Yep. I've actually lost part of a finger, though it wasn't in a saw. It sucked then, and continues to **** 2 years later. Can't feel things, harder to dig change out of my pocket, have to play guitar differently.
Guy that owns it is a patent attorney, not some punk class action muckraker. And having sold a start up to a bigger company, I can see why he chose the route he did. Big companies in general need to be compelled to act, not many of them have foresight to bring out cool new products. I'm not saying I would have done things the way he did, but that I understand it after trying to license the technology for 2 years and continuously hitting brick walls.
Steve Gass, the main owner of Sawstop, is a patent atorney, but saying he hit a brick wall trying to sell the technology isn't exactly true. The problems for Gass were closer to him trying to drive thru a forrest of trees, and he kept hitting the trees instead of managing to drive between them. Gass was in negotiations with a number of manufacturers including Ryobi and Black &Decker. The problems trying to license the technology in a large part had to do with the terms Gass wanted to license the technology.
From what I've read, Gass wanted a percentage licensing fee based on the retail price of the saws. Most of the manufacturers Gass approached sell saws with list retail prices significantly higher than the actual selling price of the saws, so the percentage Gass would have wanted might have wound up being close to or more than the tool dealers made of the saws. Gass also wouldn't indemnify the manufacturers against lawsuits brought due to the technology, or its failure to prevent injuries, or other unforseen problems.
Manufacturers probably also might have worried that adding sawstop technology to their saws could be seen as proof that past saw technology was inherently unsafe, and could leed to lawsuits from people who suffered past injuries.
Gass didn't help his reputation by trying to have legislation passed to require his technology. He also testified in a workers compensation lawsuit that his saw would have prevented injuries resulting from the improper use of a tablesaw that in no way shape or form was being used safely.
The Bosch Reax saw eliminates some of the objections to the original sawstop design, such ad the aluminum cartridge that stops, and can damage, the saw blade. Which may have been another objection from manufacturers to the sawstop design. At around the same time Bosch was announcing the Reax saw, their Skilsaw division started selling a worm drive table saw, which I presume will not stop anywhere near immediately if flesh touches it. Maybe Bosch has just decided to let the market decide which saw technology it wants.
