Sawstop news (non-legal, non-political)

[johnny means]

I e-mailed the folks over at Sawstop. Here's my e-mail and their reply.

I currently own a SS ICS which I am more than pleased with. I also own an SCMI format saw which is nearing the end of its time with me. I'll be replacing is with another large format saw. Is there any possibility of seeing a large slider from Sawstop in the next couple of years.

Johnny Means

Hi Johnny,

Thank you for contacting SawStop. In response to your request, yes, in fact that is hopefully about 1.5 years away, end of 2012. We hope to have a larger sliding table saw available at that time. Please check back with us soon! Thanks.

Assuming the quality and capacity are there, I'll be one of the first inline.

[Peter Quinn]

Nice. I use a newer griggio slider at work, sort of a smaller 5' slide with a 12" blade, and it has the euro brake which shuts down the blade real fast when you push the off button. Great for fast set up changes and other adjustments, wish all the machines stopped like that. It would be great if it would also stop quickly before something unintended got cut off! Nice option on the market if they can bring it.

[Lawrence Richards]

I'll bet that if they meet the standards it would be a hit in Europe too

Lawrence

[David Kumm]

It will be interesting to see how it fares in the marketplace. Proper slider technique keeps the hands away from the blade during all operations- for the longer sliders at least. Europe mandates a fast brake although not like sawstop. The euros have dominated the slider market because the build quality needed to keep slider settings in place make them so far way superior to the typical asian quality standards. I am assuming they are talking about a true slider and not a table saw with a sliding table on the side. Pneumatic clamps are the best safety device for sliders I have seen to date. Dave

[Mike Wilkins]

No disrespect to Sawstop or its users intended here. But sliding tablesaws are far safer than cabinet saws due to the built-in safety features. Your hands are far away from the cutting action, the standard riving knife reduces the chance of kick-back, and dust collection is great, both above and below the blade. Interesting to see what price point the new SS slider will come in.

[Matt Kestenbaum]

Interesting piece of news...as a very happy Sawstop owner who is very unhappy with my jointer, I have waiting to see the Sawstop jointer too. I was told by their tech support guys a about a year ago that they were close to commercializing that tool (completing R&D and working towards market launch). In the same call they told me that they had scrapped some previously discussed plans to launch a band saw too.

All politics aside, as a marketer and woodworker, I think they are savvy business people and have done a good job of seeking to build their brand upon very high quality--choosing to stay comfortably above the fray of cost optimizing. It does not surprise me that as they survey the market opportunities that they see themselves as having a competitive business case for that next tier up in price from the cabinet saw. Even less surprising to me would be if they found a strategic alliance partnership with a European manufacturer such as Griggio, Martin, Felder, etc. For a Euro player like one of these Sawstop brings immediate brand recognition, North American market understanding, potential incremental share of a new market segment, and perhaps some legal risk mitigation.

[Peter Aeschliman]

No disrespect to Sawstop or its users intended here. But sliding tablesaws are far safer than cabinet saws due to the built-in safety features. Your hands are far away from the cutting action, the standard riving knife reduces the chance of kick-back, and dust collection is great, both above and below the blade. Interesting to see what price point the new SS slider will come in.

I've thought a bit about that assertion in the past and I don't know if I agree with you completely. I'm definitely not interested in starting any kind of argument. But I would like to hear what you guys think of the following:

I agree that sliders keep your hands away from the blade for many types of cuts:


Cross cuts
Cuts on sheet goods
Straight-line rip cuts (if your slider has a long enough stroke of course)

However, on a cabinet saw, your hands are also not close to the blade for:

Cross cuts (using a miter gauge)
Cuts with sheet goods (assuming you're making a reasonably wide cut)

The most dangerous routine cut you can make on the table saw is a rip cut. The slider wins on the straight-line rip (again, assuming you have a full format slider with a huge stroke), but it's no different than a cabinet saw when you have to rip the opposing, parallel side. I'm not aware of a simple way to make this cut on a slider that doesn't involve getting your hand (or a push stick) somewhat close to the blade. Maybe there are accessories for sliders that allow you to ensure your cut is perfectly parallel to the other side... if so please correct me.

So when you compare the lists, the MAJOR safety advantage of the slider is the straight-line rip cut. But then again, if you have a rough-sawn piece of wood, you'd never attempt such a cut on a cabinet saw anyway unless you were using a jig. In which case, the operator could build the jig to use the miter slots in the table AND make it wide enough to keep his/her hands far away from the blade.

Please note, I'm only referring to the perceived safety advantages of sliders. So don't get me wrong- sliders are far more capable saws than traditional cabinet saws. Cabinet saws can't make squaring cuts on panels and can't do straight-line rips without the use of a jig. Cross cuts are far easier on a slider. I would love to have a euro-quality slider for sure.

But I don't think there's an enormous SAFETY advantage there. So I do think that sawstop entering this market makes a lot of sense. Sliders can still cut peoples' fingers off during rip cuts, when the user's hand is close to the blade.

I do wonder, however, if production shops typically use their sliders for BOTH rip cuts and panel cuts. I picture them having separate rip saws and sliders, and using them for different things. So do you think this is a move to capture more of the hobbiest market share?

[David Kumm]

Peter, you are correct that regular ripping is not where the slider excells. Ripping a fairly wide board or a wide board to narrow strips is safer since the fence is moved ahead, the wood positioned against the fence and locked down, regular of pneumatic clamps, and then slid forward with no hands near the blade. When the board has little width on the slider side of the blade is becomes a wash. some sliders have a second stop that allows ripping using the left side of the board for reference so the right is cut and that method leaves the hands free as well. That is really the better way to rip on a slider but it is hard to get used to not pushing against the fence. I find my regular saw with a grripper is still the go to machine when just needing a quick rip. Dave

[Matt Kestenbaum]

So do you think this is a move to capture more of the hobbiest market share?

Unless you have a seat in the conference room when Sawstop is working on strategy it is pure speculation, but I personally feel that I am seeing an increased amount of marketing from tool makers aimed at blurring the line between hobbiest and small production shop. I have a few hypotheses to this trend: one is that the economy is causing more woodworkers to contemplate making pieces for occasional sale (supplemental income, a bridge to retirement, or a move away from corporate work altogether) and the other is the need for smaller pro shops to have less overhead (smaller sq. footage, nimbler equipment that is not financed over time, etc).

[David Kumm]

Is SS planning to modify their technology to stop the cutterhead on a jointer similar to what they do with a saw blade? Absent that I have to wonder what advantage they would have over other Asian sourced jointers. Dave

[Peter Aeschliman]

...and the other is the need for smaller pro shops to have less overhead (smaller sq. footage, nimbler equipment that is not financed over time, etc).

I would guess it's this part of the equation. I'm hardly rolling in the dough, but going from my current job to being a furniture-maker would be a really massive pay cut. Of course it's a different equation for those who are unemployed though.

If people are buying less stuff, then obviously the people making and selling that stuff are hurting... and also the less room there is for new entrants in the market.

So the downsizing commercial shop seems to probably be the best (and obviously totally anecdotal) explanation. Fun to think about though.

[Matt Kestenbaum]

Is SS planning to modify their technology to stop the cutterhead on a jointer similar to what they do with a saw blade? Absent that I have to wonder what advantage they would have over other Asian sourced jointers. DaveYes, that was how it was described to me...anything bearing the Sawstop name (I would expect) will have the blade braking technology. The person I spoke to at Sawstop pointed out that beyond the table saw the next greatest source of serious injury in the woodworking world is the jointer. I think that that this stat comes from OSHA reported accident/down-time injuries. Although it seems to me that I have read elsewhere that in factory manufacturing shapers are notoriously dangerous.

Peter- I am fascinated by the way the Euro tool makers have been making the slow switch from trade to consumer user. Festool is a great example. Hammer is one I am really interested in (Felder's entry level brand). They have been on the move the last couple of years ...advertising heavily in both Woodshop News (pro market), showing up at the ww'ing shows (hobbiest for sure) and FWW (both?) They are targeted more towards a hobbiest user (playing up it's space saving feature and not so much the ability to add on a horizontal slot mortiser), but there brand is built on pro stuff. And they have also been promoting their sliders and a resawing bandsaw. Most of their machines are in the $3-5k price range... SS has been playing pretty much in that space too. Lie Nielsen and Lee Valley and Bridge City all showed that there was cash and appetite for really superior hand tools, so it's possible machinery is just getting it's turn now

[David Kumm]

Matt, manufacturers are all believing they need to penitrate all market segments to attract and keep customers as they move through life. similar to the health care field where every clinic needs every machine. Even Martin has begun rebadging Griggio machines as entry level Martins to bring buyers in earlier. The trend seems to work down rather than push conumers up which bothers me some. I would take a use Felder 700 rather than a hammer. I wonder how sawstop will avoid wrecking a cutterhead so it will be interesting to see the next development. A jointer is so dependent on the quality of the cast iron and grinding that hopefully they will address that as well. My 50 year old Porter has tables that were scraped in both directions so the table has faint crosshatching and a fence dead flat. Larger jointers are so cheap relative to what you get that it is hard for me to compare the new ones. Dave

[Peter Aeschliman]

The jointer requires so much precision that I have a hard time believing they could design a cutterhead that could stop and drop as quickly as their table saw and be easily re-aligned afterward... but I guess that's why the engineers make the big bucks!

It would be nice if the brake would stop the cutterhead without contacting the knives... My guess is that they'd use a similar technology as the saws, but put some kind of replaceable sprocket on the cutterhead shaft that the brake would bite into (it would act like the blade on their table saws).

[Chris Tsutsui]

I confirmed this when I met with Sawstop reps in person at AWFS around a month or so ago.

Sawstop is certainly developing a slider.

To add to the gossip, Sawstop is going to introduce a brake system that SAVES the blade.

The current system damages a blade and sawstop does not endorse the re-use of a blade that has been stopped by the current aluminum brake. I asked if it's ok to send the blade to the manufacturer but they said that just because a blade is checked and re-tensioned and sharpened, doesn't mean that the carbid braze will be as good as it was new.

[Jim Foster]

Does anyone have any data on accident rates relating to blade-contacting-flesh on table-saws in US vs Europe? Also are regular table-saws in Europe as common as the US or does everyone have sliders? I'm curious, I would think that a slider would be much more safe, and accident data would point it out.

[Peter Quinn]

It will be interesting to see if they launch a full sized format style euro slider or something more like a hybrid cabinet saw slider like the Laguna TS but with the blade brake, or both? All "Sliders are safer" theories aside, the several I use daily have only one thing keeping my hands out of that blade for certain, and that is ME! Sure, they certainly decrease the probability that hands will be near blade, but they don't insure it. So if the user has a lapse in thinking or judgement, the potential is certainly there to sever a digit. Not much safer IMO that a RAS really.

I feel a blade brake would be an interesting option, particularly for a tool with a reputation for safety that is mostly the domain of the professional custom shop. Production shops mostly use CNC machines, straight line or gang rip saws, S4S machines, cross cut stations based on an up cut or Omga style chop box, etc. The slider is actually a rather big, slow, clumsy space hog when compared to anything but a cabinet saw as options. Use a vertical panel saw for sheet goods and you may never want to go back to a slider, but that is a pretty expensive piece for a small shop to purchase. The slider is versatile for the small to medium sized custom shop, and that seems to be mostly who they are marked to, and a good place to have a brake involved.