22 Feb
2010
22 Feb
'10
7:25 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 1:08 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 22 Feb 2010 at 18:40, feldman.r at comcast.net
wrote:
Pressure-treated boards trip the safety circuit. So you have to manually
turn off the safety to cut pressure treaded boards. This is the main reason
I haven't wanted one. (Although the price helped with that decision also.)
I'm not sure how the manual safety shutoff works. I could be that you have
to turn it off for each cut, in which case it's a matter of time before I
accidentally don't turn it off. Or it could be that you have to remember to
turn it back on, in which case I would forget to turn it back on. I'd much
rather have passive blade guards that are obviously there or not.
Another common problem, judging from the woodworking forums, is that people
with upgraded miter gauges sometimes accidentally run the blade into their
aluminum miter gauge. This trips the circuit also, ruining the blade and
cartridge in addition to the miter gauge. On normal saws, the aluminum in
the miter gauge doesn't damage the saw blade.
I have to wonder what happens when there's metal imbedded in the wood also.
And the sawstop does nothing (that any other saw doesn't do) to stop
kickback. To me, that's a far greater danger than putting my fingers in the
blade.
There's this also:
http://www.whirlwindtool.com/
... although it looks big and clunky to me.
I have a unisaw with a beismeyer snap-in spreader. I'm planning to make or
buy an over-arm blade guard, but I haven't done it yet. That would enough
to keep my fingers out of the blade.
brian
I have a SawStop Contractor's saw and am
pleased with it, even though
I have not had the need to test its stopping feature. I did see one
demonstrated with a hot dog at a trade show, though. The maker of the
electronics (National Semi, IIRC) was doing the demo.
Just curious; have you tried sawing through a sopping-wet pressure-
treated 2x4 with it?