CPSC Proposes Revisions to Proposed Safety Standard for Table Saws
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is proposing to update a safety standard it originally proposed in 2017 for table saws. In a proposed rule issued last week, the commission said it is adding more detail to its definition of the term “table saw,” as well as a more precise description of the proposed standard’s performance requirement and a revised anti-stockpiling provision. Comments are due Jan. 2.
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The proposed rule still would require injury mitigation on all new table saws, establishing “a performance standard that requires table saws to limit the depth of cut to no more than 3.5 millimeters when a test probe, acting as surrogate for a human finger or other body part, approaches the spinning blade at a rate of 1 meter per second (m/s).” Currently, SawStop and Felder Group manufacture saws with this type of safety system.
The supplemental proposal would revise the original proposed rule so that the definition of covered goods specifically references “jobsite saws, hybrid saws, sliding saws, and battery-powered saws … to better clarify the scope of the proposed rule and account for terms used by some industry participants.”
It also would remove a reference to “'radial approach rate’ from the rule's description of how the test probe must be introduced to the saw blade, and add descriptive language clarifying that movement of the test probe shall be parallel to the saw's table surface, with the center axis of the probe at a height of 15 ± 2 mm above the saw's table surface.” The supplemental proposal would also require that testing be conducted while the spinning saw blade is at its maximum height setting.
Finally, the supplemental proposed rule would revise the original proposal’s anti-stockpiling provision so that it prohibits “the manufacture or importation of noncompliant table saws at a rate greater than 115 percent of the rate at which table saws were manufactured or imported during the 12-month period prior to promulgation of the final rule, rather than 120 percent of the rate at which saws were manufactured during any 12-month period in the five years preceding promulgation.”