Dewalt has issued a safety notice and “stop sale” to retailers for their DWS780, DWS779, and DHS790 12″ sliding miter saws, due to a potential safety issue with the rear guard.
We recently reported that the Dewalt DWS780 and DWS779 have disappeared from major online retailers in a highly unusual manner. Now we know why.
Thank you to Dave for providing a copy of the retail Stop Sale notice, and for everyone else that provided details and confirmation.
Dewalt’s notice says they identified a potential safety issue with the rear guard that may lead to an injury hazard.
The DWS779 and DWS780 are 12″ sliding miter saws, and the DHS790 is the FlexVolt 120V Max model. Both FlexVolt SKUs, DHS790AB for the bare tool, and DHS790AT2 for the kit, are affected.
The Stop Sale notice says that models with date codes 2019 04 through 2022 03 are affected (April 2019 thru March 2022). It also says that many miter saws made during this period have been repaired and are satisfactory for sale, denoted by a green marker next to the serial number or carton barcode.
A reader (thank you Pete!) says that Dewalt customer service described the issue for them in more detail:
The issue (a manufacturing defect with the rear guard breaking in a small number of saws) affects the DWS780 DWS779 and DHS790 and can occur when the blade throws a piece of wood on the guard.
We reached out to Dewalt last week asking for more information, but have not yet heard back. This is understandable, as the Stop Sale notice, dated May 25, 2022, is a communication from Dewalt to their retailers.
Dewalt says they have reported this issue to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and are working to conduct a voluntary consumer level recall of the products. More information regarding repair, servicing, or replacement of owners’ saws is likely to follow.
Saws with date codes of 2022 04-CJ and later are not affected by the issue.
