Hit metal with the Sawstop

[merrill77]

The manual says that the blade brake won't trigger on small bits of embedded metal in wood, including staples. It passed my idiot test, as I was trimming down a panel sled from my old TS and hit an embedded steel screw (McFeelys, 1/2" #6, black oxide, to be precise). I didn't make it all the way through the screw as the sound and sparks caught my attention pretty quick. Blade brake did not trigger.

Phew!

 

[Bas]

Did the blade survive too? If you had made it all the way through, I'd guess no (those McFeely's screws are tough!) but if you just got sparks I take it you lucked out. Good to hear it didn't trigger the brake.

 

[merrill77]

Did the blade survive too? If you had made it all the way through, I'd guess no (those McFeely's screws are tough!) but if you just got sparks I take it you lucked out. Good to hear it didn't trigger the brake.

Luckily, I had not yet installed my new Freud blade! It's a relatively new but cheap ($20) Delta blade, and it seems to be cutting just fine. I'll have to take a closer look at the cut quality and see how it's doing.

 

[junquecol]

Luckily, I had not yet installed my new Freud blade! It's a relatively new but cheap ($20) Delta blade, and it seems to be cutting just fine. I'll have to take a closer look at the cut quality and see how it's doing.

Delta 7657? If it had been a Forrest, you would be looking at a repair bill of over $100 for a new blade. Recently using a Woodcraft $5 router bit I cut the head of a drywall screw in half. Bit still cuts great, but screw was hard to remove.

 

[merrill77]

Delta 7657?

Yup, one of the two I have...the one I didn't send to Forrest for the failed sharpening experiment...darnit.

 

[ehpoole]

So long as you were not touching the screw AND the screw was not touching the cast iron table, then the SawStop sensing system should not detect a large enough shift in capacitance to trigger.

It's a little misleading to claim it was designed that way, though. That's just the way this sort of capacitive sensing works -- without the item touching the operator or table top (or some other very large or grounded conductor) the screw merely increased the blade's capacitance slightly -- but never discharged it. Had the blade+screw discharged the capacitance in the blade, you would have had a very rude and unexpected (not to mention costly) surprise!

Glad you got away with it this time....

PS -- If you're going to be sawing your fasteners regularly, you may wish to consider switching to brass or aluminum fasteners -- both are blade friendly (I use them exclusively with my homemade push blocks).

 

[alantope]

I wasn't quite so lucky when I forgot to reset the miter fence when I changed to a dado blade. :tinysmile_cry_t:

The fence must have just skimmed past the blade(s) by a few hundredths of an inch, 'cause there was no damage to the fence.

But the brake triggered. Now ... that's a surprize!

Ended up damaging two chippers, but not the outside blades.

 

[manfre]

Glad this didn't cost you anything. Sounds like you need to set up a security checkpoint. You'll probably need to put the x-ray backscatter machine in your garage. :rotflm: