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Well as you can see I have been busy these last few days, I have been having a Great time with my new saw. I have gotten use to changing the blades, a little different than what I have been use to, but I am learning.I,m still looking for a good pic of Adam to turn into a pattern.it's been hard with him wearing all black.But I will keep trying.

Pretty Easy pattern offered by Ashola in one of the facebook pattern groups. This was cut in a Kennedy, but could have been scaled down to a quarter.

A pattern by Alex Fox. He lists this one as C15. I modified the pattern by increasing it by 25% and not cutting the bottom ring, but leaving it attached to the next to the last ring making the ring less fragile. I used 1/4" solid Walnut approximately 10 inches square. The holes drill with #68 bit and cut with FD UR #1 blade. The finish is spray Polyurethane Clear Satin. Comments welcome.

Good morning guys, new guy here - my name is Bobby. Just picked up a Hegner Multimax 18" saw for $20 at a garage sale . No stand or blade but it works perfectly from what I can tell. The guy said it used to belong to his grandfather and that it's been sitting in his shed for years, just collecting dust. I've never been into woodworking or anything of that nature but I'm thinking that I got a decent deal... but then again, I don't know much about them so I could be wrong. Any tips or secrets for getting started? Thanks in advance. -Bobby

Well I made the mistake of looking at Paul's (Scrapile) circus with the added baby elephant so I decides to do the same thing. Thank's Paul. I shrunk this down to 60% and they look pretty good. I didn't attached them to the tails of the bigger elephants because it would make it to fragile to move around. I was only going to do one like he did but I was using 1/8 BB and it was easier to stack cut two so that's why there's two of them.

We escaped the record cold temps in NW Illinois by taking the motorhome to the Arizona desert. The day before we left I cobbled together a folding table for my Craftsman saw and brought it along. The saw is being powered by an inverter wired to the coach batteries. And those batteries are charged by solar panels. I found my table too tall to sit at a chair, but too short to stand. The hatch on the Honda CR-V was just right. The first project is this basket (my first basket too), made from maple, walnut, and cherry. Will probably finish with Danish Oil. May try an Alex Fox pattern next. Tom

Made my first puzzle today. It is a Steve Good pattern. I also tried for the first time a size 2/0 blade. I tried it on a test piece of 2 pieces of 1/8" BB first. I could't control the blade at all. I tried more tension, less tension, faster speed setting, slower speed setting. Nothing helped. I went to a number 1 and had no problems. Made it for the wife,, couldn't wait until V-Day,, already gave it to her. LOL

It is not the cost of the saw that matters; it is the skills of the operator that make the difference between average and great work. For a FIRST project-- or any other project this is an excellent JOB!

Welcome to the village. Good to have you. Be sure to look around and check the info in the "Resources" section. You can probably find a manual to down load for your saw here: https://www.advmachinery.com/pages/hegner-home This is also where you can get parts and lots of help if needed. Do not buy blades at your local Home Depot, Lowes, etc. unless they sell Olsen blades, best to order you blades and get one or a couple of the brands mentioned by bobscroll. A sample pack with different sizes and types of blades in it is a good start. Figuring out which blades are best for what and best for you is probably the hardest and confusing part of learning scrolling. But it comes to you with a little research and practice. If your saw runs smoothly you got a great deal.

Better late than never... My first project of 2019... Not sure if I should frame it or just leave it as is...

Fantastic work! I wanted to make a clock or two like those and knew that my patience would not last for the length of time it would take. Also, I did not want to invest a lot of money in a clock movement and not be able to sell it for a reasonable price. The Lord's Prayer shown below is probably the longest project I have done. Stack cut in 1/4" Baltic Birch about 44 hours. Thanks for sharing your projects! Excellent work and a pleasure to view. God Bless! Spirithorse

That's true. But, if you make the investment in the Pegas clamp set, that is all gone and works so much better. I sort of flinched at having to pay almost a $100 to buy something that was pretty much already on both of my saws but after buying the first set for my EX and experiencing how much better they are, it made buying the second set for my Dewalt a whole lot easier. I did buy the second set of EX clamps to put on my Dewalt because I like the lever system better. I make an initial adjustment with the rotary knob on the Dewalt and then just leave it alone and do all the tensioning with the lever. I love both of my saws now.

Randy, I do the same as you but not with my chin. I manage to hold the arm down and hold the blade with one hand and turn the clamp screw with the other. It can be done. And I do it every time. It takes all the play out of the mechanism and "pre-loads" it. I have not had any problems with tensioning and I never touch the rear knob. I do pretty much the same on my Dewalt. But in all honesty, I haven't used any spiral blades yet. I think I did try them when I first started and realized they weren't for me.

Bob are you seeing this with all blade types or just the spiral blades? "Blade stretch" is minimal at best and should not require any adjustment. What brand/style spirals are you using? Spiral blades are tricky to clamp up. I suspect you have blade slippage. One way to combat that is to flatten the ends before trying to clamp them.

Bob, if you need to get more tension than what the lever gives you, I can help you on this, as I've had to do this many times. The trick is to press down on the arm a bit while tightening the blade in the clamp. This gives it a bit of tension, before using the lever, so that when you add the lever tension to it, you end up with more tension that what the lever alone provides. You might ask, "How do I press down on the arm, if I have one hand on the blade, and one on the clamp knob, well, I'm embarrassed to admit . . . . . I lean over and press it down with my chin . . . . yep . . . . . . did I admit that outloud? I learned this approach after I screwed up my "Blade Travel" setting by using the back knob. Now, I never touch that back knob. -----Randy

Hi Bob and welcome back. First, I do have a Seyco saw and it is the primary one I use. I have had it and used it since they were first released. However, I have never used a spiral blade in it so cannot respond to using it with that blade. I do not use the knob to change the tension on the Saw, it was set once and I use just the flip lever to release tension to move the blade to the next hole to cut as needed. I do it the same way with the excalibur Saw I own as well. Paul, @Scrappile also has the Seyco Saw I know and is a much more accomplished scroller then I with lots more experience, so perhaps he can give you better info, if someone else doesn’t before he has a chance.

Good day in the shop. Couple of quick ones after the "Sleigh Ride". My sister's 40th wedding anniversary is this year so thought I would get this one out of the way early. Saw the pattern on Sheila Landry's site and Keith did it up for me. 7 X 16 on more reclaimed laminated maple 3/8ths thick. The "Doctor and Doll" is from a Norman Rockwell painting and I cut it for Dad's Doctor. Kenny Hopkins did the pattern for me. 11 X 14 on 1/8th BB ply. Jeff

I love baskets. I am always amazed at how cool the spiral looks when it starts as a straight line.

Hi Bobby, You got a great deal. FWIW, I picked up some blades Olson at Menards to practice on before investing in "good" blades. A pack of pinless #5 or #7 would work well. On the package it tells you what thickness of wood they are for. Hope all goes well with you new hobby. Tjhis place is a great resource full of friendly folks. Enjoy!

Hi, Bobby,Love the name,Mine also.Welcome to The Village.A lot of Great advice up there.I started with simple patterns,and a Craftsman mt Dad gave me,never saw a scroll saw before,started out with simple patterns,that was 20yrs ago.best gift my Dad ever gave me. Your gonna Love it.

your going to start fights over who gets what car!!!! Beautiful site to see!!! Handmade!!

Hi Bobby and welcome to the village..sounds like you may have a great saw there for what you paid. Just the name hunger is worth that price..lots of tips and tutorials here.You will learn something every day.

Hi Bobby and welcome to the village, Thank you for the intro, See if you have any scraps of wood around to be able to practice on, Draw some wavy lines, Straight lines and sharp angled lines and practice following them till you feel o.k. with it. Then pick a simple pattern and stick it on a sanded piece of wood and just have a go! Blades- there are "Flying Dutchmans" "Olson" "Pegus", You will find you get plenty of good advice on here Bobby, There are plenty of tutorials on youtube to look at as well, Good luck, Bob

Beautiful clock Greg. Well done.

Very nice work Jeff.

I really like this one Paul. I think I may have to try it. You’ve done a great job on it.

I was out there scrolling and when finished I compared the two, the design is the same, two ears stick out, with a screw. Could be the pegas clamp material is more resistant to the spreading of the ears, I think it is too early to tell. Hope it is true though since I bought some

Welcome Greg. You are going to love it here. I just looked through your album, wow you have made some awesome projects. Well done.

I can compare.. My Excalibur only had about 6 hours on it and the OEM clamp was already having issues.. I know have about 50 hours on the saw.. no clamp issues... I'm not heavy handed.. My DeWalt I ran from 2008 - 2015.. same clamps and thumb / set screws... had read of issues with the DeWalt when I first bought it I bought extra clamps and a set of thumb screws.. Never opened up the packages until I got the Excalibur.. I tried changing the screws in my OEM clamps which didn't help much.. That all said.. I may very well have had a set of defective clamps from the get go. If it matters.. My saw is just before they moved production to China.. so it's not something to do with the move and the quality.. as it was made the same place all the others were made for the last however many years...

Mc Master Carr or Amazon.

Rolf said, "If you are even slightly heavy handed you will spread the clamps and have to replace the arms. Pegas has resolved that issue with their replacement clamps." I think he means replace the clamps not arms. As I see it, the clamp design is the same. Different materials, and they add a lock nut to the left side clamping screw. But the action of holding the blade is the same, turn the adjusting knob to screw down and hold the blade. If you have a heavy hand, I can't see any reason that the clamp will not spread the way the stock excaliber clamps do. Less vibration, true they are lighter than the stock clamps. Yes I broke down and bought some. They are definitely better than what was on there - but then again a new muffler is better than the old worn out one too. My EX was used when I bought it so I have never experienced new excaliber clamps to be able to compare them to the pegas clamp. And that I think should be the starting point of a comparison, new vs new. But I can not see how any issue is resolved in terms of heavy handedness and the spreading of the clamp jaws.

That knob changes the height of the upper arm.. You want the upper arm to be parallel to the table.. ( ie front of the upper arm should be the same distance from the table as the back part of the upper arm.. ) By turning the knob at the back of the saw.. you're changing that distance.. This also in turn will change the aggressiveness of the cutting.. ( forward backward motion of the blade.. While usually minimal but it will certainly change it enough to notice it if you're not careful..

On my EX21 (top feeder) I put the blade through the hole an with left hand I use thumb and forefinger to pull down on blade an at the same time using small finger push up on the blade clamp. With right hand tighten knob. This takes all movement out of the clamps an arms. Done it so many times I don’t even think about what I am doing.

Awesome job on all. Jeff

Nice introduction, Greg, Thanks for your military service. Looking forward to seeing some scroll saw projects. God Bless! Spirithorse

Welcome Greg, Are you sure that's your first scroll saw project. Hell of a job on that. Who'd the pattern by. I might want to try making that.

Wonderful Stuff!!!

Hi NC, Yes I am only using spiral blades - FD New Spiral 2/0 and 1. Many thanks for the suggestion I will try flattening the blade ends - currently I sand them a little but they are not flat so blade slippage is a possibility.

Impressive work.

Every item you did is fantastic, you have great talent, keep up the good work.

terrific job

Kudos on the motorcycle. Attempted on one like that and it ended up in the scrap heap. Might just try again in the future seeing your results.

Beautiful work and craftsmanship!!

Awesome work, thanks for showing. Don W

WOW!!!! They are just Super Awesome!!

Beautiful items. Like I said, you are very talented. I'm looking forward to seeing more. I also enjoy fretwork. Did any of those patterns some from finescrollsaw.com. One of my favorite site and the gentleman that owns it is great to do business with.

Hi Hotshot - Many thanks for that - I will try it. After re-reading my last reply to Scrappile I was thinking of doing the opposite of tensioning with the back knob - ie. with the blade unclamped turning the knob slightly to the right - lowering the arm a little - just don't know if that would affect the back to front blade movement. Will try you method - sounds safer.

I have a Seyco and I do not adjust the tension know in the back except when I am making sure the upper arm is level with the table. I do not adjust it when I go from one hole to another. I don't understand what you mean when you write "this tension is lost as the blade will now be clamped a bit higher and the lever always applies the same fixed amount of tension". The tension should always be the same as when you first put the blade in the saw. Could you explain this a little more. Also maybe @scrollingforsanity well jump in here. He is a Seyco owner and he uses his a lot more than I do. My Seyco is more of a backup saw for me. And, Bob welcome to the village, be patient, we will get you help. The are a lot of experts here that have Excalibur saw and they work the same as the Seyco.

You sir have some real talent. That is a beautiful clock. By the way, welcome to the village. Glad to have you join us.

My wife wouldn't know what it is being an inlander from Alberta, Canada. As a kid i don't ever remember having sea food of any kind at home. Your cutting great though!