Table saw

[egon]

Pat; as we age our reflexes become slower and many times stability is also effected. These things happen but we usually are unaware of it.

The skates may work for those who are young but the older set would only find them a hindrance what with gloves, knee pads, elbow pads, hip pads and of course the eyeball monitoring control helmet. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Fae better would be a small battery power chair with foot controls. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Don't even think of a powered skate board cause then you'll have to build a skate park just to limber up.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Maybe a platform on 4each 360 degree steerable wheels powered by the drills and batteries. Like Castor wheels but steered. The platform would be about 20x20 inches or so and be covered with carpet pad and a rubber mat for traction and ease of cleaning off debris. A folding and telescopic stool that could rotate 360 degrees so you can sit to work or drive or stand for either, your choice. Then yoi need a drink holder and snack tray and holsters for remote controls for the air cleaner, cyclonic dust sucker, cordless phone, stereo, etc.

Pat

[Bird]

Pat, you couldn't find my post because I removed it when I realized I'd made a dumb mistake. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] You know my little house is brick veneer with a hip roof, but has the attached 21' x 25' (interior dimensions) shop building, connected to the house via a 12' wide breezeway and all under one roof. But that shop building was T1-11 siding on 3 sides, so last July, I had a local company put Alcoa Structure vinyl siding on it. And for reasons unknown to me, the house, including that shop building, has rain guttering, except across the back of the shop. The eaves are 2' wide all the way around and pretty tall fascia. Anyway, this year I decided to finish the job, and the folks finished today; vinyl soffits, vinyl siding around the front door, vinyl on the breezeway ceiling, the one 27' piece of rain gutter to match the existing gutters, etc. Naturally, that included a lot of aluminum trim. And it just surprised me when you used the term "PVC" since I'd only heard aluminum and thought PVC was something entirely different. However, I found that, sure enough, what they've been using came in boxes labelled "Alcoa PVC coil". Aluminum? Yes, but the guy tells me that paint on it has vinyl in it.

[Pat]

Bird, PVC of course is poly-vinyl-chloride, definitely a plastic. The aluminum metal trim has the plasticized paint to enable all the bending they do without having the paint crack. They put on some pretty sharp radius bends with the "good" side to the outside. Most paints would tear open instead of stretching so well and still last for years and years, so they use plastic.

I have done a little with the PVC coil but had to use a couple boards for a brake as I didn't have the real thing (my little brake was too small.) Crude but effective but very slow compared to an experienced guy with the right equipment.

Sounds like you are getting into low or no maint mode. That is a good way to go. I tried to reduce the maint on my house, even going so far as designing a shower for the master bath with no door, curb, or curtain thus eliminating a lot of scrubbing and hassle. With brick and vinyl you should have replaced all the hassle of repainting of trim and such and reduced the effort to a pressure washer every so often.

Pat

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Sounds like you are getting into low or no maint mode.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the idea. I've painted entirely wood houses, as well as the wood trim on brick veneer homes in the past, but don't want to do it anymore. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] My contractor finished yesterday, so there is now NO exposed wood to paint. And, yep, there's some pretty sharp bends in some of the trim. In many places, he put a "hem" on the edge so that's simply doubling it back really tight. And for the fascia, in addition to the hem, there's 5 more 90 degree bends. And he was using a ten and a half foot brake. It didn't save me any money, but I helped him a bit just to learn out of curiosity how some of the things are done.

There's one difference we've noticed already. We've been having lots of Mediterranean Geckos on the painted wood ceiling of the breezeway at night, but no more. Apparently they can't cling to the vinyl. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Bird said, "We've been having lots of Mediterranean Geckos on the painted wood ceiling of the breezeway at night, but no more. Apparently they can't cling to the vinyl."

Oh my! Well at least in Texas you won't have to perform an environmental impact study due to loss of habitat or be under threat of a fine.

Pat

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I've been kind of busy for the last few months, and it's been a while since I posted, but I THINK I can still remember when you still had all of your fingers, Pat. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Dave, I still have almost all of my fingers. Left index is a little more sharply pointed than the right index due to a chef's knife incident with clumped together garlic powder maybe 20 years ago. Still have and use the same knife with no further incident.

The table saw thing was a definite wake up call, coming on the heels of a local woman with a raised panel door business who cut off two fingers about mid length.

I knew about the Saw Stop table saw and just wasn't motivated to pay that much for a saw since I had NEVER had a table saw injury or close call. I have a significant number of various cabinet and furniture making tasks ahead of me, years of them.

I had discovered through use that my nice little Makita table saw on a stand was a fine saw but way too little for handling sheet goods easily and the fence was WAY TOO LIMITING! The fence will only adjust out to about 13 inches so just adding extension tables or in and out feed tables is not going to be satisfactory.

Shortly after my thumb (smaller, lighter, and with a very different thumb print) healed enough to not require bandages, I went to OKC and bought a Saw Stop cabinet saw. It sat in its crate in the bed of the F-250 inside the garage for a couple weeks. After I finally cleared a space to get the tractor a path to drive it into the shop I finally got to uncrate it and start assembly. There were several separate heavy boxes and the main crate weighted about 700lbs. I muscled the saw off the pallet and used levers and scrap wood to get it up into the air high enough to slide my custom purpose build caster dolly under it.

I wanted to not reduce stability so I made the wheels farther apart than the base dimensions of the cabinet by an amount exceeding the increased height so it should be more stable now than stock (it was like a bolder already.) I wasn't sure if the wood would be stiff enough but figured I could retrofit stiffening if required. It needs stiffening and my temp fix is blocks of wood under the center of the roller stand. It works. The saw's table was 34 inches above the floor, what the company thinks is a GOOD height. I like/need benches and such a little higher to give my back a little slack. The new saw's table is 39 1/2 inches above the floor Thanks to the roller dolly), very comfortable.

It took a while to assemble the saw and check all the adjustments and wire it up for 240VAC power. I got it running last night. I haven't cut wood yet but did run it. It was VERY QUIET just running, remains to be seen how loud it is cutting wood. I need to buy an adapter to let me use my largest shop vac on the 4 inch dust port. Doing much without dust collection is NOT a good idea as the saw is designed for use with dust collection and will not clear the debris well unassisted.

I am favorably impressed with everything about the saw except price but all things considered it is a SUPERIOR saw without consideration of its safety features. Hopefully I will never use the innovative safety feature that stops the blade and drops it below the table and will be happy to continue my life with 9.97 digits (give or take a little.)

I really like the blade guard and it is fast and easy to remove and replace wth the nice riving knife. The rip fence is easy to use, has magnifying lenses above the rulers, and is very stable. The rip fence is adjustable many different ways but came nearly perfect in all adjustments. I used a good square and could not find ANY error in any plane when checking the fence. I used a sharp edged block to try to feel a little error when aligning the fence with the miter attachment grooves. I couldn't. If it was flush at either end then it was flush at both ends and the middle too.

I hope to go to town and get the adapter (while picking up my new computer glasses) and start cutting wood. Like with a precision rifle, if you don't do well with it you are sure the problem is with the person not the equipment. Now my joints better fit because I have no excuse with the equipment.

Pat

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I first learned of those saws in December of last year. Is that the saw that has some kind of blade disintegrator that activates as soon as it senses flesh? [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Pat]

It has a powder activated (like air bags) brake mechanism that is fired into the blade and totally jans the teeth to a complete stop in a couple milliseconds. Looks like the angles are such that it is set up like self boosting brakes. The blade also drops down completely below the table.

With luck I will never trip it but it is better than insurance as insurance can't prevent serious injury. The saw can still injure you, but much much less severely. Severity is partly a function of how fast you were moving into it when you touched the blade.

There is a separate brake assy for use with a dado set (8 inch.) The specks on blade-brake clearance is 1/16 - 1/8 inch and it is easy to see the clearance and very easy to adjust it. In fact everything you normally adjust or put on and take off is easy to do. The blade guard to riving knife swap and vice versa is so easy there is no excuse to not use the guard when able and the riving knife when applicable.

There is a defeat switch for cutting electrically conductive materials. If the wood is too wet it would be possible to have a false trigger event, hence the defeat switch (it is a key switch with a regular metal ignition key arrangement.) The two LED lights illuminate in patterns that are decoded in the manual. One of the patterns is damp wood so if the wood's conductivity is getting close to the detection threshold you are warned. I'm sure salty wet wood wold just immediately fire the brake but that would be intentionally stupid. The manual warns you to clean out any debris from cutting aluminum and check the blade teeth for aluminum debris lest the debris bridge the brake-blade gap and fire the brake. I don't see me personally using this saw for metal cutting.

It is big as well as heavy but that is a plus for my situation as I am not going to take it out of the shop. I might roll it around in the shop but that is about it. It is about 87 inches or so wide left to right and I will probably take advice I was given and build an outfeed table. I'm tired of using the rollers on stands as they get knocked over too easily and are a pain to adjust (at least my cheapies are.)

Here is a PDF reprint of the Fine Woodworkinig saw tests where the Saw Stop rated as good or better in every category as the rest.

http://www.sawstop.com/media/W184JOp46-p51.pdf

Pat