Sawstop Warning

[Birdhunter]

I have had my Sawstop Industrial model for several years. My saw came with the vacuum enhanced blade guard. The vacuum hose splits and one end goes to the main body of the saw and the other attaches to the blade guard. It does a great job of capturing saw dust.

I had a short cutoff, about 1/4" thick, 1/2" wide, and about 5" long, get sucked off the table and up into the blade guard. As it was being sucked up, it contacted the spinning saw blade. There was a lot of racket and the blade guard flew back. I wasn't hurt and the blade guard wasn't damaged.

The primary lesson here is to disconnect the vacuum hose from the blade guard if short and light cutoffs will be produced. The secondary lesson is to always use the blade guard if possible. The tertiary lesson is to wear safety glasses all the time.

 

[Paul G]

Is there something here that is unique to sawstop? What am I missing?

 

[Birdhunter]

I do not know if other brands have blade guards that attach to a dust collector. If they do, this experience would potentially apply.

 

[Kevin D.]

Would you be able to show a pic of the SS overhead so we may be able to extrapolate to our own situations, if any.  I have an overhead Excalibur on my Unisaw.

 

[Paul G]

I do not know if other brands have blade guards that attach to a dust collector. If they do, this experience would potentially apply.

Many different options out there for blade guard dust collection, that's why I was wondering if sawstop somehow does things different than others

 

[geoffshep]

Most do in UK I think, I have a similar split feed into a 100mm/4in pipe and the flow at the blade guard is non existent.  I plan on upgrading my extractor but in the meantime I use the CT26 on the blade guard.  You must have a lot of suck!  [eek]

 

[leakyroof]

Thanks for the warning. I don't have TOO much suction above my saw blade from my Aftermarket blade guard system on my Unisaw, but I CAN see how a stray piece could cause some issues.  The 4" line at the bottom of my saw pulls like nobody's business, and I have had 1 piece get tossed into the lower/main hose and end up hitting the impeller of my Dust Collector with a loud bang.
Maybe I should tweak my splitter so that the Top/blade guard 2" diameter hose gets a bit more of the vacuum from my DC system instead of being so biased to the main 4" hose portion.    [scratch chin] [scratch chin] [scratch chin]