy, however sarcastically, reveals the belief that those who disagree aren't in the top 2 %. I wonder if Mensa has adopted the Dgreen standard of admission yet?
WOW! I can't believe I read the whole thing! A really boring day at work. I was just checking in to see if someone had answered a different post and stumbled across this slug fest. It was entertaining and there were a lot of good points made by many and a lot of disagreement over some very fine points. I should know better but am compelled to add my $0.02
I learned woodworking back in the early 60's, there were no such things as safety equipment on anything much less woodworking equipment. There were also a lot of old woodworkers and other workers in industry missing digits. The fear I had back then as a kid of a sharp blade spinning at 5500 RPM has for all practical purposes stuck with me. I learned my woodworking in my Dad's hobby shop on a table saw with no guard, then on to the public school system where in our woodshop class we had the oldest saw I had ever seen, it too had no guard. To this day, stupid or not, I, as many other woodworkers, work with no guard. I work in industry, I've seen people that have lost fingers and hands in industrial accidents, it's not pleasant. The industry I work in preaches and practices safety every day. But we as individuals have to make some decisions as to how much risk we want to live with.
My opinion of the current slate of blade guards is similar to that of many other woodworkers, they aren't worth the fight to deal with them. They will however tell you that your are going to loose a finger just a split second before it happens. I'm attentive in the shop and I don't have a beer until I'm finished in the shop for the day. With all the workplace safety training I've had over my working life, I try to follow all but one of these rules, and that's "don't operate equipment without the safety in place." If I'm tired or not really into what I'm doing, I just don't do it. If an operation looks scarry, it probably is and I find another way to do it. To me safety is not as much a device as a way of working.
The question I would have to ask myself if I were in the market for a new table saw is would I really be safer with a Saw Stop or is there another way to prevent accidents and contact with the blade? And is the Saw Stop fool proof or am I buying a false sense of security? In industry we find ways to work safely at our jobs and for the people that work for us. Even if a Saw Stop table saw is safer than your old friendly Delta there are plenty of other opportunities to get hurt in the shop. As individuals we have the obligation to weigh the risks and make intelligent decisions based on many different factors and how those affect us personally. Frankly, if you want to be totally safe in your work or hobby and you are currently a woodworker, my suggestion would be to find another line of work or another hobby like knitting. Woodworking with or without a Saw Stop is not the most user friendly thing you can do.
I have to add this little tidbit, when in Jr High woodshop one of the other students cut his finger severely with a saw. . . it happened to be a hand saw and not the table saw. Had he done the same dumb thing with the table saw he would have cut it off. And had a Saw Stop table saw been in place back then, that likely would not have happened. Ah, the advantages of not being 13.
MR,
"The fear I had back then as a kid of a sharp blade spinning at 5500 RPM has for all practical purposes stuck with me."
For me it was the blood trail from my dad's TS, across the basement and up the stairs to the kitchen sink followed by months of rehab and loss of use of two digits - though they were able to sew them back on, they never really worked well.
When he passed away, I passed on inheriting his old Craftsman TS. Just did not trust it.
Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. Frank Lloyd Wright
Edited 8/11/2006 4:57 pm by Rennie
Edited 8/11/2006 4:58 pm by Rennie
Rennie,
"For me it was the blood trail from my dad's TS, across the basement and up the stairs to the kitchen sink"
Yes, blood does make an indelible memory! When I worked for my Dad, I was stocking shelves and using a box opener (razor blade with a handle) to open the boxes. I looked up for some reason, and when I looked down I had made an inch and a half slit in my forearm. I'm not sure what was worse the cut, the look on my Dad's face when I showed him what I had done, or the hell he got from my Mother for letting me work with such a dangerous piece of equipment. I'll never forget that and I'll never look up again when using a tool.
Well said.
"safety is not as much a device as a way of working"
If just one person heeds that your .02 was worth a fortune.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
To me safety is not as much a device as a way of working.
I 100% agree. IMO anybody that doesn't understand this should not be working wood.
... would I really be safer with a Saw Stop or is there another way to prevent accidents and contact with the blade?
I personally believe a proper splitter and a proper guard do way more to prevent accidents than the SawStop device. Bosscrunk also pointed out that a power feeder would naturally be much safer. The SawStop device is merely an extra step, and of course as you pointed out we all have to weight the benefits.
And is the Saw Stop fool proof or am I buying a false sense of security?
As you noted, safety is a way of working. If people begin to change the way the work because the SawStop will protect them, they probably shouldn't be working wood. The device is only added insurance, not a safety net.
No safety device is ever full proof anyway. People still die in car accidents with seat belts and airbags. But the important this is LESS people die.
Even if a Saw Stop table saw is safer than your old friendly Delta there are plenty of other opportunities to get hurt in the shop.
That's like saying why use a seatbelt in a car, when you get to the parking lot someone might run you over. Woodworking is a dangerous hobby, most things we do have an element of risk to them. The issue isn't about being totally safe, it's a about being safer. All we can do is make each process as safe as we can.
As individuals we have the obligation to weigh the risks and make intelligent decisions based on many different factors and how those affect us personally.
Good advice again.
What "critique" are you referring to? And I don't recall claiming anyone advocated a lobotomy. I happen to like a little sarcastic humor. I find your post lacking in thought and logic.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Your recall is poor then. <<My abject apologies for the sin of being smart and for having the unmitigated gall to think that I know best how to spend my money. I will immediately report to a government education center for a lobotomy so I will fit in better.>> through your heavy handed sarcasm it's clear that you consider yourself smarter than those who would argue with you, or at least smarter than 98% of them.
I see no claim that anyone is advocating anything. Perhaps my recall is not as poor as your vocabulary and comprehension.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
perhaps, but no.
Can you say "rhetorical"?
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Careful or they may take back one of your pieces of paper. Your statement employed sarcasm for rhetorical effect. These terms aren't mutually exclusive.
There was no sarcasm intended in that rhetorical question.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Geeeze, a thread since Aug 8, 104 comments, and still no Republican vs Democrat bashing -- only nasty comments on intelligence, lawyers, and inventors.
Oh, BTW, I thought the CAFE was where people insulted each other.
Woodworking is the common thread here -- or should be.
Now, who is going to bash me?
A bad day woodworking is better than a good day working -- yes, I'm retired!
Dunno..... which of the catagories you mentioned do you fit into? Enter a combination for the best bashing!
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Who said riving knives are being mandated? You have anything in print on this? I'd like to read it.A riving knife may minimize kickback but people will still be able to slice off their digits. I'd like to have a riving knife but I would be happy with a better splitter. I still haven't had a chance to make one yet but I haven't needed my saw much lately.If the PM2000 is the new standard, Delta will be in the same ballpark as the pure imports.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
with regards to federaly mandated "patented technology" the V-Chip is one example. Tri-Vision owns the patent for the chip and all TV manufactures must license this technology from them. (at least for analog TV's) There is a new open source V-Chip for digital TV's devices though. Not to mention that the V-chip is being used so little as to be more or less useless.Only two things money can't buy, True Love and Home Grown Tomatoes...Misty River Band
How much money is he asking for? Has anyone actually put their fingers into the blade of the Saw Stop.I received a dvd from Saw Stop it show a man that lost four fingers when he was 19 yrs.old. I am not shure that it is the proper way to sell the saw, we are all aware of what can and unfortunately does happen when a hand comes in contact with a spinning saw blade,I to have felt that pain.Sometimes no matter how safe manufactures make their products its the individual that makes the difference. With all the air bags in our cars more people die each new year and i ask why.
I'm really not sure how much he's asking for, as I've heard different reports. The most common one seems to be 8% of a saw's price, which is really quite high. I heard some other report that he wanted 8% of all saws sold, regardless of whether they had the device or not.As for air bags, I don't have the fatality figures by year in front of me, but I do know that airbags have been credited with saving a lot of lives, but also (and maybe more importantly), they've saved a lot of people from horrible and debilitating injuries they might have otherwise received. That second group wouldn't be reflected in fatality figures, since those would by definition not include people who are maimed or crippled, but still survive. However, if the figures still show at least as many people dying each year, I'd postulate that this is due to the fact that more people are driving every year, there's more people on the road, they're driving more miles, etc. A study determining the fatalities per passenger-mile would be good to look at here.As for the individual, I have to agree. Unlike airbags and other automotive safety stuff, where you're trying to protect yourself not only from your own stupid mistakes, but also those of all the people around you, with the SawStop it only protects you from yourself, and only from one particular type of accident. Arguably, this particular type of accident isn't even all that common with tablesaws; kickback is. I've been doing this hobby off-and-on for a few years, and as a relative beginner I've never cut my fingers or had what I felt was a close call with the blade. However, I've had several kickback incidents, including one which left a huge bruise on my chest.If I had the opportunity to pick between two tablesaws, equally priced, with one having the SawStop feature, and one having some kind of feature that reliably prevented kickback, I'd pick the latter, since that's something that's far more likely to happen to me.
The Sawstop, because it has a riving knife, is also much less likely to cause kickback injuries.
We have had the Sawstop brake triggered once in the Fine Woodworking Shop, a miter gauge with an aluminum fence was pushed into the blade and the safety mechanim worked exactly as advertised, the fence was barely scratched. We've since retired any jigs with metal fences.
John White, Shop Manager, Fine Woodworking Magazine
Oh, I forgot to counter this claim:"If someone develops a new technology, and it is a clear advance over existing methods, they deserve to be compensated for their intellectual property."They do? Says who? Was Sony compensated for Beta, even though it was technically superior to VHS at the time? No, I think they lost money on it after everyone abandoned it for the cheaper VHS.No one "deserves" anything. If they can convince people it's better, and make money that way, then fine. But don't use the government to force it on them.As for Europe, I'm not aware of any European countries mandating SawStop either. They may have mandated riving knives, but that's not something covered by a patent, as riving knives have been around for decades, and there's multiple ways of implementing them.
If you use the Betamax model and the same thing happens this time, Saw Stop will help someone with a competing design get theirs to work, Saw Stop will charge royalties for others to make parts like theirs and the other manufacturer won't charge, even though it won't be quite as good. Until the smaller tape formats and digital video recording took over, Beta and VHS were about even, worldwide. Here in the US, where "I gotta get it if it's more, bigger, louder, juicier or meatier", VHS won out for the idiotic reason that they could get a tape that was longer. And thinner. Thinner meant that the bottom edge would stretch and cause the synch to go out, making it impossible to A) watch the tape at all or B) get a clear picture and sound.America- where you can get what you want, when you want it, a lot of it, all the time. People used to avoid cheap imported products because they weren't as good. Now, they buy the cheap stuff. Some don't, but they're in the minority who want only the best.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
The problem with SawStop and Gass's attempt to mandate it through the CPSC is that his technology is patented, and because of that he stood to make a lot of money by having it mandated.
It should be noted that the petition does not try to mandate SawStop, rather it atempts to mandate "a detection system capable of detecting contact or dangerous proximity between a person and the saw blade..." Currently the SawStop is the only system I know of that can do this, but the SawStop patent would not prevent any other company from developing a system that meets the parameters of the mandate.
I can not speak to Gass's intention, but I agree that he would beneifit from the mandate at least in the short term. Regardless of his intentions this is the perception that he and Sawstop will have to live with.I'm all for federal mandation of safety standards if 1) the benefit is clear and obvious, and 2) the technology is not patented.
It would be wrong to mandate a patent. However as pointed out they are not mandating the SawStop, rather a concept regarding contact with the blade. How it is implemented is up to the manufecturer.If he wants to make money on his invention, then he can put his product out in the free market, and let the market decide if his technology is worth the money. But if he really wants to make saws safer for everyone, then he needs to make it royalty-free so there's no economic disincentive for manufacturers to implement it. There is no in-between here.
If he put it royalty free he would make no money. He has the right to make money from his work. Further this would set a very bad precident, what would the incentive be to invent items for safety if you were expected to give them away? Manufacturingthe saws is the correct thing and the market will speak to it; I assume this is what you meant by putting them on the free market.
"If he put it royalty free he would make no money. He has the right to make money from his work. Further this would set a very bad precident, what would the incentive be to invent items for safety if you were expected to give them away?"No, he has NO right no make money from his work. He has the right to ATTEMPT to make money. There's a big difference there.I'd like to make a career out of making very bad art and selling it for enormous prices. But for some reason, no one's buying my overpriced, ugly art. But I have a right to make money!! So the government should give me (lots of taxpayer) money for my ugly art, right?? (Yes, NEA, I'm aiming for you.)I'm not against someone making money by inventing safety devices. I'm against the government giving someone a legal monopoly on safety devices by mandating them. If someone wants to invent a safety device, and then just sell it on the free market, by all means go right ahead. But don't go running to the government to force people to use it because no one's buying it without coercion.Maybe the wording did allow other implementations, not covered by Gass' patent. But the whole thing stinks if you ask me, since he had the one working (and patented) implementation and was also the one pushing to mandate it. I could be wrong, but when people pushed the automakers and/or the government for safer cars (airbags, etc.), these same people didn't happen to conveniently have patents on the necessary items; they just wanted safer cars, and weren't trying to make money from their campaign. There's lots of non-profit groups working for social change in this way, and I don't see them attempting to profit off of it. There's also other people trying to make money by inventing useful things (some for safety), but these people try to make money by just selling their invention or devices on the free market. It's not often I see an incident like what Gass did, though I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from a lawyer.
No, he has NO right no make money from his work. He has the right to ATTEMPT to make money. There's a big difference there.
Confused again. There is no difference. A right is not a guarantee you will. I have the right to work, it does not guarantee that I will or that I will even find a job. It just means that I have the right to do it. The patent laws give the owner the right to manufacture, or license the patent to someone else for manufacture. It does not guarantee that you will manufacture or that someone else will license it.
I'd like to make a career out of making very bad art ... So the government should give me (lots of taxpayer) money for my ugly art, right??
LOL. Looks like were all trying for the same job!
Maybe the wording did allow other implementations, not covered by Gass' patent. But the whole thing stinks if you ask me, since he had the one working (and patented) implementation and was also the one pushing to mandate it.
The wording does allow for other devices. Personally I think any mandate would have to allow for more time to develop alternative devices. Say included on all new saw models by 2015, and on older models by 2018. Which of course would eat drastically into Gass's patent, but that's life. There is no guarantee.
I agree it does stink from our level. But as noted in previous threads, we probably do not know the whole story. We see only 1/4 of the facts, and half the story. So how are we to make an accurate decision on Gass's business practice? Every time Sawstop is brought up, this mandate is brought up. I think Gass made an error by going this route. It takes away from the initial goal of the Sawstop, as well as it's current implementation.
They don't have to give the royalties away, just make it a reasonable amount. After all, rather than get no royalties at all because they're too high, they would make a lot more by getting a couple of the bigger makers on board. The Chinese/Taiwanese partnerships have nothing to do with it- they didn't add them when the machines were made here and that hasn't changed, even though it would cost less now. The saws are made to spec and if it's not spec'd with the safety features, it won't be added at the plant. I talked with someone in technical at Grizzly about saw safety items like riving knives and he said they have meetings where this could be brought up for discussion. I guess we'll see where this goes.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Riving knives are coming in the US. The regulations have already been issued but there is a long phase in period. If I remember correctly new models will have to have them after the end of next year and old models will need them several years later.
Since it's probably not feasible to cheaply retrofit to the old models new ones, such as the Powermatic 2000 will dominate. Impact on the Chinese clones could be significant, since the new ones will be patent protected I assume so that no more Unisaw knockoffs without complete new engineering.
Woodcraft has taken up distribution of SawStop. Not all franchisees have signed on (my local Woodcraft hasn't but two in neighboring states have) but, Woodcraft isn't going to get into an item without a lot of research. I have purchased one and will add my Excalibur slider to it.
I'm 60 and this saw will outlive me. At 500+ lbs it is massive and well built. My grandchildren are becoming interested in woodworking and if an extra grand for this saw will help protect them from serious injury then it is money well spent.
I think Bill Gass crapped his own nest. Before he got mad at his money I believe he made a living as a patent and trademark attorney representing large corporations like the ones he wanted the U.S. CPSC to help him extort (by mandate) into licensing the SawStop device.
Bill Gass IS one of the big guys, or at least he used to represent them in their patent and trademark affairs.
Correct me if I'm wrong about his practice specialty.
I don't have any opinion on what some guy named Bill Gass did, but Steve Gass invented the SawStop device.
You're right about his past life. It was in the link posted here or in another thread. He also has an engineering degree.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
I do recall reading those earlier threads, and no I do not agree with the methods he used to get his invention to market. But, I look at it kind of like air bags on a car, if there are advancements in technolgy to make things safer, I am all for that, and will take every opportunity to work in a safer environment. With the saw stop, I think the added cost is well worth the injury prevention offered. After my wife watched the Sawstop video she insisted that I should spend the extra for the Sawstop.
Rob
I have worked on sawstops and really liked them, the negatives were that the handwheel plastic got damaged when overtightened, the fences weren't the best and changing the cartridges out between blade and dado set can test your patience and agility. (they were school equipment so the fence comment may not be valid in your own shop where you can tweak it better).I even found some discounted units when it came to buying my own saw but in the end I chose the Laguna TSS because of the sliding table, dust collection, heavy build and the Altendorf style fence. (you can fit the Jessem slider to the Sawstop but it doesn't appear to be in the same league). I haven't got the TSS set up yet so no review.If I hadn't wanted a good sliding table of that size so bad I would have jumped on the Sawstop. NB I'm pretty sure that if you trigger a blade (or it goes off in error) you can return it to them for a replacement for free, they get to analyze the unit.
I even found some discounted units when it came to buying my own saw but in the end I chose the Laguna TSS because of the sliding table, dust collection, heavy build and the Altendorf style fence. (you can fit the Jessem slider to the Sawstop but it doesn't appear to be in the same league). I haven't got the TSS set up yet so no review.
You made the right choice, because the SawStop as a tablesaw can't touch the unit you bought. Can't touch it.
I believe one issue slowing the sales of the SawStop is potential liability suits. Take a multi-cabinet-saw shop: they purchase one SawStop and an employee is hurt on one of the older saws, they are dead meat in court. They knew there was a safer way and they did not follow it. "They should have replaced ALL of their saws." A bad economic choice.
Frosty
I would say the same thing is true for manufacturers considering adding a SawStop saw to their line-up. Say Delta makes it available on the Uni-Saw. Now every other saw they sell (and those in particular without a SawStop option even available) become defective, unsafe saws.You'll have guys testifying they picked up a $250 table-top saw that didn't have SawStop as an option (and they surely would have spent the extra $300 dollars for if only Delta made a table-top SawStop saw and the BigBox store stocked it).As long as all U.S. manufacturers are using basically the same safety device (even if far less than the optimum), they are all somewhat safe from liability). They are creating their own definition of 'state-of-the-art' safety. If Delta is comfortable with their annual liability expenditures and has reasonable control over them, why take the risk? Sommething might go wrong with SawStop saws (blade brakes might have a 20 year shelf-life or something) or Delta may have just given plaintiffs' attorneys across the country concrete proof that it is feasible to build a safer saw.Now that SawStop is out there, if it picks up some market share, it will be interesting to see if the big players react at all. Hard to say, but it will be interesting.Matt
Sawstop's been slashdotted
http://slashdot.org/articles/06/08/14/1241211.shtml
again.
-Toby
Edited 8/14/2006 11:59 am ET by tkb
I've had my SawStop cabinet saw for a year now & am completely satisfied. I added a Forrester blade. Smooth as silk. Tested it this way and that and couldn't find anything out of adjustment except the fence and it only took a few minutes to square it upu. I figure if the company goes belly up I can turn the knob on the side disabling the instant stop feature and continue as if I'd bought a Powermatic which would have been my second choice. Of course I purchased an extra cartridge to have on hand. I'm doing without a band saw until I can get one from SawStop.
May I ask a question? What did you consider besides the Sawstop? Was the safty feature the reason you went with them? It sounded like you are really satisfied with your decision, but if you were in the high price cabinet area, they would probably be satisfactory too. My point being I guess is it is difficult to look back and justify a safty feature unless you were to have a case to examine, otherwise, were talking about compareing iron saws against iron saws. I think justisfication on the extra money for the safty feature in difficult.
"I think justisfication on (of) the extra money for the safty feature in (is) difficult." May I ask why? Let's say the owner uses the table saw for ...... ohhh, 15 years, to be on the conservative side. And maybe the SawStop costs $1200 more than, for example, a PM2000 (3HP motor, 50-some-odd-inch fence with extension), just roughing it out here. That's $80/year for the extra safety feature. Seems cheap to me.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
You are right. And I meant the justification in general terms for everyone. I know a car is somewhat safe, but a tank is safer, but then I can't affort a tank. Guessing, I would say more saws will sell today without the Sawstop feature. These people had to make a difficult decision based on their money, knowledge, and safty experiences. My hope is that I can get a retro fit soon, not have to wait for 10 years. Thanks
Warning, my post is a bit long and merely an annecdote.
I was on the debate team in high school. One year the topic related to government mandates for safety. My memory (I say this to qualify the accuracy of my statements.) is that one argument against mandatory seatbelt laws was based on the work of an Econ. Professor from U. of Chicago named Petlzman. The argument ran something like this: People willingly live with a static level of perceived risk. Any increase in their perception of safety engenders greater risk taking to maintain the same level of risk perception. Requiring seatbelt usage would make people feel safer and, therefore, cause them to increase their risky behavior on the road. Their riskier behavior would, in turn, lead to more injuries to pedestrians and other innocent bystanders. Asserting that injuries inflicted on others is much worse for society than suffering inflicted on onself, society shouldn't adopt seatbelt laws because any increase in injuries to bystanders is unacceptable.
Of course there were many attacks on this position and I don't know if any studies have sought to test this theory, but it's interesting to see that ithis argument still has currency and that automobile safety is so often the metaphor we use for discussions concerning governmental regulation of safety.
"Requiring seatbelt usage would make people feel safer and, therefore, cause them to increase their risky behavior on the road." Maybe insurance premiums weren't as high or volatile then as they are now, LOL!! The pain of higher premiums is enough to keep me out of trouble, seatbelt or no.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I hear you on that.
I always waited for someone to use this argument in the positive, i.e. asking the government to make people feel more at risk so that they would act more safely. No one every did. My suggestion - requiring all cars to me made out of tin. the weight savings might also decrease fuel usage to boot. ;)
My response: Prof Peltzman would do his theory a world of good if he left his office once in a while and stopped by an ER, say Saturday night after ~11 PM. His perception of risk might change a wee bit. Most people who engage in risky behavior (such as young male drivers) do so because they do not connect the risk of their behavior with personal consequences. As they get older and have friends and family members who end up on the casulty list, they do make that connection. The enforcement of seat belt laws (in many states driving unbelted is a violation by itself) has led to a drop in the serious accident and fatality rates- despite an increase in driving.Most serious woodworkers (amateur or professional), have had enough close calls or real injuries to develop a healthy respect for TS, routers and shapers, even chisels (my nemesis). Those who don't are called "Lefty".Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Interesting anecdote. I have stated that from my own experience with the Sawstop knowing the device is there has not changed my approach to using the tool. There is something about a saw blade whizzing around at somewhat close proximity to my flesh that triggers a self-preservation instinct or something. Something engrained will not allow me to take a risk with my skinners. Visitors to the shop want to see the safety brake in action. Nobody has volunteered for that duty.
-Paul
I find the Saw Stop story very interesting.The saw manufacturers have a great business model in which to sell the their products: At risk. As in, you know the risk associated with our product, so should you injure yourself you're on your own.I buy a Delta saw tomorrow, cut off my fingers and I'm SOL. There's no liability whatsoever for Delta.But imagine purchasing the same saw, with new "saw stop" technology. I contact the blade and for some reason the mechanism fails. Now, Delta has big problem on their hands. No pun intended.Having said that, I'm in the market for a table saw, and the SS is at the top of the list. I don't care about the price. I do care about my fingers.- - - - - - - - Devil is in the details. Or is that caulk?
"I contact the blade and for some reason the mechanism fails. Now, Delta has big problem on their hands." I think that was the exact reasoning WMH and Delta attornies used to squelch the deal to use the technology.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Hopefully that was only part of the reason. The sole source aspect was also troubling as was the onerous license requiring a relatively large chunk of the gross sale. The fee amounted to roughly 75 percent of the retail markup. With any kind of luck the other companies are working feverishly on a device that does the same job but does not require replacing the blade and an expensive cartridge that can only be supplied by one company who hopefully does'nt go under. Competition and innovation are a good thing. If a safer saw starts eating into market share you can bet your bottom dollar the others will race to catch up. They are always going to have to deal with lawsuits .
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
dgreen,
Many years ago (mid 70's) IBM came out with self-correcting device for their electric typewriters. It was terriffic, no more white-out, just push a few buttons and the typo was corrected. I had 1000 typewriters at the hospital and expected everyone would be demanding a new unit with the feature( new typewriter=$700 plus feature=$850). I told everyone we had to wait for competition to come up with a less costly solution...thinking an addon device would be easy to develope.
It took nearly 20 years for Winders '95' but it sure was one hellofa solution. Perhaps this is what we'll see with the TS...a whole new approach (CNC)
It's not hard to justify if you consider the cost, pain and potential long-term effects of an injury. I do not think you should be forced to buy one, though. I probably will buy one in the next few years, or something similar.My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
I agree. You know when I first started to drive a car, there were safty belts that you sat on. That went on for a few years and then I think they were in enforced. My Aunt was in a car acident and was totlly paralized from her neck down...no safty belt on, but my uncle had is on. I don't know if Sawstops feature will ever get enforced like safty belts, but I could see it in schools. I wish I had one. Whats stopping me. I have an old Sears table saw. There is no retro fits, and my only joice is to start over with a new saw....and thats $3000. I think the ans. has to be for a company to step in with a cheaper version of the safty feature, an outside company that is pushing safty more....Do you have Gates number? Johnson & Johnson? I can't see the existing saw companies shutting down their lines to do something that would increase prices in an already competitive market. It will never happen.
I was considering the Powermatic & Unisaw. I bought the SawStop because it is essentially a beefed up PM with the safety feature. I value the safety feature highly. I was moving from an inexpensive contractor model saw to cabinet.
Thanks, and I read your other log on prices, comparisons, and everything. It gave some numbers to the subject.
Hello Guys,
A LOT has been said. So I'll be brief. My Shop is very well equiped. I know good tools when I see them. The Saw Stop is THE ABSOLUTE BEST MADE American style saw I have ever used. The RT series from Delta come close but they are 12" and up. Everything from the paint to the table machining to the elevation/bevel wheels to the internal mechanics are beautifull. The machining is unlike anything else on the market. If you see one in person, turn the wheels and look inside it is obvious.
I am a huge stickler for safety. My employees and me wear ear and eye protection whenever needed. Every machine has a gaurd, my TS has a $300 overhead gaurd. I also am conservative. No awkard cross cuts, no dicey rips, no dull blades, or odd miters on the TS. I use push sticks.
BUT I know that in spite of all that I am a second away from loosing a digit. One little moment is all it takes. It can, and does happen to EVERYBODY. I have had close calls and I believe that the overhead gaurd saved my hand once when it sliped on a dusty piece of plywood.
If you can afford the Saw Stop, Get it.
Pardon my spelling,
Mike
Make sure that your next project is beyond your skill and requires tools you don't have. You won't regret it.
Mike,
Very well said. I agree 100%.
-Paul
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled