WOW, now THAT'S faith in Your Product!

Jeff Atwood : The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

“… A table saw is an extremely dangerous tool.  My saw can cut a 2-inch thick piece of hard maple with no effort at all.  Frankly, it's a tool which should only be used by someone who is a little bit afraid of it.  It should be obvious what would happen if a finger ever came in contact with the spinning blade.  Over 3,000 people each year lose a finger in an accident with a table saw. 

A guy named Stephen Gass has come up with an amazing solution to this problem.  He is a woodworker, but he also has a PhD in physics.  His technology is called Sawstop.  It consists of two basic inventions:

• He has a sensor which can detect the difference in capacitance between a finger and a piece of wood.
• He has a way to stop a spinning table saw blade within 1/100 of a second, less than a quarter turn of rotation.

The videos of this product are amazing.  Slide a piece of wood into the spinning blade, and it cuts the board just like it should.  Slide a hot dog into the spinning blade, and it stops instantly, leaving the frankfurter with nothing more than a nick.

Here's the spooky part:  Stephen Gass tested his product on his own finger!  This is a guy who really wanted to close the distance between him and his customers.  No matter how much I believed in my product, I think I would find it incredibly difficult to stick my finger in a spinning table saw blade.  Unbelievable! …”

Like Jeff says, Wow…