So that Sawstop that I bought for my employees

[J.R. Rutter]

just saved the tip of my thumb. Almost 4:00 on a Friday - prime time for injuries. I was cutting a groove in the edge of a board, focusing on keeping it tight to the fence. While shaving just a hair more off on a second pass, my thumb ended up being in the wrong place. Those fully buried cuts can be very unforgiving because you can't see the blade. Anyway, aside from some stinging, like I got snapped with a big rubber band, no drama. One tooth left the tiniest score line in the top layer of skin. It barely shows up on the pic as a fine white line. So, thumbs-up...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-XOBSTxRmqxs/URWPYi-2ZFI/AAAAAAAACXE/5zVavzE_Oro/s912/IMAGE_D10F9A42-2F0F-4081-9911-2E88F7D2F934.JPG

[Mark Bolton]

Wow, Is that the first time you've come in contact with a blade? Your right, late day, end of the week, prime time... good for you.

[Victor Robinson]

Glad the decision paid off for you JR. And hey, at least you get a free brake now...

[mreza Salav]

Send that cartridge to SS and they'll send you a free one!

[Joe Shinall]

Really making me want to trade in the Uni right about now.

[Mark Smith, too]

That is what that saw is all about (besides being a fine saw in it's own right). Glad you had it.

[Ray Newman]

"Really making me want to trade in the Uni right about now" -- Joe Shinall

When I read about things like this, I feel the same way.

JR it appears that the Saw Stop just paid for itself....

[Mel Fulks]

J.R. , How do we know you didn't photograph your thumb BEFORE you cut it off ? Two REAL LIVE thumbs up you being REALLY OK! Cocktail hour ! Gotta go.

[Kevin Womer]

So glad to hear you are alright, take care JR

[Thomas Hotchkin]

JR
Right up there in Grizzly country and saved by a Saw Stop, what is this world coming to.:) Glad the week end will be sweet with no stitches to remove Monday. Tom

[Mike Heidrick]

All that bodily damage, and now you get to buy a blade. Surprised you had time to make the post before your call to Felder.

[J.R. Rutter]

Thanks everyone. Isn't it funny that as soon as it happened, I dug out the phone to take a picture and post here?


Wow, Is that the first time you've come in contact with a blade?

I have had two encounters - one with kickback on a SCMS, and one with a biscuit joiner. Fortunately, I missed tendons and bone.


J.R. , How do we know you didn't photograph your thumb BEFORE you cut it off ? Two REAL LIVE thumbs up you being REALLY OK! Cocktail hour ! Gotta go.

Cocktail hour is ending here, so I will oblige.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7Iaril_wLZE/URXIZY_tN5I/AAAAAAAACXc/WRQYWvLX1do/s533/Photo%2520on%25202013-02-08%2520at%252019.50%2520%25232.jpg


All that bodily damage, and now you get to buy a blade. Surprised you had time to make the post before your call to Felder.

I'm still infatuated with Italian iron, Mike!

[Mel Fulks]

Glad you're enjoying the exhilaration of escape .Its much better than the throbbing agony of injury.Savor!

[Daniel Shnitka]

All that bodily damage, and now you get to buy a blade. Surprised you had time to make the post before your call to Felder.
My experience and it is limited thank goodness is you may not have to buy a new blade. The Sawstop brake is aluminum and as such I carefully removed the blade from the brake. I then took it to the most established saw sharpening outfit in the city that sharpens my blades. They looked at very carefully then took it to the back shop and did another examination. They returned with and said it was fine and could find nothing wrong with it. J. R. Rutter you may want to have an expert check your blade out. You may find useable in every aspect. Just do you due dilligence in making sure it is safe to use.

[Sam Murdoch]

I am soooooooooglad for you. :eek:

[Mike Zilis]

My experience and it is limited thank goodness is you may not have to buy a new blade. The Sawstop brake is aluminum and as such I carefully removed the blade from the brake. I then took it to the most established saw sharpening outfit in the city that sharpens my blades. They looked at very carefully then took it to the back shop and did another examination. They returned with and said it was fine and could find nothing wrong with it. J. R. Rutter you may want to have an expert check your blade out. You may find useable in every aspect. Just do you due dilligence in making sure it is safe to use.

Same with my miter gauge to blade contact I had a while back. The cartridge did its job to stop the blade dead to rights. I was able to take the blade (Freud Thin Kerf Glue Line Rip) out of the aluminum block. I brought it to my sharpener and he could find no damage at all. I figured it was a fluke until I read Daniel's post.

[Brent VanFossen]

JR: So happy for you. I hope I'll never have to test the brake cartridge on my SS, but we all make mistakes. Glad this one didn't cost you.

[Tom Hintz]

When I did my testing of the SawStop I was very impressed with the braking feature and when I added that on top of the saw being so well made overall my PM2000 as good of a saw as it is, rolled right out the door and the SawStop came in. Glad to see (literally) that you are OK!

[Peter Quinn]

Thank god for that. I wish my boss was as progressive as you. Perhaps if he had skin in the game (literally) he'd feel otherwise. Sadly I suspect it will,take a lawsuit. When i go into the lumber store I always look around at guys hands and do a finger count, mostly a curiosity, amazing how many pros can't count past 8 any more and how few own a SS.

Be well and so glad you can count to 10 with your shoes on.

[Patrick McCarthy]

JR, i have always appreciated your posts from a technical level as well as a human level; although few of us get to meet face to face, we all draw conclusions as to who are the "good" guys - -and most here seem to be -- and who aren't . . . . you have always seemd to be one of the guys that a lot of us would enjoy meeting and grabbing a sandwich, cup of coffee, etc. Long way of getting to point, very happy you have a story to tell without any blood! As someone who just went from a pm66 to an ics, this is much appreciated by me . . . .and the wife - who "made" me get it, will breathe a BIG sigh of relief.

[Paul Incognito]

JR, i have always appreciated your posts from a technical level as well as a human level; although few of us get to meet face to face, we all draw conclusions as to who are the "good" guys - -and most here seem to be -- and who aren't . . . . you have always seemd to be one of the guys that a lot of us would enjoy meeting and grabbing a sandwich, cup of coffee, etc. Long way of getting to point, very happy you have a story to tell without any blood! As someone who just went from a pm66 to an ics, this is much appreciated by me . . . .and the wife - who "made" me get it, will breathe a BIG sigh of relief.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Glad you got out with only a scratch.
I'll bet the cocktails tasted especially good that night!
Paul

[Rod Sheridan]

JR, excellent news, glad you're OK and your sense of humour is intact.

I have two questions for you,

- were you using a guard on the saw at the time?

- if not are you now considering an overarm or bridge guard?

Regards, Rod.

[Neil Bosdet]

Are you going to send this story into SawStop? They like to get them and I'm sure they will want this one.

Cheers, Neil

[J.R. Rutter]

Thanks for the kind words everyone. My dad took off the tip of one of his fingers on his router table last year, so my wife was very happy that I had the SS yesterday.


JR, excellent news, glad you're OK and your sense of humour is intact.

I have two questions for you,

- were you using a guard on the saw at the time?

- if not are you now considering an overarm or bridge guard?

Regards, Rod.

I have a Biesemeyer overarm guard. I love it because most of what we do on this saw is ripping to width. The guard can be shifted sideways so that you can easily rip down to 1.5" with it in place. It does a good job catching dust as well. The OSHA inspector that I invited in for a survey was more impressed with it than with the SawStop.

But what I was doing was running a 7" wide board up on edge against the fence to cut a 1/2" deep groove. I had just reset the fence to shave off another few thousandths for a perfect fit and was doing a final quick pass. The guard was flipped up and slid sideways at the time.

Here is my saw, btw.

http://i.imgur.com/lXJRC.jpg

[Rod Sheridan]

Thanks JR, I'm so glad you're OK.


Regards, Rod.

[johnny means]

Sounds like more of Steve Gass's Commie Socialist propaganda to me:rolleyes: I bet they won't mention the whopping $69 Sawstop will be asking for a new brake:D They'll be coming for your Unis soon enough:eek:

[J.R. Rutter]

Sounds like more of Steve Gass's Commie Socialist propaganda to me:rolleyes: I bet they won't mention the whopping $69 Sawstop will be asking for a new brake:D They'll be coming for your Unis soon enough:eek:

Free if you return the one that saved your thumb :)

[Peter Aeschliman]

Sounds like more of Steve Gass's Commie Socialist propaganda to me:rolleyes: I bet they won't mention the whopping $69 Sawstop will be asking for a new brake:D They'll be coming for your Unis soon enough:eek:

Ha ha, love it (assuming it was sarcasm). It's funny how the critics of the technology are so silent on this thread! I wonder if it's because, well, the saw saved JR's fingertip! Tough to argue against that result.

[Mel Fulks]

How do they differentiate between one that saved a human finger and one that just saved a hot dog that ,tragically ,gets EATEN later anyway? AND we all agree even if we don't buy one ,it did good!

[J.R. Rutter]

Supposedly, there is some sort of data logger inside that has a record of the conditions that caused it to fire.

[Peter Quinn]

I just saw that tigerstop on the SS. Not to detract from the main message......but now I'm really drooling. Will a large enough pile of drool fire the brake? That thing is too cool. Pneumatic thingy to lift and drop the eccentric clamp, servos to move the fence to exact position. Sweet. But is all that tech really better than my friends hunt and peck?:rolleyes:

[J.R. Rutter]

The best thing about the Tiger setup is that the dimensions are exactly the same no matter who is cutting. It makes everything downstream that much more accurate.

[mreza Salav]

Again, sorry for the side track question: isn't that auxiliary rail in the way of wheel for raising/lowering the blade? It seems so in the photo...

[J.R. Rutter]

Again, sorry for the side track question: isn't that auxiliary rail in the way of wheel for raising/lowering the blade? It seems so in the photo...

I just removed the handle, it takes a little longer to spin up and down, but the adjustment is effortless, so you don't need the leverage for anything except speed.

[mreza Salav]

Thanks J.R.
I have the same saw (but not the fence) and I know how smooth the wheels rotate. Very nice setup.

[Joe Jensen]

JR, I'm very happy that you were not injured. I got my left index finger in a table saw when I was 14. I was lucky the blade was only 1/4" above the table and all it did was chew up my skin but I will never forget the feeling of blade hitting bone. IMHO Sawstop has a fantastic technology and I hope that others develop equally good solutions and over time there are many choices. I'd spend serious money to replace my Felder with one that has the technology inside.

[Kory Vander Ziel]

Sounds like you just saved yourself enough money to take a vacation or maybe just pay for the saw with the medical bills you didnt have to pay for. I've only seen it work on a weiner, really cool how quick it stops that blade. B safe...

[Don Bullock]

JR, i have always appreciated your posts from a technical level as well as a human level; although few of us get to meet face to face, we all draw conclusions as to who are the "good" guys - -and most here seem to be -- and who aren't . . . . you have always seemd to be one of the guys that a lot of us would enjoy meeting and grabbing a sandwich, cup of coffee, etc. Long way of getting to point, very happy you have a story to tell without any blood! As someone who just went from a pm66 to an ics, this is much appreciated by me . . . .and the wife - who "made" me get it, will breathe a BIG sigh of relief.


Couldn't have said it better myself. Glad you got out with only a scratch.
I'll bet the cocktails tasted especially good that night!
Paul


You got that right including the part about the wife. While I haven't come close to a cut yet it's comforting to know that the things work. When my wife saw the videos she immediately asked why I didn't have one. When I told her the price she figured out a way for us to afford one - a 5 hp ICS with an Incra fence. In those days the only choice was a 3 or 5 hp ICS and the fence. It's been a fantastic saw and I wouldn't have anything else.