I’ve been using my Saw Stop for a few months now, I’m glad I moved to the safer saw, and I still believe the move was a good one. My old saw had more power, but the things I do now don’t require a lot of power, just consistent and reliable cuts. The vast majority of my work is small items, not large sheet goods or heavy lumber. Right now I’m running a thin kerf blade in the saw, and a think kerf riving knife to match. I find that moving from a thin kerf to a regular kerf blade isn’t very difficult, the major adjustment is the clearance between the blade and the stop mechanism, and the riving knife holding adjustment. Both are easily done with provided tools.
I just completed a run of soap trays, cutting over 700 small blocks of wood for water draining which involves four rip cuts and two crosscuts that don’t cut through the wood block, and of course the crosscuts that cut out the blocks from a long board to small four inch blocks. There’s a lot of repetitive cutting, and the saw does a great job of handling that, as well as really good dust collection, even when not using the over the blade guard and dust extraction.
I did have to remake my sleds that I use for these cuts, the miter slot is just far enough off from the old Craftsman saw that it won’t work without having a very wide open space in the sled. I use the incra build-it kit that comes with lots of parts that allow for all kinds of jigs and sleds. I have several of these that I’ve made into various sled fixtures, and leave them built instead of remaking a new sled from one. The panels are available separately so you can make new sleds from your old parts if you wish.
My old saw would occasionally trip the breaker in my shop on start up, there were other things on that same circuit, so I guess the surge of power on start up at the right time would do that, but the Saw Stop doesn’t do that, hasn’t to date as yet anyway.
The Saw Stop is a solid saw that is worth the price. Another reason for buying one now is the prices of saws is likely to go up a lot in the near future. Word is that the government will soon require all saws to have some type of technology like the Saw Stop to prevent injuries. Bosch made a saw that would do that but were sued by Saw Stop for patent infringement. There are Harvey saws that have a similar safety system, but at this time I don’t have information on them. I’ve seen one demonstrated and apparently doesn’t require skin to blade contact to trigger. The issue is that all saws (if required to have the safety system) will cost substantially more, having to buy the system from one or the other of the current makers, or design their own. If you want an inexpensive saw, and don’t care about the safety system that is offered by Saw Stop, you will need to find your saw soon, as soon as the proposed law is passed, the saws in stock already are the only ones that can be sold without such technology.
My final thoughts on the saw I have, it’s a great investment, and the safety features are worth NOT going to the ER for major injuries. I feel fortunate that I haven’t had injuries to now with my old saw. You can’t live on the past though, your next injury is right around the corner, unless you do active things to prevent it.