Discovery Channel’s Time Warp TV show captured some great slow-motion shots of the SawStop in action. For those who don’t know, the SawStop is a radically new tablesaw that features a safety mechanism that stops the spinning saw as quickly as 1/1000th of a second in order to save your finger from being cut off in the case of an accident. [via]

What I didn’t know before watching this video was that when the SawStop does its thing, it essentially ruins an entire saw blade and stopping mechanism. But I guess that’s worth destroying when it saves your finger from being chopped off by the spinning blade. Apparently, the force of the blade stopping generates about 1000 G’s of energy (hence the destruction of the inside of the machine).

If you ever should have to ruin the SawStop however, a simple $60 parts replacement will get you back and working on the same table in no time.