Contractor style saws are a great medium level table saw. For the home wood worker, a good contractor table saw will provide years of reliable use and have enough horse power to cut through most wood stock.
There are many different manufactures of contractor saws. Most all have the same basic feature set with differences typically being in the quality of the fence system, expansion leaves, rolling base, etc. There is one company that offers a significant different feature, automatically stopping a spinning saw blade, when someone accidentally comes in contact with it.
A year ago a wood working buddy of mine lost 2/3 of his left index finger to a table saw accident. He was ripping a 4” by 6’ board on his contractor style table saw. The board binded the blade and was kicked up at his face. He instinctively blocked the board with his left hand and pushed it down toward the table saw. Had he owned a SawStop brand table saw his injury would have been minor at worst requiring a band aid instead of an emergency trip to the emergency room. Check out StopSaw’s web site for more information on their saw blade stopping technology.
In late 2006 SawStop is going to be releasing a contractor style table saw with their saw blade stopping technology. I am curious to find out what the price is and the quality of the table saw.
