Safety Device Could Make Table Saws Safer
July 21, 2010 – 9:35 am
A device that could allow the blade of a table saw to detect a human finger in its path could help prevent possibly hundreds of table saw-accident-related amputations every year. However, the power tool industry hasn’t been overly enthusiastic about including this device in their tools.
The device has been developed by an entrepreneur Steve Gass, and is known as SawStop. The device works through minute electrical currents on the blade and a computer-chip in the saw. These electrical impulses can sense that there’s a human hand in its path. Once a human hand detected, a safety brake is fired, and the blade comes to a stop in less than 3/1000th of a second. The maximum damage that a person might experience with a saw equipped with SawStop is a scratch or a nick. Without the safety device, the blade can easily slice through the person’s finger or hand, and probably through other fingers before the person even has time to realize what is happening.
The question is not about whether SawStop can prevent hundreds of table saw-related accidents every year. The question is whether power tool manufacturers are willing to include this device, in order to protect their consumers. Unfortunately, the industry has not been very willing to adapt this technology. Gass has presented the device to most of the major tool manufacturers, and from most of them, the response been the same-they are not interested, because they’re not too sure how it will sell.
Table saw-related accidents injure thousands of people, including wood workers, carpenters and do-it-yourselfer’s every year. There is a device out there that can eliminate hundreds of such accidents, but manufacturers won’t take steps to include these because of cost factors. It is estimated that adding the feature to one table saw will increase the cost of the saw by up to $100. To California product liability lawyers, it’s a small price to pay when you consider that thousands of people suffer varying degrees of amputations every year from these accidents.
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