A while back, I purchased a new table saw. (Cue ominous music.)It wasn’t an especially expensive tool; in fact, it was the cheapest table saw I could find. I only needed it to do a little repair work on the front porch; The Lovely Mrs. Taylor had been bugging me about it for months.
In retrospect, it’s hard to believe it took me so long to get to the project. Usually, if there’s a new tool purchase involved, I’ll jump right on it.
At any rate, I brought the saw home from a nearby mega-center, unpacked the box, and realized I would need at least five or ten other new tools just to assemble the thing. As with most modern products, the manufacturer provided parts only; assembly was my responsibility, since I’ll work even cheaper than a day laborer in Bangladesh.
The instructions—written in 14 different languages, none of them remotely resembling coherent English—weren’t much help. But eventually I hobbled the saw together.
The first thing I noticed were the safety features—emergency shutoff switch, circuit breaker, safety guards around the blade, red-and-yellow warning labels, block-printed admonitions to keep your fingers away from moving parts, etc.
The second thing I noticed was that the saw was almost impossible to operate, thanks mostly to the safety guards, which not only kept my fingers away from the blade, but most boards I tried to put in there as well. Ignoring the block-printed warnings, I removed the safety guard and tossed it into the barrel with the safety guards from all my other power tools.
The saw was now unsafe, but useable. Somewhere, a corporate lawyer woke up screaming, but that’s not my problem.
I’ve used the saw on several projects over the past couple years and still have all my fingers (knock on wood). I’m happy with the unit.
I have no reason at all to buy another table saw, but I peruse the mega-center circulars anyway, just to see what’s out there. It’s usually the same old stuff.
Then the other day, I saw something new—a table saw that actually stops automatically if it “senses” something other than wood (like a finger) is being cut. That’s right, if you’re buzzing away at a piece of oak and your hand suddenly comes in contact with the whirring blade, it stops in a microsecond! You’re still gonna get cut, but chances are you’ll be able to perform at that piano recital a couple weeks later (assuming you could play piano in the first place).
I have no idea how it works. Does it smell blood? Can it sense the pressure difference between a slab of pine and an index finger? Or does it respond to the sound of someone screaming, “Son of a #$%^!?”
However it works, it sounds really cool. I want one. But I don’t think I’ll be making the purchase anytime soon. For one thing, I can’t afford it. For another, I know myself too well; eventually, I would be tempted to “test” the finger-saver feature—this compulsion would overwhelm my common sense.
So instead, maybe I’ll just go to the mega-center, fire up the floor demo, scream “Son of a #$%^!” and see what happens.
To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or admonitions about foolishly removing safety guards from power tools, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Miss a week? More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com/advancenewspapers.
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