each year more than 67,000 woodworkers
and do-it-yourselfers have their life
changed by a table saw table saw causes
the most accidents of any tool in the
garage or the shop and you know I have a
soft stop so this isn't something I
worry about as much anymore but I've
always wanted to know how safe is a saw
stop so last week mark and I rented a
phantom V 26:40 the world's highest
definition slow-motion camera and we did
a ton of activation one of the cool
things about this camera is we were able
to get shots that have never been seen
before in fact I think never before has
a high-definition shot of a day to
activation been done I think I've seen
saw stop post and older black and white
ones oh man did we get some cool shots
and are really gonna show off this tech
in super slo-mo also we did six regular
activations and we did one at super high
speed so I went as fast as I could with
a hot dog and honestly the results are
probably gonna surprise you so let's
talk about the test so we did the tests
on my five horsepower ICS saw stop which
is industrial cabinet saw used to have
the pcs in some of my older videos
that's the professional cabinet saw but
recently we upgraded and we've got the
over arm dust collection which is
awesome by the way you should check out
that compilation video I posted last
Sunday of all our slow-mo shots it's got
some cool dust collection shots of both
this and the regular dust collection
shoot we use Nathan ball park Franks
they were about the size of my thumb
that's why I used them about one inch in
diameter we did six regular activations
with the Tenon's played and three dado
stack activations with an eight inch
blade the five horsepower ICS is the
second most powerful saw that SawStop
has so you can know that you know if you
have a pcs or a lower model saw that
they have the same exact tech and brake
cartridges in them and the tests would
perform even better on your machine this
is their their top-of-the-line one I
think is seven horsepower but basically
this is the biggest and baddest they
have sands one saw and you know that
it's going to do some damage to these
brake cartridges all right let's talk
about what happens when you cause an
activation we're going to show you
regular speed first
followed by the high-speed slow-motion
footage and then I'm gonna walk you
through all the steps of what happened
so what happens when you have an
activation well the blade has a three
volt current that is running through at
all time that is measured which is a
sine wave by the computer inside your
saw when you touch it you actually lower
the amplitude of that sine wave which
then causes a chain reaction that takes
place over a fraction of a second the
computer sends a charge of electricity
through a fuse wire which is holding the
spring under tension which then fires
this aluminum what I like to call a
crumple zone break into the blade and
it's designed sort of like the crumple
zones in cars there are portions that
are designed to absorb the impact and
compress and so your blade which
standard curved blade weighs about two
pounds stops at about a thousand G's of
force now to compare this this would be
like flying a fighter pilot into a
concrete wall at a thousand miles per
hour we don't really even have a frame
of reference to compare it to something
that we could experience but you can see
here from our five hot dogs here's a few
shots of them it stops it so fast that
it doesn't even scratch the hotdog you
know if that was you I don't even think
that would draw blood and I actually
personally have set off my saw stop
before and you could see like a little
scratch where it scratched my finger but
there certainly was no blood but one of
the things that I always hear when you
know I see one of these at a convention
at the saw stop booth or you see
comments in YouTube videos people say
yeah but they go so slow with the hot
dogs so what if you went as fast as you
could we decided to try that out by
throwing a hot dog into the blade as
fast as I could we calculated through
frame rate that I did it about as hard
as the average human could punch at full
power so here is the fast motion clip
and then the high speed footage and
we'll talk about the damage it did after
look at this it's pretty crazy with all
of that speed and inertia and you know I
followed through into the blade it only
cut that hotdog by an eighth of an inch
against my thumb that wouldn't even come
close to hitting bone at an eighth of an
inch you're you're barely getting into
the flesh there you might have a couple
stitches but certainly be back at work
as soon as you're able to get your
stitches out and it really wouldn't do
any lasting damage so I was super
impressed by that because I really I
gave that all I had and what I think
that shows is that if you for some
reason we're sprinting through your shop
the table saw was on and you tripped and
fell directly into your blade you're
gonna walk away with just a little cut
or I think what it really shows is if
you had a major kickback so if you were
already past your blade had a major
kickback and it just ripped your hand
through there at full speed you're gonna
get a little nick but your fingers are
gonna live to fight another day and
that's pretty incredible but I think
where I was really really impressed by
the shoot we did was the Daito
activation so while a 10-inch blade
weighs two pounds a dado stack can weigh
five to eight pounds so that's like two
point eight to four times as many G's so
I you know I'm not a physicist but you
guys can calculate that for me down in
the comments when you look at a dado
activation it works the same way the
break cartridge is however bigger one
because it needs to cover more distance
because it's a smaller diameter blade so
it needs to be taller anyways but it's
also wider because it needs to absorb so
much more force in fact that force was
so intense that we caught something on
camera that I don't even know if you're
gonna believe
[Applause]
man that was certainly very sobering to
see and although that's a really cool
slow motion clip it certainly really
made me appreciate the the ability that
this saw has to stop something moving at
so much force that it could break welds
on saw teeth and I certainly recommend
to anybody that you always have your
safety glasses on and certainly an apron
like the cat's Moses apron it can't hurt
to wear because it protects you from
things like kick backs and all sorts of
things that can come in contact with
your body but what's really impressive
is check out these hot dogs now the
regular 10-inch blade activations you
know they got a little scratch but the
dedos when you have you know two-point
eight to four times the force really no
harm no foul I mean to me that's the
scariest thing using a dado stack is
scary these are illegal in Europe for a
reason because they're big mass of steel
and carbide spinning at 4000 rpms and
it's hard to slow down so it certainly
is not something I've ever seen before
I've never seen a data activation and
it's something that I'm super happy now
that we've been able to test this that I
know my saw is gonna perform if the
impossible or the unexpected ever
happens to me because man I like these
things and it's gonna be really
important for me to keep them as long as
I can so when you hear people say oh you
went too slow or you know there's some
design flaw where yeah it may stop it
but your hands still gonna get mangled
it's not I did nine activations in a row
and they all came out with very very
minor minor damage or none at all and I
think that's super impressive so as
always guys if you want to support the
channel head over to the cats mills a
store you can pick up a cat's moses
apron dovetail jig or a stop block stay
safe in the shop have a wonderful day
you