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Comment by mechanical_fish | Hacker News Reader

This guy is my personal hero, but -- alas -- this is also a story about worse is better:

http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/how-to/articles/saws...

"Having heard all of the various reasons put forth by the manufacturers for not doing anything, I firmly believe it simply comes down to money," says Gass. "They cannot figure out how to make more money by adding SawStop. They are not paying for the injuries that occur now, so why should they spend money to change their product to eliminate a cost they aren't bearing?"

So, although this guy has offered his safety technology to all tool manufacturers, SawStop is only available on SawStop-branded saws, which cost a bit more money, which causes people to bitch and moan, because who wants to spend money on a feature that merely prevents injuries?

The appropriate software-platform analogy is left as an exercise for the reader. ;)

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According to SawStop PR, SawStop has prevented about 150 injuries.

It appears that Stephen Gass is attempting to extort revenues.

> Here in the States the argument over licensing the SawStop technology has been hot, heavy, and plenty of it. Mr. Gass wants 8% for a license, which will add about $80USD to the cost of the typical table saw, plus the cost of the mechanism and the labour to install it. Delta, et al. balked at the price.

http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=60686&pag...

Woodworkers are pretty smart and safety conscious. I've taken a couple wood working classes at my local community college. As our teacher, a master woodworker, told us - "woodworking is about problem solving. it doesn't matter how you do it - there is no right or wrong - only smarter, faster, and safer. it doesn't matter how you do it, as long as it looks nice"

It appears that Stephen Gass is attempting to extort revenues.

Don't you think you should... rephrase that? I believe the term is "negotiate a price", not "extort revenues".

I'm no fan of software patents or obvious patents, but if ever an invention deserved a patent, this is it.

I'm not suggesting that this is a story of greedy companies, or of greedy inventors. I believe the companies when they say that most people aren't willing to pay an additional 8% (for a tool that will probably last a lifetime) to hedge against amputation injuries. I just don't understand that, is all. Check out this abstract from some epidemiologists:

http://www.joem.org/pt/re/joem/abstract.00043764-199610000-0...

They sampled 283 amateur and pro woodworkers in New Mexico and report that "5% of all respondents suffered partial amputations." That is a really big fraction. Obviously, I'm unlikely to saw as much wood in my life as a professional carpenter, but it still seems like my odds of losing a finger as an amateur woodworker are probably far higher than one in 100,000. They might even be on the order of 1%. Which, to me, makes SawStop a no-brainer at $80. I want the miter saw and band saw versions, too.

Perhaps 8% is a reasonable number to not lose your digits. Unfortunately, the customer isn't going to be able to decide (unless they buy SawStop's own) until Delta et al. license. and/or significant public pressure is brought (e.g. someone famous losing their fingers woodworking)

Another reason why companies like Delta et al. are resistant to the innovation is the imminent threat of tens of millions of damages in retroactive lawsuits (e.g. by licensing this technology now - it is tantamount to admission that they were negligent in not providing it earlier [at least in the years since SawStop was announced to the industry].

720k * 40% * (2009 - 2003) is a lot of potential class-action litigants. 2003 is the year when Stephen Gass stepped up his negotiations by approaching the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission about a federal mandate.

"Woodworking equipment produces approximately 720,000 injuries per year often causing severe psychologic and functional impairment. Responses from 1000 injured woodworkers to a demographic survey revealed that 60.5% of injuries occurred to amateur woodworkers; 42% of injuries were caused by the table saw and 37% of respondents reported amputation of one or more digits. The most significant causal factor reported was failure to use properly installed guards, but personal factors, such as fatigue and postprandial somnolence were also implicated. Twenty-seven percent of respondents required hospitalization for an average of 3.7 days, and 22.8% were treated by hand surgeons."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3498745

I don't know anything about retroactive lawsuits. But if people can sue these companies after they license the technology, why can't they sue them for not licensing and providing safety? It would sounds so ironic.

Am I missing something here or the laws are really in such a way ...

The price difference isn't $80. My Grizzly cabinet saw retails for around $1100 today. The equivalent Sawstop saw retails for over $3000. When he couldn't convince other manufactures to include his technology, he built a high-end saw to market himself. That still puts the extra safety out of range for us lower-end consumers.

And the danger with table saws isn't carelessly putting your finger into the blade. The danger is kickback, where the saw violently throws the wood your cutting off the table, which can knock your hands about in unpredictable ways. Bandsaws and miter saws don't kick back. You can safely put your fingers very close to the blade (although a little less so with miter saws which do tend to push the wood around a bit as the blade enters the wood).

Of course, I wish I could afford one of his saws. I once put all four fingers of my left hand into a dado blade on my table saw due to kickback. I'm lucky to still have them.

That still puts the extra safety out of range for us lower-end consumers.

Yeah, alas, the $80 is the imaginary price difference that might exist in a world where every saw buyer thought as I do, leading every manufacturer to leap at the chance to license SawStop.

If the premium really were only $80 I might spring for the bandsaw version too, though I've used bandsaws many times and understand what you're saying about the relative danger. I just like being paranoid, when I can afford it. Just because a mistake requires you to be incredibly boneheaded or absent-minded doesn't mean it won't happen.

I can't necessarily blame the SawStop guy for building high-end saws that I'm reluctant to afford. I'm no expert on saw economics, but I find it easy to believe that there's no way to build a viable startup by trying to compete against the likes of Grizzly on price.

I will say, though, that every time I contemplate taking up woodworking without a SawStop saw I run into sentences like this:

I once put all four fingers of my left hand into a dado blade on my table saw due to kickback.

And then I start thinking about all the other hobbies I could be pursuing. Piano! Knitting! Electronics! Machining! (Which, if you do it right, doesn't involve a lot of kickback either. Wear those steel-toed boots, though.)

> And then I start thinking about all the other hobbies I could be pursuing.

The feeling you get from taking pieces of raw lumber, shaping them, planing them, joining them (and yes shimming them), eventually turning the wood into something with form and function, through problem solving and love.

The feeling you get from seeing someone like and enjoy a piece of furniture you built as a gift.

Come to think of it, I think hobbies are about pursuing personal feelings. Not about the actual doing.

Even though, I've temporarily put woodworking on the back burner, I'm glad to see fellow woodworkers (coming-out-of cliche deleted). I still gawk at Woodcraft products. I still inspect the craftsmanship/joints of strangers' furniture (http://www.woodcraft.com/)

Oh, I may not resist the siren song of Norm Abram forever. We're just haggling over the price here. ;)

> Woodworkers are pretty smart and safety conscious

And so are the car drivers, which doesn't prevent a vast majority of accidents from happening because of a human error.

human error is part of it, but also the not safety conscious part. how many drivers actually think about how they're hurtling across the ground in a metal or plastic box sometimes faster than the fastest land animal can sprint? most people who drive are not thinking about safety, they're just "driving" which often means a background task while they talk or think, etc.

Sure, of course. My point was that any inherently dangerous activity whether it's sawing, driving or even something as mundane as cooking will dull the perception of danger with time. Woodworkers are not the exception.

ahh, my bad for reading in one direction and not thinking. A is like B, not B is like A. good point.

"Woodworkers are pretty smart and safety conscious."

I agree, but there can times when control slips. This is anecdotal, I know, but my Dad cut his arm off with a radial arm saw when I was 3.

My brother was a baby and he wasn't getting much sleep, so my Dad was pretty distracted at the time. He's very careful now. I sent him this video and he told me later that it gave him the shakes.

Or it might be a story about the expected value of an injury which would be sustained without the technology vs. its cost. If you haven't considered what various potential injuries are worth and their probabilities and what this technology costs then you are just playing the "if it saves just one child its worth it" game.

Agreed, and see my other post for the numbers I could find with a quick Googling.

And it's true that anecdotal evidence has limited utility, but: My high school's shop teacher? Missing fingers. My wife's father, a former carpenter? Missing fingers. What does every shop teacher fret about, constantly, out loud? Fingers. I don't think we're talking about saving just one child, here. These injuries are not that rare.

The "if it saves just one child" problem is more of a problem when you try to force your solution and the associated costs onto other people. In a free market, where it's my own finger on the line. Well, I'd be very likely to buy a saw with this technology.

In my garage sits my grandfather's table saw. He was a pro woodworker. It's big, heavy, and runs on three-phase power. It runs like a champ, but scares the crap outta me. I use it, but am very, very careful.

Always respect your tools. Take care of them, and they will take care of you.

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