Coincidentally, I just watched this video about 2 weeks ago. It was actually a pretty clear demonstration on why kickback happens.
The table saw is probably the tool I’m most afraid of in my shop, but I still use it a reasonable amount because it’s the correct tool for the job. I also have a radial arm saw, but I’m not deathly afraid of that one anymore because I removed it from my shop and put it into storage.
I’d love for this to turn into shop near-horror stories.
I was using a forstner bit in a 12" drill press on piece of hard as hell ash without having it clamped, and it caught on the piece and spun it, sliced right through the shirt I was wearing and left a pretty sweet scratch across my torso to demonstrate how close it was to breaking my ribs. I’m not sure how it didn’t catch my hand in the process.
A joiner is so much more dangerous than a table saw it’s not funny.
Roy Underhill is a goddamn treasure.
…drilling through 2.5 inch decking on the floor of a railcar, with a large, pneumatic handheld drill. Bit hit metal structure underneath, binds, drill and operator (me) spins around about two revolutions, gets nicely bound up in airline. humour in the workplace 
Right. The issue is slop/lack of accuracy in setting a fixed angle. Even with jigs I dunno that a band/scroll saw could do that as capably as a table saw. Especially since a miter saw, which is made for that still has short comings.
This is basically what killed radial arm saws. The inability to return them to an accurate angle after tilting the head, or hold that angle accurately between cuts. Also they were much more capable of cutting an entire arm off.
The alternative to the table saw in this case is usually hand saws, as they’re more precise.
Wow that came down. My uncle has one of those, and both the time it saved his hand, and the time he tested with the hotdog because he makes poor financial decisions it was over $150.
He’s a surgeon, so needs all his fingers, and had a near miss with a regular table saw. And multiple dangerous kickbacks because idiot removed the riving knife and “lost it”. Gave that saw to my dad.
Same, but I straight up got rid of it.
“He cut off his index finger with a table saw, got it reattached, and then removed again so it wouldn’t hinder his climbing.”
Kickbacks: I was in the hobby shop at the military base, they’ve always got pretty nice equipment, and kept fully up to date on safety. They’ve got these shields behind the table saws to catch kickbacks. One day, there’s an obviously brand new one, and right next to it was the old one, with a piece of wood thrown through the 3/4" particle board. Lesson learned.
My late father had a 70’s era tablesaw in his basement workshop. During his entire life, as a child and an adult I harbored an (irrational?) existential terror regarding that machine. I’d get cold sweats whenever I heard him fire it up. He never once made a serious mistake with it despite disregarding my suggestions for adding a SawStop. I never want to be near anyone I care about when they use one. Way too easy to mess up with way too ghastly consequences.
The best upgrade you can get for a table saw is a kick stop. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten out of a cut gone wrong by kicking the shutoff.
clamped a piece of plywood on a cheapo folding table that I was using as a workbench and then proceeded to run a circular saw through the table edge and into the metal frame. I was able to stop before any real damage was done to me or the tool but boy did I feel dumb.
I still have the table and every time I see the cut in it I’m reminded to not do stupid things.
I’ve done that to a few sawhorses . They’re wood, so NBD, but they still bear witness
My great uncle lost 2.5 fingers and .25 thumb to one of those larrys
At least you can argue that being able to cut a little through a sawhorse is a feature. Especially the 2x4 ones.
when I was a kid I used to admire my grandfather’s sawhorses, which he probably made in the 1890’s. Big enough to sit on, with bench dogs. Lots of interesting toolmarks: some from spokeshaves that were probably my fault
I own a table saw that I do not use because no one ever taught me to use one, and I had a bad (but fortunately only minorly injurious) kickback incident. I bought the saw and read up and watched YouTube videos, but then I realized the point of having someone instruct you:
They’re there to keep you from an unwarranted sense of your own knowledge and to point out when you’re doing something wrong and don’t realize it.
I did build a nice desk in the end though. I’m just holding off until I meet someone who really knows what they’re doing to show me a coupla ropes.
Guessing the lawsuit is as much philosophical as pragmatic- the folks behind sawstop didn’t intend to start a new tool company when they invented saw stop, they wanted the tech to be the industry standard used in all table saws.
It’s fairly obvious how that worked out, as you hint at.
Others have brought it up to, the cartridge explodes and needs replaced. Well, guess what else goes in the blast? Your saw blade. And your saw blade, if you’re a high end carpenter/woodworker/etc. costs even more to replace than the cartridge. So it’s not just $75 or $85 it’s a lot closer to $200 plus all the damn time you spend dealing with it. So yeah, the only way saw stop becomes universal is by mandate, given the choice most don’t think it’s worth it.
