Wright-Patterson Arts & Crafts director takes matters into her own hands “Come quick! Mike just cut himself on the table saw!” No one wants to hear these words; particularly not the director of an Air Force arts and crafts center. “My heart was in my throat as I ran to the wood shop,” says Mary Butler, director of the Wright-Patterson Arts & Crafts Center. Yet there was no blood-curdling yell and no blood curdling when she arrived on the scene of the accident. In fact, there was a bit of a celebration taking place. A recently installed safety saw worked as advertised. “This was the best injury ever,” says Butler. “It sounds kinda sick to say it that way, but knowing what could have been – what would have been with a regular table saw – the nick Mike had on this thumb was a beautiful thing.” Late one night, as Mary was falling asleep in front of the TV, she heard bits and pieces of a show featuring a new table saw. “The last thing I heard as I was falling asleep was ‘it’s the table saw that won’t cut you.’ In the morning those words were still ringing in my ears, because safety is such a big focus for us at the center. If we can do it safer, we can do it better.” Butler began investigating by visiting the product Web site. “I was skeptical, but after doing a lot of research, talking with the company, my flight chief and our services director, the Wright-Patterson Arts and Craft Center is the proud owner of two of these wonderful saws.” The first accident involved a wood shop employee. Since then, two more “saves” have occurred involving do-it-yourselfers. “One of the customers is a very experienced woodworker. His close call reminded him about the dangers of his craft, and that it could happen to anyone. The end result was that he learned a valuable lesson – not by losing a limb or having to recover from a deep cut – but with a small nick on his finger,” says Butler. The safety saw uses technology that actually detects the difference between wood and flesh, and uses a special braking system to stop the saw blade in milliseconds, avoiding a deep cut. The saw itself is as good or better than any other table saw so 99.9 percent of the time it’s the shop workhorse. It’s that 0.1 percent of the time that it’s worth its weight in gold, Butler says The brake cartridge on the safety saw has to be replaced whenever the safety system is triggered. That requires some down time and some expense, but Butler and her customers don’t mind this infrequent inconvenience. “I’d really like to get the word out to all Air Force wood shops about this brilliant piece of equipment,” says Butler. “It costs just a little bit more than other table saws, but the savings in medical bills and loss of limbs makes it an investment that can’t be denied.”
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