Rob Strause
12-06-2004, 12:18 PM
Excuse the weepy post.
My 2.5 year old daughter - Hunter has started watching New Yankee and Woodworks with me every weekend. It's pretty funny to hear her ask me what "Norm made today?". She prefer David Marks. Little 2-year old stinker - what's she know.
This Saturday she sat on my lap for Woodworks and asked me if she could do projects with me..."when I get bigger". "Of course" I said. "We can do them together daddy?". "You bet."
Then I looked at that tiny hand holding mine it its tiny fingers and realized how horrible it would be to see her injured. Of course there are a lot of ways for a toddler, or anyone to get injured. But I decided right away to hold off on that new table saw purchase. I remember reading a thread here debating the Saw Stop system. Lots of opinions, prejudices as usual. That debate seemed kind of silly. The real debate should only be do you go first, or wait and see. It won't take long for the first "accident" to occur and the technology will sink or soar pretty quickly from there. I hope it works. We should all hope it works whether you choose to use it or not.
Just like riding a motorcycle, you can decide to go ahead in things despite the risks which may be acceptable, but are nevertheless incremental risks to those other, more necessary activities you participate in. So you minimize them as best you can. To not do so is just silly.
So I decided that I'm going to wait awhile, winter is here anyway, and get a Saw Stop saw. If reviews of the saw's overall quality are good, I'm willing to roll the dice on the technology.
Like I said, there are a lot of ways for a toddler, or anyone to get injured. There are a zillion activities, habits, methods for something to happen and a table saw is just one. There's no substitute for proper technique and healthy caution. But those little fingers are too precious to not manage risk down as much as possible. So why not. I'm in.
Ten fingers crossed that the early reviews and results are positive.
Rob
My 2.5 year old daughter - Hunter has started watching New Yankee and Woodworks with me every weekend. It's pretty funny to hear her ask me what "Norm made today?". She prefer David Marks. Little 2-year old stinker - what's she know.
This Saturday she sat on my lap for Woodworks and asked me if she could do projects with me..."when I get bigger". "Of course" I said. "We can do them together daddy?". "You bet."
Then I looked at that tiny hand holding mine it its tiny fingers and realized how horrible it would be to see her injured. Of course there are a lot of ways for a toddler, or anyone to get injured. But I decided right away to hold off on that new table saw purchase. I remember reading a thread here debating the Saw Stop system. Lots of opinions, prejudices as usual. That debate seemed kind of silly. The real debate should only be do you go first, or wait and see. It won't take long for the first "accident" to occur and the technology will sink or soar pretty quickly from there. I hope it works. We should all hope it works whether you choose to use it or not.
Just like riding a motorcycle, you can decide to go ahead in things despite the risks which may be acceptable, but are nevertheless incremental risks to those other, more necessary activities you participate in. So you minimize them as best you can. To not do so is just silly.
So I decided that I'm going to wait awhile, winter is here anyway, and get a Saw Stop saw. If reviews of the saw's overall quality are good, I'm willing to roll the dice on the technology.
Like I said, there are a lot of ways for a toddler, or anyone to get injured. There are a zillion activities, habits, methods for something to happen and a table saw is just one. There's no substitute for proper technique and healthy caution. But those little fingers are too precious to not manage risk down as much as possible. So why not. I'm in.
Ten fingers crossed that the early reviews and results are positive.
Rob