SawStop Industrial vs Laguna Platinum impressions

[Ilya]

Maybe this will be useful to someone on the market for a table saws. A bit of a comparison between the Sawstop Industrial and Laguna Platinum table saws from a hobby woodworker. Looking at mechanical specifications, it would probably be more fair to compare the Laguna Platinum to the Sawstop Professional, but I cannot do this, since I didn't own the Professional version. At the same time, Laguna doesn't have, to the best of my knowledge, a saw that will be of the same size as the SawStop Industrial.

I owned and used Laguna Platinum for 2 years, and recently replaced it with SawStop Industrial - so have very little experience with Sawstop still, mostly unpacking it, setting up and doing several cuts. While I have fresh impressions and good memory of Laguna, I wanted to share them.

For me the main selling point of the SawStop was their safety mechanism along with fantastic build quality. Is the safety feature worth roughly twice the price tag as compared to Laguna Platinum, which also has an excellent build quality? This is the question that everyone will have to find his/her own answer to. When the cars were coming without ABS brakes as standard, and the ABS feature would add a couple of grand to the cost of the car, was it worth the extra? Of course "we all drive to conditions" and are safe drivers, but ABS saved a lot of people. Sawstop also saved a lot of hands/fingers. At the same time, a lot of people safely used cars without ABS and safely used table saws without blade brake. The least fortunate group of people are those who used cars without ABS and saws without brakes, and received some injuries that could have been prevented by the technology. I'd say, if you can stretch your budget to get the extra safety features - get them, be it in the cars or in tools/machinery.

Now to some objective and subjective comparison points.

1. Both machines are mechanically excellent machines. Well made inside and out. Sawstop is much heavier than Laguna, with larger cast iron table and apparently more heavy duty mechanism inside (the mechanism looks very impressive). This may be insignificant for hobby users, both saws should last a life time. All comments below, in my view, will just show some "not deal breaking" mechanical differences between the saws.
2. The saws have similarly rated motors (I got 3Hp Sawstop, but 3 phase 5Hp is also available).
   
3. Blade tilt and lift. If I understand correctly, the Sawstop mechanism is much heavier, therefore the gear ratio for blade riser is different. It means that you have to do more turns to lift the blade on the Sawstop, but it works smoother and easier (I like it). The wheels that you turn are larger on the Sawstop. At the same time, the lock wheels on the Laguna are made of metal and have the feel of premium quality, while Sawstop has cheap plastic lock knobs.
4. The Sawstop Industrial has larger cast iron table - I like it, better support for larger pieces without the need for extension tables. I still plan to add an out feed table for supporting longer boards (and I had an out feed table on Laguna also).
5. The fence rail of Laguna is extending past the table (which is a bit annoying when you have limited space and you have to walk past the side of the table), while the Sawstop fence does not.
6. The fence on the Laguna Platinum, in my opinion, is superior to the fence of the Sawstop. It has a better design that holds the fence straight even when it is not locked. I.e. you move the fence on Laguna, and when you lock it, it locks without any movement. On the Sawstop there is a bit of a free play, and when you lock the fence, it can move a little. For precise cuts this will mean extra fiddling with setting the fence. Also I like the material that the Laguna fence is made of better, it has thick solid slippery plastic board that your material slides along, whereas the Sawstop has something that looks like some sort of laminated plywood. I am using the digital readout on both saws, so cannot comment on the convenience of the built-in scale, but the Sawstop one looks better, it seems that it is easier to align the line with the numbers on the scale. And Sawstop has two scales - for placing fence both to the left and to the right of the saw.
7. I got the Sawstop with their mobile base. This is the best mobile base I have seen for machinery. It has hydraulic mechanism that lifts the saw, and then I can move the saw on concrete floor literally with one or two fingers. 330 kg of weight with one finger! When the saw is in place, you depress the hydraulic jack, and the saw is gently lowered on the floor and it is as stable as it would be standing directly on the floor.
8. Sawstop dust extraction looks a bit better than that on Laguna, with a shroud around the blade under the table that is connected directly to the dust port on the side of the table, and it also comes with the blade guard with connection for the dust extraction. Some experts here will say that the dust extraction is still far from ideal. However, I compare Laguna and Sawstop here, and the later wins.
9. Accessories: Sawstop has monster wrenches for changing blades, I like them, your hands are really far from the blade. The table inset on the Sawstop is much better, and easier to remove, but the saw comes just with one inset, which is a pity. Laguna has basic pressed metal table insets, but at least it comes with two (second one for dado) to get you started.

My first impression when I made my first cut on Sawstop - "it cuts exactly the same as Laguna". Wood is clearly cut, no vibrations, everything is smooth. But then my friend told me that hopefully I will never have to experience the main difference between these two table saws.

[RoyG]

I considered a buying a SawStop machine a few years ago when I was in the market for a new table saw. I ended up buying a Laguna Fusion for a variety of reasons, the majority of which are not really relevant to this discussion. One of my key criteria when selecting a new Table Saw was that I wanted to buy a table saw that would do me for the next 25 or 30 years.

The one SawStop related issue that I was never able to reconcile was ..... will I still be able to buy a Sawstop Blade Brake Assembly for this machine in 10, 20 or 30 years time? The blade brake assembly is by design a throw away consumable item, if it ever gets triggered. Being unable to buy a replacement blade brake assembly in a few years time (e.g. 10, 20 30 or more years) would render an otherwise serviceable SawStop table saw completely useless. This situation is likely to occur if the SawStop company goes out of business, or if SawStop for some reason (e.g. Due to product obsolescence SawStop decides to no longer manufacturer the blade brake assembly for saws more than so many years old) discontinue manufacture of this essential part.

That's the main reason I decided not to go with the SawStop.

RoyG

[Ilya]

A fair point, RoyG, but I don't see this as a big issue. If I was overly worried about this I would get two spare cartridges, and that should last a lifetime. If you go through 3 cartridges in a finite time, it means you are doing something really wrong. Worst case scenario, if there is nowhere to get more cartridges, I believe the saw can still be used without this safety.

[ozhunter]

Thanks for the reveiw. Very timely for me as I'm looking myself. ATM leaning toward the SawStop, but I have a lingering thing in the back of my mind that I'm going to ask SawStop. All the videos of the safety mechanism show a sausage and the owners finger being fed into the blade at a very slow controlled pace. I want to see how much damage the mechanism would save if something was fed into it at a speed more indicitive of your hand slipping off the wood when pushing a piece of timber through. If I don't get a reply, I'll put it to the bloke at the T&WWW show in Sydney this year.

[Prle77]

ozhunter
I was wondering the same thing...
After a bit of research on youtube..I came across a video where a guy did exactly the same thing...
called it more realistic test with the sausage..
First test was in normal cutting at faster speed.. (normal cutting speed).. sawstop performed exactly the same as per their ads.. very minor damage to the sausage..
then the guy took off the guard and simulated hand dropping down on top of the saw (with the sausage) with quite some pressure and speed...
Sausage suffered a bit of a deeper cut.. and bit of mangle... but to be honest... if you dropped your hand on top of your saw.. there will be some severe amputation and mangling,,, and damage to the sausage was in comparison absolutely minimal..
That video actually won me and I went and purchased sawstop professional
here's a video with real finger (no sausage) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUjat1JA_rw
found the video of sausage being dtopped on top of the blade
check around 4:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnlTGndRi38

[Ilya]

Hi ozhunter, there is plenty of online photos that show cuts to fingers that were done by the Sawstops in real life situations. For me the most convincing case was of my mate, who was cutting the slot, when the board was caught and thrown away, and his hand went right into the blade. He said that he would have lost 4 or 5 fingers, but instead there is a little cut, 3.2 mm wide. I have seen the cut

[Prle77]

during last year woodworking show in melb.. carbatec was doing a demo with sawstop... and for the question why he's not using his hand rather than a sausage ... the answer was... sawstop was built to prevent amputation and minimise cuts.. The sawstop they were using was used constantly in their demo's .. so talking probably hundreds of tests... so the final answer was... this saw was absolutely abused and every time it works but why tempt the god if not required...and to be honest you really need to have some big cahoonas to put your finger into free spinning blade voluntarily... and i do agree with him...
sawstop has a very good test / startup procedure to ensure everything is top notch before starting.. at the beginning i thought that was annoying as when you just turn the power on it takes some time before you can turn the saw on.. but then one day i have accidentally left the fence firmly against the blade when i was doing something else... and i didn't see it.. tried to turn the saw on.. it refused... thus sawing me fence(it would greatly damage fence)
Bught the sawstop as an upgrade.. and to this day not regretting it...quite happy with performance, built and quality,,,

[simops]

I look forward to Bosch further developing their 'saw stop' equivalent, which is not only superior but unfortunately only available with their portable in-field unit. It would be good for Saw Stop to have some competition so that the safety feature is priced to a wider audience......

cheers