A curiosity question about Sawstop use.

[Martin Wasner]

At what level of injury would you justify the cost of a blade and brake?

Scratch? A good bleeder? Needing some stitches? Amputation? (I'm going to be dramatic and go with death? as well)

Just a random thought. I mauled a thumb a half dozen years ago in a tablesaw. I was doing something stupid while tired, but I was just thinking that I wouldn't have paid $200 to save that blood. No doctor costs either, because they would've cleaned it up, cut back some skin, bandaged it, and sent me home. I can do that myself. No permanent damage, just a scar, so nothing serious in my book. Now I would probably pay $200 to put a finger back on.

Just wondering what everyone's threshold is.

Btw, the only tool to send me to the ER was a bandsaw. You can't fix stupid.

[Ben Rivel]

Blade and brake for me is about $100 for a Forrest WWII and $60 for a SS break. $160. The fact of the matter is you dont know which accident is going to be a "Scratch? A good bleeder? Needing some stitches? Amputation?" So Im paying $160 to avoid any. And I dont mind losing that at all.

Now, brake discharges for other reasons would really tick me off. Hasnt happened yet though.

[Raymond Seward]

I guess I'm with Ben...I just don't want to get hurt and then have to take the time to heal....

[jack forsberg]

I'm seriously going to have to go with death . Good blades are hard to Find fingers come and go

[Matt Day]

I'm seriously going to have to go with death . Good blades are hard to Find fingers come and go

That made me actually lol.

[Rod Sheridan]

Martin, since we can't predict which accident we're going to have, I would pay the asking price for the SawStop saw if I was going to buy a cabinet saw and not use standard safety features.

Since I'm going to do neither, I invested the money in a slider..............Rod.

[Hoang N Nguyen]

To me, even a scratch would justify the $200 cost. Just the fact of having blade contact regardless of the level of injury would be enough to traumatize me for life. Knowing I have the SS safety feature makes using the tablesaw more enjoyable. I had to put my SS in bypass mode just the other day to make a rip cut in some really wet wood and I was on tip toe the entire time. Don't get me wrong, I still practice all the safety standards regardless, but just knowing that if for some reason I touch the blade and it would keep spinning made me on edge.

Funny enough, if I hadn't put it in bypass mode the brakes would have fired.

[Mike Henderson]

I can't answer that either, but I had a woodworking accident that required stitches. It cost me (and my insurance company) $1,000 at the ER.

If you had a more serious accident the cost would be much higher AND you'd have to live with the impairments afterwards.

I paid more for my SawStop but I look at the extra cost as a one time insurance payment. And like all insurance, you hope you never need it but it's good to have when you do need it.

Mike

[mreza Salav]

I did all sorts of work in our house building project and injured myself in the most innocent way (fell face down on a joist on the back yard deck while carrying tools in both hands and broke two teeth). The cost of surgery/implant afterward has been almost $10k so far for the two teeth.
I'd pay more to save a finger (even a small portion of it).

[Mike Cutler]

I'm seriously going to have to go with death . Good blades are hard to Find fingers come and go

Brilliant! I almost spit my coffee out laughing, but it went up my nose.:D

To the OP

It's not just the cost equated with any singular accident, it would be the potential loss that each person would have to value add in their answer.
I've made my living with the dexterity of my hands for my entire life. I try to make prudent decisions for them.
I don't own a Sawstop, but I don't do "table saw tricks" either. I try to buy the machine, or tool, that is supposed to perform the job.

[Prashun Patel]

I have an SS and I see it a little differently:

I tend to overuse my blades even when they're a little gunked or dull. When this happens, I consciously try to get a little careless with my hands. Sometimes I'll free hand the cross cut or even do it with my eyes closed. If my hand hits the blade, then I take it as a sign from Above that it's time to replace the blade. It's been working pretty well for me.

Seriously: I too am not sure of the economics of the Sawstop. Honestly, although I can take a little pain, If you asked me to pay $200 (it's actually closer to $130 for a blade and brake for me) to avoid the shock and pain of even a scratch-contact with the blade, I'd probably take it. Contact hardly ever occurs, and when it does, my instinct is that the probability of it being 'minor' is equal to the probability of it being 'major'. So, I'd pay it.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

. I mauled a thumb a half dozen years ago in a tablesaw.

If no doctor's visit is required, I wouldn't call it "mauled". It would go into the "scratch" category. :)

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I'm also in the pay up front for insurance crowd. According to my manual, Sawstop supposed to refund the purchase of the brake if I send it in (if it was flesh contact). I guess they want to see what discharged it etc. SO, depending on the blade that I'm using at the time, it may cost me as little as 10 bucks for my pallet wood recycling blade. Even if I did ruin my Forrest, I'm a happy camper every time I turn that saw on. It make me smile and I know I have some protection in the unfortunate event of an accident. Which is what insurance is for...
Yep, I smile every time I fire up that saw.... No price for that.....

[Jim Barstow]

Are you serious? You don't get to choose the amount of damage when you contact the blade. When mine fired, I ended up with an almost imperceptible nick. I never, ever thought that, "gee, that might have not required stiches, wish it hadn't fired". The price for a cartridge and blade was worth every penny.

[glenn bradley]

Let's just put this in perspective . . . . I'll give you a thousand dollars. Just set your hand on the workbench and let me take a whack at it with this hatchet.

Unfortunately this argument can go on and on. I know people who purposely don't wear seat belts. I guess it makes them feel like they are a rebel. I think some people reject Saw Stop's technology for the same basic reason whatever that is. Those same people rarely use their turn signal. I guess they're special. :rolleyes: This is just an ad hoc study I like to run now and again to amuse myself.

Some of us have dead bolts, others have full-on camera and alarm systems. Safety, like security, is a personal decision and whatever decision is right for you is the correct decision. Play nice, play safe, have fun!

[chris cartwright]

I lost half my left index finger; tired, hurrying and taking a chance ripping freehand even though I had done it many times before and had watched many others do it too, onsite. The cost of that accident was somewhere between 25 and 75k depending on how costs are assessed. The SS cost might by seen as high until an accident happens; but if the accident affects anything beyond skin, then virtually any amount becomes statistically insignificant in my book. Having said that, the same old PM66, Unisaw, and Mak. 10" are still doing all my work because at this stage in my career, it hardly makes sense to invest in more tools, and I am a lot more conscious about how I use them. Nevertheless, a SS jobsite saw is something I think about every time I hit a table saw switch, or see others engaging in risky tool usage.

[Martin Wasner]

If no doctor's visit is required, I wouldn't call it "mauled". It would go into the "scratch" category. :)

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[Ben Rivel]

I would have gone to the Dr for that one. How did that heal?

[Martin Wasner]

I would have gone to the Dr for that one. How did that heal?

Really well. Nothing to stitch together, so I just cleaned it, cut back the now excess skin, and bandaged it up.

[Ben Rivel]

Really well. Nothing to stitch together, so I just cleaned it, cut back the now excess skin, and bandaged it up.
Amazing. Youre very lucky. I guess with all the blood on it like that it made it look a lot worse than it was.

[J.R. Rutter]

Slightly different perspective here, but I bought mine because I had employees using the table saw. You have to track accidents for OSHA and if a hospital visit is involved, I think it has to be reported. And Worker's Comp Insurance will get involved because the first question they ask at the hospital is "Did this happen at work?" Then your overall rates go up. If you try to deal with it at work or ask the employee to patch himself up and it later gets infected or otherwise complicated, you can end up getting hosed, beyond feeling guilty about it. This all assumes that you have a good, honest employee who won't turn around and badmouth you to OSHA. So from a liability perspective: priceless.

[Mel Fulks]

I'm against most compulsory purchases. But J.R.'s reasoning for choosing to use them in commercial shop is well stated.

[Joe Beaulieu]

I have owned my SS PCS for more than 12 years now. I don't use it every day - in fact, I don't use it every week. However it has a lot of hours on it - and I have never had a cartridge fire, nor have I ever had to use the bypass. I am still using the two cartridges that came with the saw. I guess I am lucky, but I doubt all that different from a lot of WWs who buy their stock from a lumber retailer already dried. I live in the city - I don't have any opportunity to get "wet wood" or anything like that. So I cut stuff that isn't likely to trip the saw anyway.

My deal is not how serious the injury is, its having any kind of injury. I am a software engineer by trade, and I also teach guitar as an aside. So my hands are in play all day, and most nights. That saw keeps me from worrying about that issue. When I saw the technology, and realized that it worked as advertised, I would have paid twice what they wanted for the saw. No argument.

Joe