Safer Saws – picklerick

A. Stephen Gass once stated, in an interview with Asa Christiana, “Obviously not everyone is going to spend $1000 or more on a table saw. But the question becomes can you put SawStop-like technology on smaller saws as well and what is the cost.”

B. Gass is making a claim which expresses that he is aware people have a tough time affording the SawStop, and because of this, he is working of finding a way to make it more affordable to lower the cost.

C. I feel like Gass’s claim could be considered an evaluative claim because he is evaluating the public’s inability to easily afford his SawStop invention and offering a solution to the issue.

D. I feel like his claim is very reasonable. The price of his SawStop seems to be one of its biggest problems, so it’s good he’s addressing it. This claim will probably persuade the public to keep tabs on Gass and on his improvements to the SawStop.

 

A. A user on LumberJocks forum named Bill Davis made a post about SawStop which stated, “I think it sends the wrong message about safety and at a pretty high cost to the user. That message is ‘you dont have to be so careful we’ll protect you’.”

B. He is making a claim that says, instead of relying on an expensive machine to keep you safe, you should just learn how to use normal saws responsibly.

C. This is an opinion claim. Bill Davis has the opinion that people should be able to care for their own safety enough not to rely on SawStop.

D. This claim is very persuasive in that it provides a counterargument to SawStop’s main goal. It will probably make people think twice before buying this machine purely for safety reasons.

E. I partly disagree with this claim because I feel like there situations where having every bit of safety possible is beneficial. Like if a company is relying on their employees to use saws responsibly, it would be in their best interest to use a SawStop. They don’t want to have to pay worker’s compensation. I do understand where Bill Davis is coming from though; it is a lot of money for a small safety precaution.

 

A. Myron Levin stated in an article about SawStop, “Each year, more than 67,000 U.S. workers and do-it-yourselfers suffer blade contact injuries, according to government estimates, including more than 33,000 injuries treated in emergency rooms and 4,000 amputations.”

B. “Each year, more than 67,000 U.S. workers and do-it-yourselfers suffer blade contact injuries, according to government estimates, including more than 33,000 injuries treated in emergency rooms and 4,000 amputations.”

C. This is a factual claim because Levin is just giving statistics.

D. I’m not sure how accurate this claim is, considering its statistics were taken from “government estimates.” These estimates could easily be wrong, disproving the claim. It is a logical claim, though, because it lets people know that lots of people suffer injuries from blades year round.

 

A. Carlos Osorio, a man who suffered from a terrible table saw injury, stated, “There was blood on my face, my body. It was everywhere. I was able to see my tendons.”

B. His injuries were very serious and gruesome.

C. This is a descriptive claim because Osorio is describing the scene after his injury from a table saw.

D. His claim is persuasive because it gives a detailed scene depicting what could happen if your hand slips when using a regular table saw. This could persuade people into buying the SawStop so that they can avoid this scenario.

 

A. There’s an article on thewoodwhisperer.com that reviews an alternative to SawStop. The alternative is called Whirlwind. The article says, about the Whirlwind, “The brake is triggered BEFORE you touch the blade, which means no stitches and no bandaids.”

B. This claim implies that the Whirlwind is superior to the SawStop because the blade retracts faster, making it safer.

C. This is a factual claim because it states a feature of the Whirlwind.

D. This claim is reasonable and logical, but I don’t think it’s very persuasive. People who are in the market for a safer saw will likely not care about such a minor aspect.