GERMANY – Nothing drew a crowd to the Altendorf Group’s Ligna stand like the demonstrations of the latest development for the Altendorf sliding table saw.

Experts from all the over the world caught their breath as a member of the Altendorf Group’s development team moved a hand towards the saw blade at the speed of a normal feed rate – and suffered not so much as a scratch. The saw blade, a 400 mm disk spinning at about 5000 rpm, simply disappeared – all in a fraction of a second. The blade is braked to a standstill too, meaning that this safety system, unlike those of other manufacturers, works even with larger saw blades. The demonstrations at Ligna left everyone who witnessed them thoroughly impressed: users, dealers and the international specialist press all left the stand confident that “ASA” (the working title of this ground-breaking safety development) just will not permit accidents at the sliding table saw. A three-stage system using a number of technical solutions ensures that caution and prevention prevail.

Karl-Friedrich Schröder, Head of Development at the Altendorf Group, explained to the 120 or so international trade partners present at the dealer evening how the pioneering project to develop ASA came about: “We have always been uneasy about the fact that existing systems, including the well-known “Saw Stop” feature, only ever kick in after the accident has happened. And they cause damage to parts of the machine as well. We wanted the machine to act sooner to protect the operator and prevent accidents and life-threatening injuries altogether. This means detecting the hazard at an early stage without impinging on the operator’s discretion. We developed a three-stage system to do just this. The first stage involves the machine emitting an optical signal. Stage two sees the rotational speed of the saw blade reduced, which greatly increases the resistance felt by the operator. This gains us valuable time – a valuable few tenths of a second – to prepare the system for stage three, in which the blade is brought to a standstill and the whole unit drops away into the table.