It's a good case to self reflect on one's feelings on patents. Bosch and others shouldn't be able to steal his idea if we're a society that values them. Even those here against patents typically could find his goal noble, and would likely be against a megacorp stealing from a single amateur inventor. At the same time, him giving it away from the start could have saved many people injuries.

I just skimmed the wiki and it's interesting to read about some of the hang ups of negotiations like his patent license fees and disagreements on share of legal liabilities should a saw stop not function as designed.

I had heard about the blade damage, and it seems more things like the wet wood you've mentioned have surfaced since I got out of woodworking. Even so, it's quicker, easier, and cheaper to patch or replace a saw than one's hand, at least in America where we get the pleasure of paying directly for our misfortunes.

I thankfully never heard of any injuries at our high school. We did have the anti kickback wheels and the lifting blade guard and were taught to use push sticks and not standing directly behind the work, etc.

The table saw looks so simple, but there is no room for any margin of error and there is no opportunity for warning, and I think most people that don't use power tools can't quite appreciate that.

My woodshop class was before the sawstop came out. We had fairly open access to everything, but we just weren't allowed to use the table saw. All cuts were done by the teacher.

Seems like there is an override for federal/military use, not private industry, and the PTI (power tool industry lobby) seems very against being made to use the tech by fiat.

Yeah. Table saws and lathes are typically the two scariest machines in a shop. Table saws tend to get more injuries purely because people tend to use them for mindless tasks. With a lathe, you’re hands-on and focused the entire time. So accidents tend to be because the piece snapped free and went flying across the shop at Mach Jesus. But table saws are just the right blend of powerful and utilitarian, to be really dangerous.

Oh. I need to cut 50 identical pieces. Set up a jig on your table saw, and have at it. You get into a pattern. Set material in jig, grab sled, push sled to cut, retract sled, move cut piece, repeat… But by piece 20 or 30, you’ve started to think about what you’re going to have for dinner tonight. Maybe there’s still some leftover soup in the fridge? But the wife won’t want that, because we had it yesterday. Maybe we could get a rotisserie chicken from the grocery sto- Aaaaaaand your thumb is gone, because you pushed the piece directly instead of pushing the sled.

Very true. That's something that will keep pulling you in.

Most of my lathe time was threading and knurling on a metal lathe, so more hands off than a wood lathe.

Yep. I’ve definitely seen what a large industrial lathe will do to a person. It very rapidly makes them into what I refer to as “human paste”

good for me i just stay away from the danger tools :)

I think it's to prevent brands that would just continue selling cheaper saws without it, as it increases the price of each unit (25% production cost plus 8% license are the numbers in the wiki). Having it mandated levels the playing field.

I'm not going to argue for or against that, and that may not be the exact reason. After 25 years, search results are full of such biased posts on both sides that I can't find anything from the inventor.

Tariffs are easy profit for the regime. That's their cut in exchange for all the favors to megacorps.

Gotta make sure real estate stays expensive by making sure construction is as unsafe as possible and minimizing long term prospects for construction workers.

No it isn't. Adding

... than there would be if this safety requirement were not implemented.

Makes it correct. This didn't exist in the original article.

So what us stopping them from doing that without the mandate? There are two ways to interpret SawStop: SawStop are responsible for saving X number of fingers every year, and SawStop are solely responsible for ensuring that Y number of fingers are lost every year. Both are equally true and unless you are a SawStop board member or stock holder, you should admonish them more for the latter than you praise them for the former.