saw stop inventor puts his finger into the blade

[The Bleeder]

How can he lay his cards on the table when he has no hands .

Ok that said...

Initial operation...
This was done in a public hospital as an emergency admittance.

out of pocket expenses

$1700.00 for the hand micro surgeon specialist (after medicare and private health cover rebate).
Physio... 4 months 5 days a week at the public hospital $0.00 (that's another story).

If done at private physio about $80-$200 per session depending on the treatment (now it starts to add up as the rebate you get is about $65)

Physio.. 6 months 3 days a week at the public hospital (see notes above)

Physio.. 2 months 1 day a week at the public hospital (see notes above)

Second operation.. private hospital (this was to straighten and pin the finger)

out of pocket expenses

$1000.00 for the same specialist
$250 for the anathesist
(this was after the rebate from medicare and private health insurance)

The second operation was done during the last 2 months of physio so the above applies.

So in all about $3000.00 out of pocket expenses.

Hate to think what it would of cost if I had to pay the physio bill, as they use some pretty expensive stuff to get the wound to heal. So I would say that most of the physio sessions would have been around the $200.00 mark.


And on top of this I couldn't do any woodwork for about 18 months.

Sawstop great innovation. Upfront cost high. On going costs, are they really that high, no I don't think so compared to the above cost.

If you can afford the saw in the first place then the first time it activates and saves finger,hand or whatever you will probably be happy shelling out $500 to put your saw back together.

Steve

Steve

[silentC]

How can he lay his cards on the table when he has no hands

I think his belief is that they will grow back.

In 1982 a guy who worked for my old man lost his left hand in a motorbike accident on his way to work one morning. They stitched it back on but he only ever regained about 50% of the movement. He was a first class sheet metal worker at the time of the accident but was unable to work in his trade ever again. Worker's comp covered him on reduced wages for about 5 years while the court case went on, then he got a compensation payment which covered his medical expenses and some of his lost income. That was 25 years ago and he has been on a disability pension ever since. Is he bitter about it? You bet...

[Gra]

I am glad that you are doing well.

If you want someone to promote the machine for you, then I am more than happy to help you out. Just send me one and I will use it.

Well you would need a Victorian promoter , wouldn't you

[busyhands]

Stunned and amazed. OWWWWW. The thought of what he did just makes me cringe. I have all ten fingers (and plan on keeping it that way), so I don't plan on testing his invention at any display. Makes you think about having something like that installed in the workshop though. Have a friend who has been working in wood for a long time and he has the tip of one finger missing from an unfortunate mistake with his table saw. We play with dangerous things don't we?!

[Fencepost2]

The saw stop is very impressive. I have another question. The video explains that it works by the detection of a small electric current that is conducted by the hand but not by wood that is being cut. Is there any possibility of false alarms - such as timber of a moisture content or other properties that can result in shut downs other than with a finger or sausage? How was it that the piece of meat on the video did not shut the machine down?

[blackhole]

Because he was not touching the steak, it was insulated on a piece of dry wood.

[silentC]

Because that wasn't the SawStop. It was a normal table saw. It was supposed to be demonstrating what happens if you run meat through a saw without the SawStop.

[Gra]

I believe there is a button to "Turn off" (Temporarily) the sawstop function, for if you wanted to cut metal, etc. Brendan could explain it better though

[Wongo]

I thought they were just trying show you what it is like without the function.

[silentC]

They were...

Gra is explaining that the thing can be deactivated when you're cutting green wood that might trigger it.

The steak cutting demo is on a completely different table saw, not the SawStop.

[Ruddigar]

I'm pretty sure the steak demo was on a SawStop machine, actually. The lighting is different, but the machine looks the same. Suspiciously, there is red text on the top of the rip fence, possibly arranged to form the word "SawStop".

So why didn't the steak set it off?

Two possibilities.

Either the steak did not have enough mass to draw enough of the signal (this is true for the sausage demo - if I'm not touching the sausage then it would be cut in half )

Or the machine was in 'Bypass Mode'. You can change the machine into Bypass Mode if you want to cut aluminium, steak, fingers, or any other conductive material. The good part about the Bypass Mode though is that you can't accidentally turn it on, and if you switch the machine off and then on again, it automatically reverts to safe mode.

I reckon it was in Bypass Mode.

EDIT: Just watched the steak thing again. Steve's hands were touching the steak, so the machine must have definitely been in Bypass Mode.

[silentC]

Yeah OK it probably is. They took the wings off so it fooled me. Easily done.

[Ruddigar]

Easily done.

Too easy. Like

really....

[dazzler]

Having seen the sausage demo work "in the flesh" so to speak when brendan demo'd it I am confident that if I ever dropped me snags on it it would stop them being cut and I could cook and eat em.

Now that I have seen a finger go in one and not get cut I am happy enough that it works.

The arguements on the forum about the technology being flawed are stupid.

Buy one, dont buy one, who gives a rats.

[Keith_W]

They could have his assistant "Stumpy" come on the Video to talk about the prototype and the testing proceedures.

Sorry All ............ Couldnt resist.

Regards,
Keith.