Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The threat of teens cutting their fingers off on table saws in the Sweet Home High School wood shop may be a memory of the past.
Three new saws, sold by Wilsonville-based SawStop are expected to reduce that danger. The saws, which went into production in December 2004, are designed to stop immediately when the blades come into contact with a hand or finger. The blade also immediately drops into the table, limiting exposure to endangered digits.
In a demonstration video, viewable at http://www.sawstop.com, a hot dog is shown hitting the blade. The blade stops and drops immediately leaving only a small cut in the hot dog’s membrane.
In the last four years, the wood shop has had three accidents, one four years ago and two last year. District 55 recently settled with one victim for $30,000 for medical bills and $27,000 for attorney and other fees.
Teacher Dustin Nichol said he took wood shop from longtime teacher Ben Dahlenburg in the 1980s, and they used the same saws that had been in the shop until this year. Dahlenburg retired at the end of last school year, right after the new saws arrived.
Class sizes then were much smaller, Nichol said. In recent years, they have been 28 to 30 students or more.
“It isn’t that the saws were any different,” Nichol said. “The saws haven’t changed. Ben’s instruction hadn’t changed from when I was in school back in the ’80s till he retired last year.”
But the class has had more students, Nichol said, and that makes it more difficult to supervise students working on projects.
Principal Pat Stineff, Nichol, Dahlenburg and district Business Manager Kevin Strong went to Wilsonville in the spring to look at the new saws.
After the demonstration, Supt. Larry Horton said, the district bought three on the spot.
The blades have a small electrical charge running through them, Nichol said. When a grounded conductor, such as a human finger, comes into contact with the blade, an onboard computer detects the change in the current. The computer releases a brake on the blade and a hinged arm swings the blade down into the table.
“Any time you can take the human factor out of it, it makes things better,” Nichol said.
Students think so.
They’re a lot better, and if you hit your finger, it won’t cut your finger off,” junior Christian Keeney said. “They cut better too.”
Senior James Davis said students feel better knowing the blade will stop if they make a mistake.
“I think this is a lot better,” Davis said. “It minimizes accidents a lot more. Overall, it’ll pay off a lot more.”
Superintendent Larry Horton said the district expects the new saws to be “much safer.”
“That’s why we purchased three of them, so we could ensure student safety,” he said.
The shop had relatively few accidents until recent years, Horton said, and that was despite safety procedures and instruction. The human element led to the accidents.
“I’m really just thankful we have them,” Horton said. “I think it’s a win-win situation.”
At most, one and a half teeth on the blade will hit an object or finger, Nichol said. On a normal saw, an operator can lose fingers in a fraction of a second — far faster than he or she can react.
Since the beginning of the year, saws have been stopped six times.
In one case, a custodian was running cork with foil backing through, Nichol said. The foil affected the electrical current and shut the saw down. The other five times had to do with a bug in the design where part of the device grounded out the blade on “spanner plates” attached to the table. That problem has since been solved by the manufacturer.
“They go off prematurely,” Nichol said. “They haven’t failed by cutting something they shouldn’t have. If they mess up, it’s in a good way.”
Strong said new saw blades with a brake cost $94.
Nichol echoed students’ opinion that the new saws work better than the old ones. The guard is narrower and closer to the blade, allowing students to leave the guard down on more projects.
“Not only is this technology great,” but the saws are even better than the old ones, Nichol said. “We’ve got three of the first 250 saws they produced,” Nichol said.