The Saw Stops Here

An attentive audience watches Student Workshop Instructor Gregory Elder slide a hot dog toward a spinning saw blade at a July 25 demonstration of the safety features of the Saw Stop, the new table saw in Dartmouth's Woodworking Shop. When the object representing a finger hit the blade, the saw shut down immediately, and the hot dog only suffered a nick. The blade's safety feature works by sensing the different electrical currents of the human body. Though Elder says he hasn't seen a serious table saw accident in his 20 years in the Woodworking Shop, he says, "I feel a lot better now when people step up to the saw."

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