Leaderboard

I jumped on Craigslist to check for any Excalibur saws on there. Today I scored. I found one that was posted just minutes before I looked and what to my wondering eyes should appear but an EX that was only used 10 minutes, and I am going after it in about 10 minutes. How lucky is that? Now I will have 2 of them. No one sells the ones they have, I just struck it rich Dick heppnerguy

I'm still using walnut Veneer for the backer. It would be easier to paint black but I just can't bring myself to do it. Just don't like the look of painted wood behind a natural finished one. I'm crazy i guess. Sorry about title I don't think this is from ssv library.

Finally got a chance to order my parts I needed from Bushton on Monday.. parts came in the mail today.. I just came back in a short time ago after putting all new bearings etc. in Is it safe to say I wore out a brand new Hawk in 5 months.. bought the saw in May and replacing the bearings in it already.. Pretty sure it would have lasted much longer had the bearings actually had grease in them.. Not sure to blame that one on Hawk.. or China.. Bearings say Made in China.. Hawk says Made in the USA.. I picked up the bearings from a local bearing supply house.. The parts needed to complete my bearing job was the darn special spacer (washer) that goes in between the lower arm and the connecting rod.. I dropped the darn thing while trying to put it together last month.. I seen the general direction it took off to and i moved all the lumber around... never could find it.. now that is back together it'll show up, LOL Needles to say.. she's got all brand new bearings ( with grease too ).. and is running smoother than it ever has.. It's virtually smooth all through the gears until the very highest one.. she's got some vibration at top speed.. but used to have a pretty bad area right around the middle speed and would walk across the floor on just before high speed and up from there.. Hawk mailed me a paper with alignment instructions which one I had not thought of myself or tried.. which could have been part of the issue.. however no grease in the bearings I'm sure played a part too.. Now I need to put my new updated upper clamp / tension mechanism on my old Hawk 220.. the tension lever wouldn't stay down into the tension position.. guessing that's why that saw kept breaking blades.... This saw is one oldie as it doesn't have the small set screw to adjust to give it more tension.. so the whole new updated to the BM series style upper clamping system had to be used.. But since I am taking the arm off etc.. I also picked up new bearings etc for this one.. so if anything is bad or worn.. should be like new when I get this one done too..

I have set up dust collection on my scroll saws and used that Loc-Line nozzles to suck the saw dust on the top of the saw. I have tried several things along the way to put something on the end of the nozzle to catch pieces of cut offs as they are sucked up. Nylon panty hose is to fine, and gets clogged with saw dust real fast, sticking wires through the nozzles is hard and doesn't work well either. Today I came up with something I think is going to work just fine. I am replacing the sink and faucet in my little down stairs bathroom. Took the old faucet out and was going to throw it in the trash, then I saw the thingy that the water comes through. It has a screen and some kind of aerator gizmo. I took it apart and inside was this little goody, that fit right into my dust collector nozzle. Even has little clips around that expand our so it will not get sucked into the collector. This is a great find..... for me. It's the black piece in the nozzle.

l make a clock of olive and sycamore wood. The pattern is from vinyl clock.

As usual i forgot to take a picture of the 3rd. one but next doctors appointment i'll see it again.All 3/4" plywood and i tryed different fonts in microsoftoffice word 2006 for a change.

This is Neptune's pattern, the moment I saw it I knew I would cut it. It's simple, thought provoking and elegant at the same time, at least I think so. This is cut from old flooring, frame in cherry. It's more challenging to cut thank it looks. Thanks Neptune! Brilliant pattern

OK the deed is done. Have not notified the wife yet. Just sent the seller PayPal funds. Will pick up next week after the snow storm that is supposed to come in. Spoke on phone for awhile. He's not a scroller. Was his father's who has lost most of his vision so saw is in like new condition. Seller brought it home from Kentucky two years ago and is taking up space in his garage. Has all communication from Bushton. So will post when I pick it up.

If there ain't no pictures, it didn't happen Dick..... Just sayin.

Ok Kevin, you have me curious what parts are you replacing? Regarding designing the perfect saw. I would probably end up with something very much like my Hawk G4 with the Detlta Quick clamps modification. I tried putting the Delta clamps on the bottom also but could not get comfortable with that. Iggy we have drifted way off your original topic so I will start a new one on the subject of what we would look for in a "perfect" saw.

Pattern © by Jon Rigsby III . Made from Tigerwood. (not Tiger Wood ;-))

Saw this Hawk for sale on Craigslist. Hawk Needs a controller and Hawk told me the new controller would be like $139.00 and you would have to send the motor to them.

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding saw performance , reliability, etc. We kind of dragged Iggy's post of in weird directions when all he was trying to do was give us some thoughts on what he is discovering with his saws. Thank you Iggy, I really appreciate your input. Now back to the subject, and please lets not turn this into a saw bashing thing but instead really think about what you really would like to have in a saw. My List. In no particular order 1. Mechanically Simple, minimum of moving parts Reliable 2. Removable tool less clamps, not part of the structure, inexpensive to replace. or clamps like the Old Delta lever clamps. 3. Variable blade stroke, not as fancy as the current Hawks but it could be a simple notch where one position is as vertical as possible the other aggressive. 4 .A good sized very flat table 5. Must be capable of top and bottom feeding! 6. Low vibration across a broad speed range. 7. Easy fast blade change and tensioning. 8. Easy lower clamp access! If I did a lot of bevel cutting I would like a tilting head like the EX's but it complicates the saw design. I have used a fair number of saws but not all, there are things I like and don't like with each that I have used. But it seems I have described my Old G4 Hawk. I would love to see an entry level saw with decent clamps,easy tensioning just like the Old Delta SS350 ($180 with stand) it didn't top feed but blade changes were a snap.

last birthday I get present - cardboard tiger kit of D-Torso. (if anyone interested, here you can buy it - https://d-torsoshop.com) But I was dissapointed when I known that parts are already cut (by laser) and I need just to assemble it. So I decided to transfer pattern to wood by myself and cut. I choosed fiberboard - cheap material and easy to cut. Here is result of my work: video of cutting and assembling

I just emailed the guy so hopefully I will get an answer. Buying it is not the problem. I already have two Hawks but old although in great running condition. Space is a problem. My shop is small and my wife's side of the garage is willed with her car, storage shelves, table saw, band saw, one Hawk scroll saw, pedestal grinder, air compressor, steel inventory, misc. pieces of wood, horizontal band saw, small work bench and large storage cabinet. If I should be the unlucky buyer perhaps I can suspend it from the ceiling. Although I like the advantage of up front blade tensioner.

Well Rolf I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest I don't believe it would be all that difficult to design the perfect or near perfect scroll saw. If a scroll saw was designed with the best quality and user friendly features contained in some of the saws already on the market you would have a great product. You have pretty much already described most of the features that would do the job. A scroll saw of this design would be considered high end and be handsomely priced. Had a scroll saw like this been available when I bought my Hegner I would have definitely been interested.

Awesome, fantasy saw time: High Level Top Priorities: 1. Top feeding/bottom feeding operations are trivial. 2. Low Vibration. 3. Reliable/Servicable Specific Thoughts: From the Hegner, grab the simplicity of design. Overall, I want a saw that I don't have to tweak/tune. I want the alignment of the saw to be locked in the like the Hegner, so that there is no room for things to wiggle out of alignment. Precise simple construction, that works out of the box every time. With minimal blade travel as the default. Blade clamp mechanisms that is easy to get tight, but no risk of stripping the clamps. From the Hawk, let the saw use as much of the blade as possible with long stroke. I want the Hawk ability to Cut thick pieces. From the earier Hawk, the change of aggression isn't an adjustment, it is a switch from one setting to another. No trial and error to get it back to zero travel. Like the DW/EX lineage of saws, I want both arms powered both directions independent of the blade. Tension on the blade should be constant throughout the stroke. Should be able to run any blade at any speed without causing any additional stress other that what inertia places on the blade itself. I would rather aggression be created by adjustable forward movement of a perpendicular blade than angling the blades. Again, this should be an configuration based on absolute stops, not an "adjustment" that requires tweaking to get it set back to zero travel. Like EX/Jet, built in mechanisms to hold up Arm. Like the DW: All tensioning should be within easy reach. Like Ryobi, mass produced but not a premium placed on the "Brand" stamped on the saw. Be unlike the Roybi in every other way. Make a quality tool, mass produce it so that you get efficiency of scalescale, then make a "reasonable" profit. A simple saw, abeit precise, with simple components should not be cost prohibitive. That bottom clamp has to be easy to get to, and use. Most of our higher end saws already do that, but none of the lower end saws do. I really do like the tilting Arm of the EX style saws, but would gladly sacrifice it to get some of the other features. For me, no swinging clamps. Like the eclipse, few moving parts, very very low vibration (or at least, that is how the Eclipse works in my dreams), but with blade changes as quick and easy as any other saw. I have tried almost every lineage of saw out there, except the Eclipse. I suspect my dreams would be dashed by reality if I were to actually get my hands on one.

This is one that will again draw alot from the saw you are currently using. Unless you are a guy like Steve Good who is able to use many different types of saws over the years and put them through the paces. To me I would not change a thing on my Hawk 220 or 226 except the plastic bottom clamp holder. But that was an easy fix. Now these saws are from an age when they just improved over the barrel clamps. I am not into a vac system on a scrollsaw. Listening to a vac while scrolling to me is nerve racking. After each session of scrolling I roll the vac over and vac around the saw. I have a shop air cleaner close by. Half the noise of the vac and I do not even realize it is on many times. From what I am reading the New Seyco saw is suppose to be the cream of the crop. They took many ideas from other saws as well as their older saw and made a good product. I have not tried it. Years ago all the saw companies use to come to woodworking shows to pedal their wares but none do this now at least my woodworking show. The last company was PSI who did that but that saw is in my opinion not worth the money.

I don't think I'd change much from what you listed there.. But.. I would like a variable adjustable blade angle ( which the new Hawks have ) so I could change the aggressiveness of the cut just where I need it.. My Ultra is not enough in the one slot and the other is just a tad too much for some of my cutting.. I've been known to stop in the middle of some cuts and release the tension to move the blade position from one to another ... having a motorized adjustable angle to adjust this on the fly with a separate foot peddle might be cool, LOL One in between would be good.. but variable would be great.. Now your going to call me crazy for that one. Hahaha I like the old Delta clamps.. Wouldn't mind seeing something set up much like the Jet's upper clamp / tension with one lever.. ( However I have not used this type so may not like it ) The concept of it for a lot of fret type cutting seems like it would be awesome.. While I've never really made one.. there have been times I wish I had a zero clearance table insert.. Why did they stop making table inserts? and none of the high end brands never had a insert to begin with ( that I'm aware of ) Upper arm must be spring loaded ( like the Hawks ) where when the blade is unhooked the arm goes up by itself.. Rather than a dust blower.. they need some sort of dust collection... But.. for me.. in a nutshell.. a Hawk BM series with Delta style clamps.. Personally I sort of like the fixed clamp rather than the removable.. and the only real advantage I see with removable clamps is having some other sized blades ready for cutting.. If I needed a spiral for doing some veining in a project.. But I find with the removable blade clamps is.. I forget what blade is in what clamp.. and most times end up just changing to a new one anyway. I often wonder how a variable speed foot peddle would be.. there are some instances where I'm on a long straight away and would like to speed up the saw some.. or the opposite.. while now that I am more experienced that is not a issue much anymore.. but do wonder if it'd come in handy for certain projects.. and could be helpful for a newbie..

Yeah, if I had $200.00 laying around I would probably go and get it. But I neither have the funds or space as of right now.

Ain't he though, Mr. browning? I'm anxious to hear about your workings on your 26. Mine is my work horse, when my Sawbones allows me to work in the shop. I have other saws set up for other purposes. Hopefully it will do you an awesome job, my friend.

Paul that is a great find. It looks like it was made to order.

Ha, I planted several "pine" trees years ago thinking no more leaves to rake.... well except my neighbors that blow in.. I think, raking up leaves was a lot easier than raking pine needles!!! But the pine needles don't spread all over like leaves do, so at least there is a smaller are to rake.

Try This: Link to PDF Tutorial In Inlay The site trying to be too smart and Preview the contents of any link, which may confuse some browsers, so using the forum link tool to include the link explicitly seems to work more like what I intended.

I have no blood in my veins. I run totally on coffee. Without my coffee, I would never get going. And keep going. Luckily my wife is just like me. Gotta have coffee. Ray

I am a technical guy and I really enjoy these types of evaluations and comparisons, are they useful, probably not. But they are interesting at least to me. Very early on I started timing my cutting with a timer that ran when the saw did (tied into my foot switch) I got lots of harassment(fun). I did it for two reasons I wanted to see if project times improved as I got more relaxed and comfortable with my saw. There are several Volker Arnold design ornaments that are part of my regular stock. When I started it took me 1.5 hours and several broken blades and very cramped hands, that same ornament now takes me ~40min (stack of six) and no cramps. It also gave me an idea of how long my Olson 2/0 lasted before they would break. With experience I now feel when they are going to break. I also need to keep track of my time when doing work for the magazine.

A few tips that might help: Practice with scrap of the same thickness, and cut circles, tweaking the angle, until you get it set perfect. Biggest secret for getting these perfect is to make sure you cut without any "side pressure." Take it very very slow on the corners (the blade needs to be caught up with zero bow). Hide your entry hole in the deep area behind the wing, between the wing and the tail. With a little practice. you can put the hole right at the edge of your line, in the waste area, and drill through so that it just barely hits the the waste area on the bottom piece, but the angle has to be exact. If you can do that, there will be no visible entry hole at all. It a neat trick if you can pull it off. -----Randy

Kinetic gear toy - watch the video to see how it works: also shown all stages of making this project. I found this pattern at CNC forum for free, made some changes to make it avaibale for scrollers, have fun Pattern attached gear toy.pdf

Boy! Every once in a while something I have heard or read about really bugs me and I just have to vent. I have been reading lately about bearing issues with scroll saws. I would hazard a guess that the bearings used in scroll saw production do not reflect but a small percentage of the cost. Why then are low quality or defective bearings finding their way into otherwise respectable products. I have contended for years that some otherwise intelligent people in cost control jobs, ( bean counters), make some very bad decisions. A defective bearing can make an otherwise well designed product totally inoperable. Why would a company want to chance such a small part to reflect on the reputation of the product and the company? Everybody is not equipped with the mechanical skills or desire demonstrated by some of the members here to replace defective parts. I think more consumers should let companies know that these types of issues are not acceptable. JMHO Thanks for listening.

Unusually cold weather here the past few weeks has me far behind where I wanted to be, but today was a good day and got 15 cut. I have to head up to DC on business tomorrow thru Wednesday, so I guess I'll be even further behind...

Just Ordered from Amazon :-)

Looks great.

You can take that same perspective and use it for anything that is bought today. I agree highend saws are just that for a reason. But you have also seen over the years many of these saw companies have changed hands and those are the ones that seem to be making the news. Hegner which I believe is one of the few companies that is still run by the same group and you do not hear peep about problems with their saws. What is also disturbing is if and when there is a problem there are no close service outlets to take care of problems. Sending a saw back is almost impossible and if not mechanically inclined doing the work yourself is challenging to say the least. The people that buy into the business do not have the same connections to the customer as the original owners did. You see this all the time. Those people are just after the $$$ because they figure the ground work has been done for them. Just my thought. You see this bearing problem many times on lathes too.

timer I have one of these( a dumpster rescue) but an analog plug in clock works also. I have an outlet strip plugged into my foot switch. the saw and the timer is plugged into it. I also have a timer that keeps track of my total saw hours for maintenance reasons. This timer is easy to reset, but it is a bit pricey.

Thanks, Ray. I looked up MR. Cowell and watched a video at is site. That is what I want to try to learn to do. The guy does need a new scroll saw...!

Congrats on the find Dick. Happy for you.

That's a great idea and a very lucky find. What size diameter is your Loc-line? I'm using 3/4". I'm going to try 1/2" on the Hegner. Ray

hotshot your information provided is great ! Every time I see your work I am absolutely dumfounded. I question myself "how does he ever do that- what an artist". I have had the urge to try it but didn't know how. Downloaded your info and am going to study it. I see my problem might be when blade break the sakura saw arm flies up to protect the blade from hitting pattern or hand to prevent damage. Just remembered I have a 14" rbi that would probably work. Again thank you so much for info. David

Wow! Not too far from me. Unfortunately at my age wrestling out a motor and replacing it does not work. I think it would be a good deal as it is VS as well as having the tensioner up front. Wish mine had that.

Hey Dick, it's good to see you, you haven't been around much lately. I'mm kind of sorry that you moved, when you were in Heppner you were around much more. You were very lucky to find this saw, hopefully, you get a good deal on it. When you get it set up, be sure to post a couple of pics. Len

Scroll saw. My wife and I were at the Orange Country fair a couple of years back. There was a man there doing scroll sawing on a home made saw that he powered with one foot. At any speed he wanted to within reason. As slow as possible for what he was doing. When I got interested in watching him, he explained what he was doing. Marquetry/inlay. He gave me his card and said I should attend one of his classes sometime if I was truly interested. So, that began my scroll saw hobby quest. His name is Ken Cowell and he does some beautiful work. He saws/planes/sands all of his veneers from exotic woods and sells them. His veneers are all pretty much less than .0625. Ray

Giving everyone some time to fill up your popcorn bowls and pull up a comfy chair..

I think critical critiques of the saws may be a no win. I personally love critical assessments, but candid conversations are hard to have in the forums without a lot of emotion. I love all my saws for different reasons, but if someone came on the forum and said: 788s/Deltas are nice but for some work are over aggressive and seem to wear out with less hours than the higher end saws. The EX/Clones are great, but the dust collection system sucks, the clamps easily strip, and the stability of the patents holders and the manufacturing companies making them are questionable Jet seems promising, but the top clamps may need tweaking if you change blade sizes radically, or if you want to top feed, you can forget it. Hegners are Awesome, unless you prefer top feeding, a big table, aggressive cutting, affordability. You can use as a clamp firing rifle. Hawks are exceptional, except the Owners don't run their company like a business, the adjustments are tricky, and the clamps swing, and the aggression settings change the angle of the blade making the higher aggressive settings useless for puzzle type applications Ryobi, Harbor Freight, Wen (and all the saws that look like them have bottom clamps that are incredibly inaccessible) and are tools evidently designed for torture. Proxxon sure is pretty, but the 115 model specifically is more useless than stuff used to add nutrients to my garden. CW40, Rexon, PCB 370, Craftsman, Tradesmen, and all the saws that look like the CW40 are great beginner saws, except they wear like a 788, are bottom feed only, and the dust collection panel has to be removed in order to easily access the bottom clamp, and has a table almost as small as the Hegner. Eclipse may be the best saw ever, except changing blades seems a little clumsy, it was very very expensive, and it seems to have died with Ernie. ......if someone were to actually say that . . . wholly Molly would that be bad. :-) I actually love and appreciate most of those saws, (except Proxxon and Ryobi/clones, which I got rid of, and hate without out bounds). -----Randy

I frame most all of my square rectangular pieces, just adds more to the overall look of the project, I make float frames from time to time but mostly I just bang out 4 pieces at 45 degrees, glue, clamp and pin nail them directly to the piece or the backer. the edges of non framed pieces or pieces that are mounted and framed but you can still see the edges are more of a pain in the ass. At times I have sanded them down with my rigid or a detail sander but I hate that process and sometimes they are too fragile to do so. What I have learned to do is be more precise and careful with the outside of the piece when cutting and use Better Quality blades and that results in smoother / better cuts that don't need sanding at all. I also have small shaped diamond tipped screwdriver type sanders that work nicely for some areas that need attention, I generally use the flat, cried and triangular one at most, these are a very important tool to the scroller IMO I have some leftover vinyl click flooring but never tried cutting it with scroll saw, let me know how it works...

Kev, it occurred to me that, it could be that if you move you spent blade from the Hawk to the 788, the aggressive action might make it feel like it has more life. That is to say, maybe that Hawk doesn’t dull the blade faster, but maybe it needs sharper blades because of the less aggressive cutting. That is one test that would be easy to do.

Lots of nice people here to help. Great place!

Hi All, Kathy sent word that this is only available as a CNC pattern hence the eps and stl formats. Thanks for your interest. Don W

if the rose is also from kathy you could email her and ask if there is a pdf available.

If you want, I can open it in Adobe illustrator and save it for you as a PDF. Let me know Sam

Made out of 3/4" Brazilian cherry material , using Steve Good's name Plaque app , the lower cased Plaque is the first for me always used all capitals before. I think I like the lower cased one just as well if not better now ! Any comments welcomed .....