Live Sound & Production

[twostone]

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dboomer wrote:

So basically what you are saying is that the art of sawing has advanced and that improvements HAVE been made to the tool.

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 Well the speed of sawing has advance since back in the old days you had a axe.

[lonotes]

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dboomer wrote:

So basically what you are saying is that the art of sawing has advanced and that improvements HAVE been made to the tool.

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I don't know that you could say that that represents any advancement in the sawing per se, as it changed nothing pertaining to the way the wood was cut. Although I would certainly consider it as a revolutionary step in operator safety.

[agedhorse]

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lonotes wrote:

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dboomer wrote:

So basically what you are saying is that the art of sawing has advanced and that improvements HAVE been made to the tool.

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I don't know that you could say that that represents any advancement in the sawing per se, as it changed nothing pertaining to the way the wood was cut. Although I would certainly consider it as a revolutionary step in operator safety.

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Yes, I think this is more accurate

[dboomer]

OK ... you wanna talk saws?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGkOjn-tY50&feature=player_embedded#!

NEW and it kicks your ols saw's ass! 

[agedhorse]

That's a modelers saw, a precision table saw with add one. Nothing revolutionary, just a very fine piece of well executed hardware.

[Bobby1Note]

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dboomer wrote:

So basically what you are saying is that the art of sawing has advanced and that improvements HAVE been made to the tool.

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It has advanced, not only in operator safety, but also in terms of accuracy, repeatability, and precision. (digital fence systems). Tooling has changed dramatically over the years (diamond tooling), and with the advent of man-made construction materials, blade geometries, and the use of scoring-blades has greatly improved the quality of cut. Sliding tables also represented a major advance.

On basic saw systems, we've seen the appearance of three-belt drives (vs one), and left-tilting arbors, along with improved splitters and anit-kickback pawls, and internal dust-collection ramps, with improved hoods. Zero-clearance inserts greatly reduced tear-out on the underside of the cut.

In modern cabinet shops, saws are basically considered a utility tool. Everything has gone to CNC router-systems, with air-suspension, and vacuum hold-down technology. Multiple sheets of man-made materials, can be stacked and floated on a cushion of air,,, then vacuum applied to hold the material in place. Multi-head diamond tooling makes short work of mutiple sheets, stacked on top of each other. Last time I looked at this stuff (7 years ago), cutting speed was over 40" per second, and the quality of cit was such that edge-sanding was no longer necessary.

There are saws such as the Logosol (P-240???), that simultaneously do two-sided surface-planing, and edge-trim both side of a raw board, while applying a contoured surface to the finished board. This type of saw is used for making moldings and siding..

The sky's the limit with this stuff.

http://www.altendorf.de/en/products/f-45-elmo.html

http://www.logosol.ca/in-english/planersmoulders/four-sided-planer-moulder-ph-260/start/

[agedhorse]

New production based tools are fairly revolutionary, BUT they are based on evolution of older production based tools, such as pattern following saws, paper tape NC saws, multi-blade/head saws (and routers), etc.

Folks often think that circuit boards drilled and routed by computer is new and revolutionary... but multi-head NC PCB drills have been around for maybe 50 years starting (at least in the US) with Excellon using a paper tape reader feeding a GE NC processing unit with high power servo drives. Evolutions include things like modern computers & software as well as replacing the mechanical drill spindles with laser drilling.

It's hard to define when something becomes a revolutionary change... in audio I think DSP is one, SMPs, class D, Neo, digital effects, digital consoles, etc.

[dboomer]

The point of this thread was not to distinguish between "revolutionary" and "evolutionary" improvements but only to point out that no matter how comfortable you are with a thing there is always the possibility that in the future (no time limit) someone somewhere will improve upon it.

[agedhorse]

I thought the point was that improvements are fine but not all improvements are improvements, and that most (not all) good improvements tend to be evolutionary.

[Craigv]

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agedhorse wrote:
I thought the point was that improvements are fine but not all improvements are improvements, and that most (not all) good improvements tend to be evolutionary.

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^This.

Comparing the Unisaw of today with the one from the 1930's, there is nothing about the older saw that would prevent me from safely making accurate, clean, repeatable cuts. This is what the saw was built to do. Compare it with the saws I had prior to it....several Craftsman models, progressively more expensive, up to their "Sears Best" model. All had multiple patents for stuff that they thought was worth protecting from IP theft. None of these saws could cut accurately, could repeat a cut, or could cut safely enough that I wasn't in near constant fear of kickback. The so-called "improvements" only improved Sears' profit margin.

Most telling was that the entire line was scrapped 6 months after I had returned the last saw and demanded a full refund.....in cash, not a Sears gift card...and bought the Unisaw.

And my point all along was that there was no reason to "be sad" that there are people who are quite satisfied with "old" technology.

[Bobby1Note]

What I "learned" from Sears is,,, if their tablesaws have a sticker,,,,telling you it's a "professional" model,,,, or "industrial",,,,, it ain't.