How I Justified the Purchase of a Second Scroll Saw

[Frank Pellow]

This is how I justified, first o myself, then second (and more importantly) to my wife Margaret, the purchase of another scroll saw.

Almost all my woodwork now involves scroll sawing and, often, I want to have two projects on the go at the same time.  Having two saws will make this easier.  For instance, I could have one set up with a spiral blade and the other with a conventional blade.  The saw that I have decided upon is a Pegas 21 inch:

That’s a bit smaller than my old Excalibur EX-30 saw.  My current saw was made in nearby Pickering whereas the Pegas is made in far away Taiwan.  At least, it’s not China.

At its core, the Pegas uses the same engineering as the Excalibur.  That engineering was invented by Thomas Summerville, a fellow Scarborough resident, in the early 1980s.  My saw was made by his company Summerville Industries but, unfortunately the General company of Drummondville Quebec purchased Summerville in the early 2000s then General went out of business around 2015.  Fortunately the design has been adopted by many companies and the Excalibur brand lives on in, at least, one of those companies. 

Now, after the brief history lesson, lets get back to Pegas.  The company is located in Switzerland and they have contracted with the same company in Taiwan that makes the Excalibur and some of its clones.  Without altering the basic sawing mechanism designed by Thomas Summerville, the designers of the Pegas have made several improvements.  First of all, the arm will stay in the UP position when lifted:

With the Excalibur, I need to jam a paint can onto the table towards the back of the arm to keep it in the raised position.  I must do this every time that I feed the blade through a hole on the piece I am cutting.  Most things that I cut have at least 100 holes and some have had about 1,000.  That’s a lot of paint can insertion and removal.

Another feature I like is the arms tilts when doing angle cuts:

On my Excalibur, the table tilts. Once tilted, it is not easy to manage the piece of wood that one is pushing through the saw.  Also the mechanism for tilting my table is primitive and not as accurate as I would like.  The mechanism for tilting the arm on the Pegas looks to be quite elaborate and accurate.

There are two other features of the Pegas that I have already managed to separately purchase and “cobble” onto my Excalibur.  Those are the clamps which hold the blade in place and the hose that blows the sawdust away from the blade.  I put those on my saw about two years ago and I have been impressed by both their quality and usefulness.

The new blower that I installed on my saw does a good job of keeping sawdust away from the blade but there is nothing to keep the sawdust away from the floor and my lap.  In the review photos I have seen, the Pegas can be hooked up to a shop vac and that combination does a very good job of collecting the dust.

I contacted Rod Sheridan (who works part time for Felder/Hammer) and told him that I have never used my Hammer Shaper as a one should really use a shaper, only as a high priced router table and that I saw no likelihood that I would ever do so.  He said that he would see if he can find a buyer for it.  If I sell the shaper, it will cover away more than the cost of the new scroll-saw.

[Dak0ta52]

All these new saws getting purchased... Guess there will be a dent in the lumber industry in the next few months. Congrats on the new baby!

[Bill WIlson]

Nice!  Having 2 saws is a luxury that my shop space just won't allow.  I strongly considered it when I bought my EX-21 back in 2015/2016.  I had a DeWalt that I liked very much and really tried to figure out a way to keep it.  Just couldn't find the floor or bench space for it, so I eventually sold it.

As for my EX-21, it pre-dates the move to Chinese manufacturing, but includes the tilting head feature, which I really like.  I suspect that other than the color and the blade clamps, it's virtually the same saw as the Pegas.  I bought the Excalibur, because my DeWalt shared DNA with it.  I was already very accustomed to how the DeWalt worked and really didn't want to go through the learning curve of getting a new saw, of a different design.  All these years later, I still think I made the right decision.  

Good luck with the new Pegas.  Let us know what you think of it, once you've had a chance to make some sawdust with it.

[don in brooklin on]

Congratulations Frank. 

Where did you buy it from?  

I did a talk at the club on all the various scroll saws available and here is the page I did on the Pegas.  The best of the best.

[daveww1]

congratulation, enjoy your new saw.

[Frank Pellow]

12 minutes ago, don in brooklin on said:

Congratulations Frank. 

Where did you buy it from?  

I did a talk at the club on all the various scroll saws available and here is the page I did on the Pegas.  The best of the best.

Don, I bought the saw from Bear Woods.  I'll let you know when the saw arrives and I have it set up  if you would like to drop in and "kick the tires".