We were asked in the latest podcast about possible government rules requiring Saw Stop-like protection. Also, should it be possible to buy a TS for under $500 and is it appropriate for beginning woodworkers?
I think this would be good for input from Fine Homebuilding, as inexpensive table saws are all over job sites.
So many people learn from Norm Abram and recent YouTube videos (and FWW) that beginners will continue to buy table saws no matter what.
Thoughts?
Discussion Forum
Get It All!
UNLIMITED Membership is like taking a master class in woodworking for less than $10 a month.
Start Your Free TrialCategories
Discussion Forum
Digital Plans Library
Member exclusive! – Plans for everyone – from beginners to experts – right at your fingertips.
Highlights
-
Shape Your Skills
when you sign up for our emails
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. -
Shop Talk Live Podcast -
Our favorite articles and videos -
E-Learning Courses from Fine Woodworking
-
-
Replies
I disagreed with the idea that a Table Saw was not a beginner tool.
It is not for the foolhardy and it is probably not a first purchase, but it is certainly the first stationary tool most beginners buy.
I started out with a jigsaw, drill and router. A table saw was my next big purchase and a planer/thicknesser came soon after.
I had a look at both the USA OSHA data and NZ ACC data and found that the common factor in work injuries was inattention - most of the OSHA injuries were associated with being busy, distracted or tired.
Though these are doubtless issues at home, I suspect that many of the injuries therein are due to alcohol or cannabis, with the latter being a particular problem as users almost universally lack insight into the impairment it causes and the effects are quite long-lasting.
Ensuring safety brakes are fitted onto table saws will help in both circumstances as no amount of education will compensate for tiredness, distraction or being drunk or stoned. People should not have to be maimed for being stupid if there is any way to avoid it, and if that means a more expensive saw then I'm good with that.
What is interesting is the ridiculous number of injuries in the USA. NZ has excellent data on injuries as treatment for them is covered by ACC, and to get treatment you have to supply some information about the injury so I asked for this data for 10 years.
Sadly in a rush today so could not locate the exact numbers but OTTOMH there were about 6 amputations or partial amputations of digits where the word 'saw' was also combined with either 'table' or 'circular' (Not everyone knows what a table saw is) per year over a 10 year period, varying from 2 to 12 in any year. There were about four times as many lacerations as amputations.
With an average 4.5 million population in NZ, that would equate to about 600 amputations and 2400 lacerations per year in the USA, and allowing that OSHA only accounts for work related injuries, that seems in keeping - my research on OSHA found (again OTTOMH) about 40 table saw amputations in one year.
The received figure for the USA is 30,000 injuries per year. I am very confident in the NZ data and though I am 'remembering' figures from a couple of years back and my methodology was preliminary rather than truly scientific, I did spend a good amount of time analysing that data so I don't think I'm far off.
This just suggests that the source of the USA data should be questioned. If it is indeed 10 times higher than in NZ, then we should see 6000 amputations per year in the USA, and with an average of maybe 40 years of life post amputation, 240,000 people missing digits. That's one in 1000 for the population aged over 25 in the USA. This is not really concordant with OSHA data, which is more in line with the NZ experience.
Question then for the USA people here - are you actually seeing amputees regularly? You'd expect to notice that many missing fingers, especially as a great many people lose fingers in non-table saw related ways.
Do you believe the 30K per year injury statistic?
The thing that strikes me about the saw stop safety approach is that its very expensive, both to initially buy but also to use, in that its operation requires new and expensive parts per-trip.
In other countries of the first world, the safety approach with a TS has always been well ahead of the USA approach, which until very recently lacked effective riving knives, guards, hold downs, short fences, blade brake and all the other safety features that have been standard on European saws for decades.
Part of the USA excessive TS injury syndrome seems to be the cultural notion that one should be "free" to take any risks at all; and that buyers not sellers are wholly responsible for their own safety as they are "individuals" entirely responsible for themselves (but only themselves). On the other hand, there's some cognitive dissonance about the matter as a TS-injured individual can use the law to attempt compensation from the manufacturer or seller, with success or failure often due to how much lawyer they can afford.
In all events, it seems a good thing that "the gummint" should mandate safety features as being a necessary and intrinsic design of potentially dangerous goods. On the other hand, its no surprise that the safety methods chosen in the USA will potentially provide a vast profit for the manufacturers at the expense of their customers.
************
Personally, I'm very pleased to have the advantage of being able to buy a safe TS without it containing an extra £1000 or so of safety parts. And for the freedom from a large and ongoing cost if the expensive safety device actuates (necessarily or accidently).
Oh yes, the government should oversee everything we do … like mandating the water temperature in my bathroom. I installed an instant on water heater to combat the delay in getting hot water. The government mandated a “mixer” with existing plumbing to insure the temperature did not exceed 120 degrees. This mandate essentially made my investment worthless.
I love how the government has mandated water usage in home appliances so now my dishwasher and clothes washer perform poorly.
I am very anxious to have them make me replace my gas heater and stove.
Check out the new government designed gas cans. The first step before using them is to throw away the spout
My table saw is 30 years old. No accidents. I am a big boy.
Low flush toilets needs to be flushed twice... I'm with you.
There's ways around that low flush BS ;)
"The thing that strikes me about the saw stop safety approach is that its very expensive, both to initially buy but also to use, in that its operation requires new and expensive parts per-trip."
Yes but a table saw is a one time purchase.
If one uses caution they should NEVER trip the sawstop mechanism, if they do, the cost to replace the parts is a LOT less than the hospital bill will be.
The safety rule is mainly meant for businesses with employees,you pretty much do what you want in your house and home shop, but when theres employees involved everything changes.
I have a co-worker who lost 1-1/2 fingers on the table saw, and my now late veterinarian lost a finger years earlier on a table saw too, so I know TWO people who lost fingers.
The co-worker was a state patrol officer before coming to our shop, he had his own wood shop business before too, so he was not some amateur or careless, but he was repetitively cutting small pieces of cherry, dealing with cutoffs and stacking the cut pieces on a cart next to him, and grabbing the next piece off the cart to cut, somehow his fingers just BRUSHED the top of the spinning blade probably after bring his arm back after tossing the cut-off into the bin, the contact degloved half his index finger and damaged the middle and ring finger.
The doctor told him it would cost over $50,000 to even TRY saving his fingers and no guarantee they would work right or have sensation, they amputated half the index, part of the middle- insurance of course paid for amputation, instead of the try at restoration because its cheaper.
He can no longer use his firearm like he did, the damage was on his dominant hnd. I bet he wished the saw had the sawstop on it- companies wont buy it unless mandated, OSHA and insurance mandating that businesses have the technology is the only way people are going to be protected from having fingers amputated on table saws in the workplace.
The cost of the medical bills for the fingers the co-worker lost, weeks recovering, therapy and all the rest cost probably ten times what the saw stop would have cost, not to mention insurance rates going up, and OSHA's fines - the latter would have paid for the sawstop!
OSHA does not issue $35 fines, they levy fines in the THOUSANDS and when there is an accident they LOOK for more violations. As I remember, failing to insert locking pins in the castors of scaffolds carries something like a $10,000 fine as does not wearing a seatbelt when operating a forklift. The fine for improper/missing guarding etc is thousands.
Ot only takes ONE moment and ONE accident, and the costs involved will definitely exceed the cost of a new tablesaw with saw stop.
I rememeber a now late friend who was in the same business as I am but he owned his shop- telling me that his employee was planning a board on the jointer and managed to make all four fingers on his hand the same length when they were hooked over the end of the board pushing it thru and contacted the knives.
It will be very hard to separate out the amputations caused by table saws from those caused by hand circular saws ("Skilsaws"), radial arm saws, and miter saws. HCSs are much more numerous than TSs. People on construction sites get very casual and often hurried or tired or both.
I think to some degree TS cause the most injuries of all the stationary machines because they are the most numerous and the most frequently used. Jointers don't leave anything to sew back on.
I'm happy that SawStop tech was invented and is available. If I were buying a new TS, I would seriously consider one. Even more seriously if I were equipping a construction crew. Yet after over 40 years of safe operation of my TS, I'm not really likely to sell it (would that even be moral, if I know the risks) and buy a SawStop.
Risk is a very complex issue. Trying to apply overall data to one person is difficult. As a long time motorcyclist and bicyclist, how risky are those activities? Well, the data lump me, a sober, cautious helmeted motorcyclist, in with the guys who are on the road with 2 six-packs of beer in them, no helmet, and have just had a fight in a tavern with their girl-friend.
I'm glad that the US government required car manufacturers to install telescoping steering columns, less lethal windshield glass, seat belts, and air bags. I doubt any of those safety features would be available to US consumers without government intervention. Yet the above mentioned cultural bias here toward "freedom to injure or maim yourself" shows up in the vocal resistance to motorcycle helmet laws. And, how often do you see a table saw with all its factory safe-guards still in place? My used TS didn't have any when I bought it at auction.
I wish I could make some stunning conclusion, but life is risky and humans are not very good at evaluating and comparing actual risks. So try to be safe and yet still do things!
Most accidents are logged at the hospital as to the details on what happened, and insurance definitely wants those details, so they would know whether the injury was a table saw or circular saw etc.
"Yet after over 40 years of safe operation of my TS, I'm not really likely to sell it (would that even be moral, if I know the risks) and buy a SawStop."
WorkSafeBC has a youtube channel, they are like the Canadian version of OSHA, they do high quality video re-enactments of accidents, I well remember the one where a farmer had a tractor roll-over that crushed him to death, no roll over protection, nothing on that old junky tractor he had, his widow SOLD it to someone else... another accident just waiting to happen to someone else.
If it couldnt be retrofitted with rollbars etc it should have been SCRAPPED
People do stupid things like take the guard off angle grinders, I'm constantly putting them back on,
WorkSafeBC has more than one video on angle grinders, and one was very graphic- guy was using the grinder, no guard to grind on some steel, the disk exploded into shrapnel and a piece hit the guy in the face! you'd never think those fiberglass reinforced disks could do that but they can!
A girl in a pizza parlor lost finger in a dough roller machine, the drive chain inside was not guarded.
An 18 year old kid was hired to work at a lumber yard, first day in he was to operate a forklift, the guys showed him how to start it up standing outside the machine! Unfortunately when he went to use it after he got off it earlier, it was still in reverse, he started it up and the machine started driving backwards in a circle, he tried to climb back on but slipped and the machine slammed him into a concrete retaining wall breaking his spine and leaving him paralized.
The forklift should have had safety devices to prevent starting it with it still in gear, or from outside the machine.
Every OSHA rule in that huge book was written in some worker's blood, it's important to remember that no matter what a PITA some safety device, or OSHA rule is- they are there because someone was severely injured or killed, it's why PTO shafts, motor belts & chains, gears, blades, cutters, machines all have to have guards on them- people put fingers where they don't belong, things happen, kids working on farms have been caught up in unguarded spinning PTO shafts, and many other things.
If you read the actual reports on such accidents its not just horrifying- but amazingly easy how fast someone's shirt sleeve or finger ring can get caught on things like a spinning lathe, and I HAVE seen security cam footage of such accidents and they all happened so FAST, and the worker whose sleeve was caught in the lathe immediately had their arm wound around the shaft along with the rest of their body.
I'm a retired physician who had many patients with amputated digits over the years. As a woodworker. I'd ask them about the incident and virtually all were from table saws. I for many years had an old Grizzly contractor's saw as my table saw and had a couple of my own kick-back incidents that could well have led to injury but did not. I learned to work carefullv! When I finally upgraded my saw a decade ago, I was happy to get a SS saw. But it also had something my old saw did not have, a riving knife. I think that the riving knife may well be the most important safety feature, combined with using holddowns and featherboard, as mentioned by others above. Does anyone know of data comparing injury rate from SS technology versus a modern table saw with riving knife?
I doubt there is any data available. The injury reporting system (NEISS) is reliant entirely on those entering the data. I strongly suspect most would not know a table saw from a hammer, much less what a riving knife might be.
The system suffered a couple of situations years ago that caused me to lose confidence. I spent 45 years in flooring manufacturing, mostly carpet. Suddenly, we were surprised to learn that carpet was at the top of the list to be regulated as a safety hazard. Note that the system ranks hazards according to numbers of injuries, adds a multiplier for severity of injuries, and adds a further multiplier for more vulnerable victims; i.e., very young or elderly.
We went into the data base and teased out the injuries that pushed carpet over the top. Two incidents stood out - both involved trips or slips on throw rugs - not carpets - at the top of stairs, where the victims fell down the stairs and died. Both were 65+. Thus, the score was multiplied 10X for the deaths and another 10X for the elderly victims. And it never occurred to the powers that broadloom carpets, which is what they proposed to somehow regulate, were not involved. Government in action.
The other product, which I looked into out of curiosity, was swimming pools. Two cases put polls at the top for regulation. Both resulted in deaths. Both involved 65+ victims. Both were older males, both were drunk. One dived into a pools with no water and died; the other simply drowned.
In none of these cases did anyone read carefully and inject common sense. So, you can see my cynical thinking about the system. We have lost our sense of personal responsibility.
OSHA and worker's comp would know most likely, since they demand ALL the details in writing from the one injured.
Riving knives are good but they can get in the way, so the guys in the shop never use it, the guard is impossible to use when ripping boards, the SS system is the only one that would effectively replace the guard.
I wholeheartedly disagree with having tablesaws require Saw stop type tech. The owner of saw stop tried and failed once to lobby his way to billions. If people want it great. If they don't great.
It's the wrong focus when it comes to tablesaw safety. Look to whatbis required nearly everywhere. A riving knife should be standard. It's not and kickbacks account for way more accidents. I'll never buy a saw stop because of what he tried.
The table saw is not a expert only tool. There is a learning curve for sure but there are tons of things that are dangerous that we accept novices using.
the long and short of it is this, he, developed the tech, then tried to sell it to manufacturers no one wanted for whatever reason, then he tried to lobby the government to force it, when that didn't work he made saws, the good and bad news about it all is that Festoool now owns saw stop so you now would deal with them buying the saw, personally I don't think the saws are worth the money, but that is my opinion
The saw stop guy said in testimony that if the bill passes he will give the license to his technology to the public as a gift, basically then any company can then be free to develop their own version of this and no worries about patent infringement/being sued. Competition will lower costs- no more monopoly on this.
I believe it was Bosch developed their own system but was sued by SS, now they can use it if the bill passes.
The patent is expired. He no longer has a say.
" If people want it great. If they don't great. "
The problem is not so much the home shop/hobbyist, but the workplace where there are multiple employees using the machines they don't own and are not responsible for, where an injury WILL immediately involve OSHA (with huge fines), worker's comp and insurance costs.
The employer's insurance costs go up, your coverage could be dropped and you'd have to scramble to find another provider at an almost certain higher cost, and you have an employee who may be a key person in your shop now out of commission for weeks or longer.
One has to think of all the implications beyond the one-time cost of the saw device itself- insurance will never go down, OSHA does not come in and issue $35 fine for the one violation, no, they do the full walkaround LOOKING for anything else they can tack on to the saw injury adding up to thousands of dollars.
I know because Ive been with my employer that last 25 years and I've done the OSHA stuff the last 5, Ive had to get all of the SDS sheets- every single chemical, adhesive, liquid, spray, even plant food one guy brings in for his potted plants, hand lotion etc etc has to have an SDS sheet on file.
Every machine has to have working guards on them including drill presses and milling machines, lock out tag out program and training along with many other training is another requirement. You can't possibly cover every single rule or regulation that exists in that huge OSHA book, but you need to at least look like you are trying your best.
We were cited once because some of the plastic outlet covers had a little bit of the plastic broken by the ground plug from rough plug in/outs, leaning things like boards or plywood against the wall without something securing them is another big violation, it sounds like a stupid rule and BS, but that's a good rule, why? because for example, I personally saw a co-worker get a head injury when some finished oak boards leaning against a support column were accidentaly bumped when a nearby cart was moved, and the board fell against him, that was a hospital visit, worker's comp claim and some days lost.
I also remember the co-worker who was using a spindle sander on a piece of plywood sanding some holes in it, the drum was only slightly smaller than the holes and somehow the board jammed on the drum and it instantly spun and the corners of the plywood gouged his palms really good, that was an ER visit, sutures, bandages, OSHA and worker's comp involvement.
Later he was handling an oak board without gloves and got a nasty splinter, another ER visit because he didn't like wearing gloves, which would have prevented the injury...
The previous post gives me several thoughts.
1. I agree that riving knives should be standard. But a Saw Stop could prevent prevent the more serious outcomes from a kickback incident, as well as other types of blade contact. The amputations I spoke of a post or two ago were mostly the result of kickback, but most if not all occured before routine use of riving knives and Saw Stop introduction and dissemination.
2. Loss of a finger or thumb is a pretty pricy lesson for learning to use a table saw.
3. A regulatory decision should be made on data about what yields greater safety, particularly at worksites. We all end up paying for these injuries in our insurance premiums and taxes so society has a right to regulate these machines. And I would pay extra for seatbelts in a car if it were an option rather than mandatory, even if the guy who invented them made a heap of money patenting the idea.
Which gets back to the question in my previous post: riving knife vs riving knife + SawStop for reducing injuries, does anyone know of any data? Or is the data cited by rob_ss what we have?
Sadly it is very hard to get effective data.
The OSHA files are helpful as they include a detailed description of the incident, whether it involved contacting a moving blade for instance or not is well documented. ACC data are much less useful as they contain only a one-line description, often written by a person who may not understand the situation well. They provide a very good count as every injury requiring treatment is counted, but the requirements to keep data confidential preclude sharing the one-liner. You can ask for aggregate data based on keywords but not much more.
It would be possible to get better data by doing a survey of injuries such as is commonly done with fireworks, but our rate of injury is so low at 8 or so per year that it would take many years to gather useful information.
Sawstop are also disingenuous, counting every brake activation as having prevented an injury, whereas many are probably caused by nails, wet wood, user error, close proximity of a finger without touch and system failures. More still are probably caused by relatively trivial blade contact that would not have caused any more harm than had the system not been in place.
Would I buy one - in a heartbeat, were they as big and powerful as my Hammer. the 4" depth of cut is handy for me as I do a lot of bigger work. I do regret not making do sometimes, even though I have never (yet) come close to injury.
To me, 30000 injuries per year sounds suspiciously high. I suspect it is overstating the matter, or if not, that there is a massive overburden of careless individuals. Seeing the very casual attitude to alcohol, and the ridiculous way people think cannabis is harmless, I suspect that drugs play a huge role in the injury statistics.
For some years now, I've kept this link to a study performed on motorised saw injuries that seems (if the data is accurate) to paint a very alarming picture of TS injuries indeed, within the USA. The summary on Page 3 is a quick read in the form of several revealing bullet points.
https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/statsaws.pdf
Kickback does feature prominently, causing injuries from wooden projectiles but also from the saw blade when the kickback caused the operator's hand to be pulled into the saw blade.
********
These days. I watch quite a few woodworking videos, this media being the dominant type in which such how-to information is promulgated. It never ceases to amaze me how dangerous a condition the various TS seen in US videos (the dominant kind) are - lacking guard, riving knife, blade brake and with a full fence face not shortened to prevent blade fence-nip at the back of the blade where it rises out of the table. Holdowns and feather boards are rarely seen.
Push sticks might be used but they seem to be employed in a fashion that adds dangers rather than preventing them. As often as not, hands get very close indeed to the unguarded blade, often in a way that would mean blade-bite if what is being pushed at the blade suddenly becomes significantly less resistant to that push.
As with many other aspects of US life, people seem almost eager to take large risks, seemingly to demonstrate their blase expertise (which they don't really seem to have) or to pose in some other macho fashion. Frankly, it makes me shudder with dread to watch them!
Lataxe, very attached to my hands as they're so useful.
That is even worse - 79,000 injuries in just the one year (extrapolated)...
If the online forums are any indication the saw stop has false firings 5 or 10 times as often as it actually contacts flesh. Any wet lumber requires you to use the bypass now the tech doesn't work. Jobsites are often wet. If there is any place that generates accidents it's jobsites. Now we've wrapped up extra money into tech that is often rendered inactive were it is needed most.
Riving knives. <---legislate this.
To me kickbacks area more serious problem. I've witnessed people get hit by chucks of wood from across the room. The guy had a concussion and 10 stitches and he wasn't the saw operator. Shouldn't happen especially in a university shop. The operator wasn't trained at all and did several thing wrong. Riving knife would have stopped it. The patent expired a couple years ago. We'll see what the market does. Recent government interference in markets haven't faired well for us. Hopefully we'll learn.
But what data is available describing the type of table saw. I have a Powermatic 66 ,no riving knife and the guard is long gone. I also have and use a portable,what I call a Tupperware saw. It's not the best available of those types of saw,the current one is Delta. The light duty saw to me is far more dangerous than the Powermatic. I use it with a base that I attach it to when I take it somewhere for an install or maybe something I'm doing in the yard. Someone referred to tablesaws as "stationary". These light duty saws are not "stationary". They are light weight and can tip on long stock . Not fastened down they can move. On job sites I ve seen them used just sitting on saw horses and not fastened down. Set on floors and operated in a kneeling position. Floor installers notoriously do that! The fences are clumsy and cheap, can bind or even come loose while making a cut.
Early in the first decade of many decades of using a table saw it occurred to me - if I never let my hand pass as far as the blade and never have my hand between the blade and the fence it's not likely to bite me. I made a long push board out of plywood, hand hold at the rear so that the board I'm cutting is passed the blade before my hand reaches the blade. Maximum blade height is always less than half a thumb above the thickness of the board. I've used that type of push " stick" for decades now and have several versions.
On a another thread that is going on right now about a door, I watched the submitted video. In it there is a part where the guy says " I know that my hand is really close to the blade but I know what I'm doing" if what he knows is that he is taking a risk then so be it . If he thinks that he can react fast enough when things go south well he's dead wrong! Every 1000 miles or so of ripping/ cutting boards something happens ,a board splits or twists maybe and trys to climb the blade and when something happens, it happens fast!
With that said I don't think that a tablesaw is particularly more dangerous than many machines you will find in a woodshop. Jointers for example. They are scary! I consider a slide saw potentially more dangerous than a radial arm saw that everyone but me thinks is extremely dangerous. Drill press- " I thought I had it fastened down well enough!" My lathe chucked a log at me the other day! I anticipated the possibility that that might happen and was standing to the side when I hit the switch. It missed!
Gary Bennett lost a finger to a bandsaw and how Sam Maloof ended up with 10 fingers the way he used a bandsaw is a miracle. His technique broke every -- never do this with a bandsaw rule. A woman that worked out of a shop that I was working out of lost a finger on a buffing wheel, she was wearing a ring!
Any hand held tool, circular saw,router etc have way more potential for causing injury. I managed to earn a few stitches by way of a dremel tool! Don't ask! None of this compares of course to the treeworker that got sucked into the chipper. You can only hope he went in head first! Looking around my shop just now I'm thinking that the most dangerous machine that I have might be my mortiser. The reason being, I can't think of any way that it can hurt me!
This is always a hot button. Many of the things logged as tablesaw accidents do not qulify as accidents in my opinion but . . . that's just my opinion. Putting someone in a 500 HP car with no brakes that has never driven and then calling it an accident when something goes wrong just doesn't work for me.
As to those who know how to drive somewhat (or use a tablesaw somewhat); driving and texting is never a good thing. Sawing after a beer or while talking on the phone, being tired, distracted, angry, hungry, etc. and having a mishap is also not an accident IMHO. There . . . I said it ;-)
I 100% agree. When I was in driving school we were taught to stop calling them accidents, call them crashes because it's almost never truly an "accident", the crash is nearly always caused by somebody failing to do something they should have done (or not do something they shouldn't have). Calling it an accident makes it sound as if it was unavoidable.
Same is true for any safety related discussion I can think of. And if someone loses a finger for operating a table saw drunk or stoned that's a harsh lesson, sure, but a fair and easily foreseeable one.
Have some of the previous comments on this thread been lost? I believe I and at least one other posted a response. Would appreciate some insight.
Nothing was deleted by mods.
Thank you for checking, Sir. Have a super day!
If one applies the KISS principle then all is well, unfortunately not everyone is simple or stupid, some are extremely sophisticated, well educated, intelligent and apparently well heeled, those are the dangerous ones.
Those of us at the bottom of the food chain go about our wood butchering for years quite happily without annoying the workers at the local A&E.
The most important tools are training and common sense, remember, slow is smooth, smooth is good.
For all the statisticians above it’s interesting to notice that the percentage of race car drivers involved in domestic crashes is about nil.
Add that to your pipe and smoke it.
KISS is very over-rated. Some things aren't simple; operating a TS requires a good understanding of the physics of force, materials and other related complexity. And no amount of suggestion that macho TS operators not be "stupid" will make them otherwise.
Training is certainly an antidote - if the training is of the right kind. Many in the US seemed to get "trained" in how to use a TS with an enormous amount of information and associated tradition that encourages dangerous TS operations, using inherently unsafe machines like the ubiquitous Unisaw.
As to common sense .... its often proved to be either not very common and/or not very sensible at all. In WW, it seems to consist mostly of what self-appointed magazine gurus and web channel people do, which is often far from sensible yet only too common.
As to the racing car drivers: perhaps the dafter variety never get to the domestic crashes as they've long ago been eaten by their racing car?
Lataxe
The problem is that most people are not trained to use table saws safely, nor are they necessarily in the best frame of mind, or sufficiently sober to use them properly.
An evil person would just say 'more fool them' but a just person wants people to be safe, no matter how uneducated, macho or intoxicated they are. Insofar as they can be, tools should be forgiving of error.
Never forget survivorship bias in assessing risk - best summed up as "I did it this way a million times and never got hurt" - you can make injury less likely, but it is always a possibility. Sure, education is important, but people still think it's ok to drive drunk or stoned and we've tried to educate them about that for decades. Driving drunk is very risky, but almost everyone who does it gets home without crashing or meeting an observant cop.
Almost.
It's the almost that gets you.
It's that tough knot you didn't see in the wood or the tool that falls off the wall behind you, the phone call or even a hiccup at the wrong moment. Even if you are never in a hurry, these things can happen to you, and when they do, you may be glad of the safety devices you have.
Really, the question you have to ask yourself is "do I feel lucky?"
Well,
Do ya?
I did not realize there are statistics about racecar drivers having car accidents on public roads.
99% of statistics are made up on the spot.
The spot I use sees only 97.3% made up. Of these, 0.17% coincidentally reflect the true statistics despite being made-up. The 100% true statistics are found on a spot within New Utopia, just by the unicorn stables.
There are many spots on which 100% of the stats are made up. More such spots appear by the day and will soon have merged to blanket the whole planet with thick and glutenous lie-goo!
I blame that Muskrat and his queer ilk. (Mind, they have vivid imaginations!)
And lets not forget them advertising creatives, "creative" being the operative word.
And the UPoopers: ""95% of woodworkers don't know this secret way to blah-blah". :-)
Lataxe
This forum NEEDS a ROTFL reaction!
The mention of statistics in this discussion reminds me of a comment made by Mark Twain. "There are lies, damned lies and statistics."
It sounds like mandatory safety training for all purchasers and operators of table saws would have a better payoff? I dont suppose that the makers and sellers of t-saws would go for that. Most of the "training" I got from friends (some of them pros) was to toss the splitter/blade guard/kickback pawls of my first cheap saws.
The feds are going to look at it from the cost/benefit standpoint: the cost to the economy of lost man-hours, future earnings, and medical bills, vs the estimated number of injuries prevented and the cost of adopting safer technology. People who have better data to support either way should submit it.
I was a professional machinist for 7 years. I saw many injuries, although by the time I was in the shop (1970s) there was already OSHA and some improvements were made. For example, no machines could be operated solely by foot pedal; operators would get into a rhythm with feeding parts by hand and triggering a punch press or other machine by foot. Sometimes the timing was off and goodbye hand until OSHA barred that.
Back to woodworking. After about 15 years using a Delta, SawStop came on the market and I jumped on it. The only argument against it, IMO, is cost. Some people just can't handle the added cost. And I get that.
But many people don't know that SawStop first tried to license the tech and sell it to the major tool companies. They didn't want to pay for it and shut them down. So SS went into business. I believe the government should mandate safety tech when it is available, needed and not unreasonable. All that's needed is for Delta, Powermatic et al to bite the bullet and work out an agreement with SS. And SS needs to weigh the added production and revenue against the unit cost and come up with a reasonable price. I have to believe that if every table saw had one of these brakes, the cost would be much less for that feature than it is today. BTW, I have never had a false trigger. Twice in 15 years I've set my miter gauge too close and when it touched, it triggered.
You can still kill yourself on a table saw if you do something dumb like try to rip a warped board and stand directly behind it. But I think the brake is an excellent way to avoid serious injury due to inattention (it happens) or something unexpected, like catching your foot and lurching into the blade.
"But I think the brake is an excellent way to avoid serious injury due to inattention (it happens) or something unexpected, like catching your foot and lurching into the blade".
There's a much less expensive and less destructive method: an always-there blade guard. Add also a blade brake of the European TS kind that brings the spinning blade to a stop within two or less seconds after the OFF switch is pressed, and there'll be far less finger-into-blade incidents, as there have been for decades where such safety methods have been de rigeur.
Sawstop tech is overkill (so to speak) - a safety methodology that ignores others just as effective but not so good at generating large sprofits for the manufacturer/patent-holder.
Interesting. How do you keep a blade guard or riving knife on for dado or rabbet cuts?
Dado stacks are semi-illegal on EU table saws as they're regarded as inherently very dangerous. :-)
There are some saws with arbors long enough; and some can be fitted with specialist single blades that are rather like those of a shaper disc fitted with a rabbeting bit. But the set up for these demands floating over head guards and other dedicated safety fitments.
Personally I much prefer using a router table for big grooves and rebates - also with dedicated guards, hold downs and push sticks of various kinds.
I have taken the guard off the table saw to make non-through cuts in thick timber, with the blade exposed when not covered by the timber being cut. The timber being thicker than the height of the blade is effectively the blade guard ..... until the timber leaves the blade. The riving knife is still in place as it's a millimetre below the crown of the blade, going up and down with the blade when lowering or raising the height of cut.
These days I do grooves and rabbets with either a combination plane or a router (powered or the hand-pushed kind) rather than risk pushing a big piece of timber off an exposed and often full-height rotating table saw blade.
***********
Machine woundings and murders have various causes. In general, they're a combination of inherently unsafe machine design and careless or over-confident human nature. It seems best to reduce both causes.
Of course, the easiest reduction of such risks is not to do woodwork with anything sharp - especially if its also powered - at all. :-) The issue is: if you do want to do woodwork, how much of what risk-causing features is it practical to reduce?
Personally I feel that human nature is such that the risks taken by the humans is unlikely ever to be be greatly reduced in a significant proportion of woodworkers.
Also, to get humans to reduce the risks they themselves are the cause of, the culture they live in would probably have to be changed drastically, in many countries. There's an awful lot of macho posturing risk-taking in some cultures, eh?
Lataxe
Strange "logic".
I can't use the blade guard when doing dadoes, so then I can't use a guard on the other cuts either (which is 95 %).
Most dadoes can be made on a router table.
Could not agree more.
As a young H&S professional I learned an important principle. Applied to chemicals it goes like this: First SUBSTITUE a dangerous chemical, e.g. solvent, with something less dangerous. If still not safe, SEPARATE your breathing zone from the offending substance, i.e. work in a hood or with ventilation close to the source. If this is still not enough put on personal protective equipment.
Applied to table saws: SUBSTITUTE the TS with plunge-cut saw, band saw or router table (for dadoes). When using the TS, SEPARATE your hands sufficiently from the blade by never moving your hand in the direction of the blade, by using a guard or sliding table.
Then systems like the "saw-stop" should be obsolete.
By the way, it is already old-fashioned. The German Altendorf company came out with a new system that is faster and do not ruin the blade.
An Altendorf saw is probably not for everyone, so the rest of us just have to use the blade guards. With dust extraction the face mask can be put aside too.
FWW, could you please consider having blade guards on photos of table saws from now on?
With respect meant to the many opinions by humans on safety, speed of response to a danger, business of patents, and statistics - people always insist they are smarter, faster, and/or immune to a dangerous object in their path. Youtube and LinkedIn are full of videos showing ways to kill yourself in believing the sharp edges won't get you.
As a user of SS since it first came on market I remain a strong believer in this machine combining many safety features. Patents covering some of these new features are normal business practice- and often are filed to prevent features hitting the open market. SS tried to license the patents with other manufacturers before having to set up a manufacturing line - at a large cost to the inventor (thus higher cost to users to pay back). These patents are due to expire this decade so be prepared for all future machines to have some of these features.
The riving knife alone is a big improvement on older machines lacking this (my SS replaced a 60 year old machine that regularly tossed boards back at me due to the blade binding). Add in the ability to drop the spinning knives and chisels from my fingers within milliseconds, I've saved fingers twice. Both times were my fault, end of a long day making "just one more cut". I now listen more closely to the voices in my head and stop at 90% of the job for the day.
If you rely on the blade spinning down in a second (as Lat_axe mentioned), this is enough time to take off your finger(s) - and it assumes you can kill power to the saw at the time of danger approaching. If you still insist on waving your hands around the blade immediately after killing power then you are proving Darwin was correct.
You are quite right. Humans are very bad at assessing risk and their ability to deal with it.
A table saw can remove your finger before you have time to feel it.
The "stop the blade in under 2 seconds" safety rule of EU saws is to help avoid incidents of finger-lop caused by an operator reaching for the sawn workpiece before the blade has stopped spinning, grabbing that workpiece right next to the still-spinning blade because there's no longer any workpiece to grab in front of the blade, once its finished being cut.
The unisaw and other human biting machines seemed to have no blade brake, so the blade kept on spinning for as long as the angular momentum of the blade, arbor and motor innards was great enough to overcome the mechanical resistance of same, which resistance is very low once the workpiece has been cut through.
Mind, the underlying cause is the impatience of TS operators grabbing cut workpieces so they can hurry to the next thing to do with it. Many seem to adopt the attitude that , "time is money" even when they're amateurs doing a hobby so more time at the woodworking operation is actually more play-pleasure. There's a lot to be said for slow and careful - retention of the fingers and longer in the workshop buggerin' about. Also, no brown stains on the workpiece or elsewhere. :-)
Lataxe
I have to force myself to slow down. I can be a terrible hack and lack time so tend to rush to get things done, but when I do slow down, not only do I get better results, I enjoy the outcome more.
I think an awful lot of woodworkers have the same issue.
I have no real issue with safety technology if indeed it does what it's supposed to and work can proceed unencumbered.
I will say however, SawStop and Mr. Gass will never see a penny from me.
I aslo do not agree with the thinking that, a saw is inherently dangerous without AIM technology.
Saws become dangerous when humans interact with them. Some humans make saws more dangerous than others.
And here is why you have to make it compulsory.
The argument goes:
1. A saw is not dangerous people make it dangerous.
2. Therefore if I am careful then I will be safe
3. Therefore I will always be careful and never make a mistake
4. Therefore I will buy a cheaper saw because I don't think I am at risk.
Like motor cycles, table saws are not inherently dangerous - they are, however, murderously unforgiving of error, and anyone can have a bad day. Even the most experienced biker can crash - where would the donor program be without them? Gravel or a bit of oil on a corner and you are explaining your misdeeds to the deity of your choice whilst half of you is in the spare parts bin.
As I have said before I have treated many injured tradesmen who have been hurt by tools they have used for a long time without getting hurt. They thought they were safe, but they dropped the angle grinder, or pressed the nail gun trigger, or had their hand maimed because they were tired and misjudged where their hand was on the wood.
Besides, this is not about someone who knows the risks and is careful, or at least who is taking a calculated risk - it's about protecting people who don't know the risks and get hurt. Americans are so determined to cut their fingers off on table saws in the name of freedom of choice that one has to question whether it is wise to sell saws there at all.
We disagree
If used properly, the tool is not dangerous.
Misuse, lack of knowledge, lack of attention, complacency, etc, all cause accidents, those attributes are all human errors.
"Besides, this is not about someone who knows the risks and is careful, or at least who is taking a calculated risk - it's about protecting people who don't know the risks and get hurt"
People who don't know the risks? That's what makes the tool dangerous. "You can't legislate against stupidity."
As someone who worked in a production shop, I don't agree that a machine is only dangerous is used improperly, etc. Saying that ignores the many other factors that cause accidents that are outside operator control. It is not always obvious that there is something embedded in a board (I've even seen small pebbles), that is much more warped than it seems or has internal voids from drying. We should acknowledge that stuff happens: a passing car backfires loudly and you startle, moving the board dangerously; the power fails and returns within a second or two, a part on the machine that was loose in a non-obvious way flies off and so on. These things happen and when there's a way to prevent harm from them, that is a good thing.
So I think even knowing the risks and working in a disciplined way is not always effective. Recently I replaced my 14" Rikon bandsaw with the same size Laguna because it has a foot break; I never liked the idea that the band was silently coasting for quite awhile after I turned it off.
I had a crazy boss once who used to quote what he called "an old Polish saying": If I knew I was going to fall, I would lie down first. Since you don't always know when an accident could happen, tech like SS is the equivalent of lying down first, IMO.
But risk prevention via machine costs cash. Therefore we can look at various risk-prevention mechs and compare their effectiveness agin' their cost. As I mentioned elsewhere, there are many mechanical designs for TS that provide very good safety for TS without the vast costs of the saw-stop method.
How many sawstop users, by the way, turn off the blade brake so as to not accidently trigger it with a bit of damp wood or some other thing it reacts to? There are shades of the "take off the guard and splitter" syndrome found in those unisaw users, keen to avoid the nuisance of their badly-designed safety gubbins.
In the final analysis, though, there'll always be some residual risk in performing physical operations involving the application of a lot of force. The only way to avoid these risks completely is not to do such operations at all.
However, if we lock ourselves in a padded safe room, we'll soon die of boredom!
Lataxe
The saw stop full-prevention mode is perhaps good (even necessary) those who feel that taking mad risks with their hand in a table saw is somehow an indication of their freedom and manliness. Well .... that's assuming they don't turn the sawstop finger detector off too, on principle. :-)
But the sawstop method is expensive to employ. Each trip seems to cost at least a blade and a braking thingy. Also, it takes a good while to return the saw to a working condition after a trip.
Elsewhere, the blade-dropping technique that actuates when a hand gets too close to the blade has been implemented in a different manner albeit in a saw that costs an arm and a leg (so to speak). The Altendorf F45 uses cameras to detect a trespassing hand coming too near the blade then a super-quick mech operates to drop the blade below the table.
However, the blade is not destroyed by a one-use braking thingy. Moreover, the mechanism operates when the hand is still a significant distance from actually touching the blade. And the saw can be re-started as fast as 10 seconds after such a trip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSbv2NbGu6w
Sadly, the Altendorf F45 price start at £16,000 then goes up for the addition of its various extensive gubbins for doing this or that special task. However .....
Is there any reason why a much less expensive table saw could not employ a similar mechanism - one that drops the blade if there's hand-slice danger but doesn't destroy stuff; and can recommence operation with a just a re-raise of the blade?
For that matter: why does the sawstop have to both drop the blade then destroy it with a simultaneously destroyed brake? Isn't it enough just to drop the blade, very fast, away from the silly finger?
Felder use a system that detects finger contact in the same way as the sawstop but the Felder doesn't destroy the blade or any brake and can be back working immediately after a trigger event. Felder is another expensive machine but the blade-dropping mech seems to use exactly the same simple finger-contact detection as the sawstop. It's operation, though, doesn't cost you a new blade and brake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQskakf35c4
Lataxe
For the last 20 years or so, SS has had an effective monopoly with over 140 patents at one time.
No other company has been able to bring ANY type of safety system to market because of SS's wall of patents.
As it's been mentioned, there are other nondestructive safety systems but SS has blocked all of them in this country to date.
Only now are we seeing some cracks where newer and hopefully better safety can come through into the market.
Not entirely true. Bosch has been legally able to sell their Reaxx since 2018 and has not.
No Bosch was banned from selling in the US under Trade Rules.
It has come out that they came to a licensing agreement with SawStop in 2018 and have not brought it back to market. Bosch has yet to give a plausible (to me) reason why. https://toolguyd.com/bosch-reaxx-table-saw-why-you-cant-buy-it/
Thanks for the correction, I forgot about that.
As a recipient of three US Patents I take issue with the negative label of "monopoly" for any person or business that has gone down that road sucessfully. Two of mine were blatantly ripped off by companies I tried to strike licensing agreements with. I was told that (if I had the resources) filing additional patent applications and leaving them open to adaptation for as long as possible was the best course.
Innovation is hard, and getting a product to market is very expensive.
Once you are in the market with a novel idea the world instantly starts making suggestions as to what you could have done better or why you will fail, and the economics of educating the planet so they adopt the better mouse trap is crushing. A patent, and the term that it runs is a primary reason that it is safe to innovate. The hot dog test is the North Star in the galaxy of educational marketing.
Companies have not been prohibited from bringing safety systems to market, they have been prohibited from bringing the same safety system to market in a different color box or with a bell or whistle added to make it "better".
Now that Sawstop's position in the market is secured and their patents have expired others will step in with their takes on the application of a well established technology. We will watch the public vote with their wallets.
The recent chatter about a mandate is not just coincidental to the patent protections expiring, but driven by it. Those that do not move in that direction will find themselves defending negligence suits in short order.
But much of the saw stop "innovation" is not - it's merely the leverage of a number of already well-understood technical mechanisms. Unfortunately, the law in many countries has evolved to suit the wants of a small number of very powerful interests, employing various mechanisms (including patents, copyright and associated monopolies) to deny opportunities of many kinds to the hoi-polloi; or to any alternative and potentially better suppliers.
This includes denying opportunities to genuine small innovators, as you yourself have noticed. Very few of those who do innovate end up as the main financial beneficiaries of those innovations. Big Corp has the means to not just annex those innovations but to falsely paint all sorts of commonly-owned ideas as exclusively theirs, with made-up legal contraptions that claim something is "their innovation" when in fact it was already out in the wild of various societies and their common cultural knowledge.
Sawstop are not really innovators but greedy business folk intent on suppressing the innovations and productions of others by employment of very partisan laws, long refined into mechanisms of economic control for use by those who have become addicted to monopolistic greed.
**********
Perhaps they just read far too much Ayn Rand? :-)
In practice, there are many motives for innovating or otherwise producing good and useful technologies. Only in certain kinds of culture are folk blind to such motives other than that of being greedy for cash and driven by a desire to exploit rather than help others.
"Companies have not been prohibited from bringing safety systems to market, they have been prohibited from bringing the same safety system to market in a different color box or with a bell or whistle added to make it "better".
We're going to disagree on this point.
Lets take the Bosch Reaxx. The only part of the system that is similar, is the triggering (touching the blade) everything else about the system is completely different. SS sued them.
if you have ever looked at the list of patents they have, you might change your opinion of how they operate.
They have used the patent laws to position themselves where they are, having virtually no competition for 20 years. During the same time period, they have also been trying to lobby the government to mandate their AIM system as the only safety system for all saws.
I'll agree to disagree then. If they lost the infringement case they were using SS's IP and the courts agreed. "Everything else" being different does not matter if it is dependent on the IP. Reading the link Ben provided above in #48 Bosch licensed the IP in 2018 but changed their mind about the viability of their product.
The IP or Intellectual property? You mean having a blade not cut the user. Any attempt at doing that is infringing. This is why I dislike them so much.
SS's primary IP, now apparently open to others' use, was tech that sensed the current in a human through a spinning sawblade and used it to trigger AIM in milliseconds (pretty impressive). Is there another way to do AIM? Not yet it seems, but this one was sci-fi just 20 years ago so stay tuned.
I own a SS PCS, and like it very much. However, with my volunteer work at Habitat for Humanity, we sometimes saw damp wood. SS technology might be problematic at job sites.
No slight on anyone that tries to innovate. A patent is a huge accomplishment by itself. Having a couple pat. pend and not sure how to proceed or having the funds I understand. Can we just convince those that are tying to mandate things to add the riving knife? It's such a an inexpensive add. Feels like airbags before seatbelts. Just me though.
the issue is underpowered saws, and using them for things they're not designed for, that is when people get hurt. Jobsite saws are not made for fine woodworking but there are people all over you tube telling you that you can be a millionaire with a $150 saw that is a circular saw mounted upside down. Plus people are not learning proper techniques, Personally I think you tube is a bigger danger than any saw
Oliver, you say:
"Personally I think you tube is a bigger danger than any saw".
Too true! But the stuff on UBoob arises from already extant cultures, traditions and practices of woodworking (although the desire for fame & clicks does drive some additional crazy behaviours). Even in this magazine, you will find some scary practices with machines, pictured in full colour, if you read some issues from years back (and even one or two more recent issues)!
Some WW practices seen on UBoob from, let us say, less developed countries are very scary indeed. Mind, the survivors do develop some remarkable hand-eye coordination. :-)
Despite the sneers of those who feel health & safety stuff is only for sissies and wimps there has, though, been a general trend towards safer practices .... and associated safer machine designs. Some cultures do seem more resistant than others, mind. :-)
It does seem a shame, then, that Sawstop has polluted a decent attempt to save fingers with an indecent attempt to make vast amounts of money, even at the expense of preventing the advent of even better safety mechanisms for table saws - ones that are also far less expensive to add-on and to use; and which would perhaps have been available to those who can't afford Sawstoppers .... some of whom may now be fingerless, dented i' the bonce or even dead of bad-TS + bad-UPoop advice.
I take issue with the suggestion of excess profits.
Sawstop have provided their technology only in high end products and their products cost no more than equivalents without the brake, give or take a percent or two.
Capitalism is important. Without it there would have been no incentive other than altruism to develop the device and improve. We saw this in the UK with telecommunications - it was dreadful when the state owned it because there was no competition and no skin in the game. As soon as BT was sold off, there was an exponential improvement in service and associated fall in real terms costs.
Capitalism (as carefully opposed to Consumerism) is good. It has led to every development worth commenting upon for as long as humans have had fungible goods. We just need to ensure that the settings are right to incentivise development. copyright settings are wrong in my view - how is it ok that a physical invention is protected for 25 years, whereas Slade will be making money from 'It's Christmas' for 80 years after the last member dies.
There are many forms of capitalism. In latter days some forms have come to dominate because they generate more profit with less outlay or because they include the means to have monopolies. And, in preferring these methods, they've shrugged off all and any ethical or moral restraints.
Finance capitalism is dominant yet itself produces nothing useful in the way of goods and services, despite the claims for "investment capital services". It's a vast parasite on the body politic and its economic life blood of real goods & services production.
The proliferation of outrageously unfair patent, copyright and other legal mechanisms have allowed all sorts of rascals to annex ideas that were once common, in a fashion not unlike the enclosure acts stealing common land from the wider populace to award to a tiny coterie of aristocrats and corrutt parliamentarians of the C17th and C18th in Britain. They'll legally annex the oxygen next! (They've already done so with land and water).
The great majority of innovation is performed in universities and by individuals who are motivated not just by altruism but by rewards of other kinds, from status amongst their peers, fame and the award of further opportunities to innovate (e.g. tenure in academe, grants, relationships with other true innovators). Meanwhile, Big Corp obtains ownership of the innovations, often for a pittance or nothing (they steal them) and expands that ownership via patents to a point that prevents a vast array of supporting design and tech being available to other innovators.
Lastly, it is by no means clear that unfettered innovation, whatever the driving motivation, is a universally good thing. Tech innovations allied with the more greedy and morally unfettered forms of capitalism are what are going to "do" for all we humans, along with the vast number of other species they've already made extinct.
******
It's easy to assume that our present and containing culture is the only possible and best of all possible worlds. A reading of Voltaire's "Candide" may be a useful antidote to this assumption. Who wants to be Dr Pangloss, after all?
I thought this forum was about table saw safety. Perhaps some folks should migrate to an economics or political forum.
Everything has a political and economic dimension or aspect. Usually these are just background that are an unspoken part of the context in a discussion.
Sometimes the political and economic aspects have a very large and perhaps controversial effect on the subject of the discussion. Surely this is the case with table saw safety, which is now the subject of proposals by your government that may have large economic effects on any woodworker buying and using a tablesaw.
The government proposals being made are greatly affected by the machinations of Sawstop in the market, along with their lobbying of government to favour their particular safety solution, as they also act to legally limit alternatives from other TA makers.
That's political and economic, both. How could this particular subject be discussed at all without reference to those aspects?
Funny, you never mentioned the word "safety" in that post.
I also don't believe it's "excess" profits, just profits due to lack of competing products. But it's all about safety, right?
The sad thing is that SS got what they wanted and still don't seem to be happy until everyone see's things their way.
If the government does anything, my guess would be they follow the European regs and require the 10 second motor brake feature.
I tell beginners the first saw you should get is a bandsaw. Then either DIY or buy a track saw. Then get a router.
See how far you can get with them before you drop money on the most dangerous machine in a shop.
The OP finished his post with this observation:
"So many people learn from Norm Abram and recent YouTube videos (and FWW) that beginners will continue to buy table saws no matter what.
Thoughts?"
The wider suggestion is that the mass media for woodworking, including FWW magazine, are teachers of techniques and so bear responsibility for teaching safe techniques. Would anyone, including the editor of this magazine, disagree?
If not, then why are unsafe practices to be found scattered throughout such media? This month's FWW magazine, for example, has three in the first twenty pages - two within adverts and one in a reader tip:
* Page 11 - an advert depicting someone in a cloud of sanding dust, with no appropriate protection (mask, ear defenders) except, strangely, some spectacles.
* Page 14 - an unguarded dado set pictured in a tip, with a TS user pushing a workpiece laterally across it with the end of the workpiece and a jig pressed against the TS rip fence, inviting a kickback.
* Page 17 - an advert showing a fully raised TS blade with no guard and a nearby hand doing the pushing of the workpiece into it. At least there was a riving knife.
Let's face it - unsafe operating procedures are the norm in much of the woodworking mass media. Many learn from this media and, being good at copying like all humans, will adopt the unsafe ways in their hundreds of thousands.
But in the cultures that generate such portrayals of unsafe norms ('scuse pun) there's always the background of ideological individualism, in which no one is responsible for anything but themselves. Well, unless they can afford a glib lawyer.
Flogging a two-legged horse, perhaps, but this pic (attached) that appears in a very recent FWW article is symptomatic of the continuing mass media irresponsibility in showing madly dangerous table saw usages.
The work the TS user does is excellent and so, therefore, is his reputation as a woodworker. But this compounds the sin of showing him using a table saw with every possible dangerous lack of protection. Having still his ten digits and no dent in his head from a kickback compounds the naughtiness of including this picture in the FWW article.
"If he can get away with it, so can I"
Lataxe, harping on & on.