Since he launched Sawstop LLC a decade ago, Gass has addressed the situation by building and selling saws of his own. During that time, he's sold 30,000 of them. His technology has reportedly saved more than a thousand fingers -- that is, fingers that touched the blades and received minor cuts but were not severed. None of his customers have lost a finger as yet. Soon, Gass plans to extend his technology from professional table saws to consumer saws, and then to handheld circular saws.
But while Gass has been building and selling saws, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has re-visited his case. In May, the organization voted again to allocate resources to prepare for new rulemaking, Gass says. If a so-called "performance requirement" results, the CPSC could call for a mandate on an active injury mitigation system in table saws.
To be sure, the government wouldn’t mandate use of Gass's particular technology. But it could require incorporation of a technology that employs an active sensing and prevention system. In addition, Gass says Underwriters Laboratories (UL) is considering writing a standard for an active mitigation system, as well. UL did not return calls regarding this.
Gass considers that a victory. And after 12 years, he believes his work continues to be significant. "It seems that whenever I sit on an airplane, someone next to me says their dad, brother, uncle, or friend had an accident with a saw," he says. "It's just so commonplace."
He claims he's never been sorry that he left a thriving law practice for his new life as a manufacturer. "It was a disappointment that it didn't work out in a year or two," he says. "But I enjoy what I do here. I enjoy working on technology. I'm just a geek at heart."
This should help prevent accidental injuries and hopefully there is a measure in place to prevent tampering of the safety device. This article should be tied into the common sense article. Safety is only as good as the person using the tool.Engineers can always design safety into the equipment, but in the end it comes down to the operator.
This important safety story reminds me of seat belts, shoulder-harness seat belts, and air bags. All of those developments were around years before they were widely adopted. Of course, as you point out here, there's a little bit more involved in terms of retooling. Still, you'd think the prospect of spare digits (not to mention, prevention of deaths) would be something that'd get customers crying out to the vendors to implement this great feature. (Everyone should see that video.)
A new book by Thomas Edison's great-grandniece takes on the notion that he was a lone-wolf inventor and replaces it with an image of a man who ascribed great value to the ideas of colleagues.
In response to rising interest in autonomous vehicles, the federal government has called upon states not to authorize operation of self-driving cars, except for the purpose of testing.
With LEDs dropping in price virtually every year, automakers have begun employing them, not only on luxury vehicles, but on entry-level models, as well.
Using almost 200 light-emitting diodes in the front and back of the new 2014 CTS, Cadillac designers are showing how LEDs can change the character of a vehicle.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
23 
