Frank Pellow

I understand that a small amount of Baltic Birch comes from Finland. There are, of course, many countries other that Russia and Finland on the Baltic, but I have not heard that any of the others manufacture this type of plywood. Canada certainly has vast regions of same type of Boreal Forrest where the Birch is obtained, but I have not found (and I have looked) any Canadian manufacturer of Birch Plywood. It's not just the lack of voids that appeals to me, the characteristics and quality of the Birch wood make it good for scrolling.

That looks great Don! I will have get myself some of that Decoart Snow Writer

I really like this and, in particular, I like the painting that you did.

Well, I have now done some top feeding (about a dozen holes on different regions of the panel). What do I think about it? My short answer is: "It's a lot like snowboarding -I have learned how to snowboard and taken a few runs down steep hills -but it's strange to go down a hill standing sideways. I will, most often, choose to ski down the hill facing forward." So, I consider top feeding to be something in my bag of tricks, and will use it for holes located in the middle of large panels.

Thanks, I don't have a hex socket but I managed to jerry-rig one and it worked! The table came off, the guard came off, the table went back on and I am ready to attempt top feeding (after a break for dinner).

Well, I ran into a problem when attempting to top feed. It seems that the Pegas comes with an unexpected safety "feature": Un addition to the "regular" above the table hold-down and blade guard, the Pegas saw came with a below-the-table blade guard: This is a bit of an annoyance when attaching the bottom of a blade when that is the first end to be clamped. Until now, that is the way that I always secured a blade. But, for me, it is show stopper when top feeding and securing the blade in the bottom clamp second. In this case the guard really gets in the way. Therefore, I decided to remove the guard. But, in order to loosen the screw that holds the guard in place, one has to remove the table. Metric tools are needed for this and I have them: But, even with ratchet wrench secured on the nut below the table and hex wrench with e decent amount of leverage in the indent on top of the table, I could not loosen the bolt. I'm not quite sure what to do about this. For now, I will give up on attempting to Top Feed.

I've never tried top feeding because it was very difficult to do on my original generation Excalibur. Since it is supposed to be easier on my Pegas, I will give it a try.

That explains it.

You are sawing outside in Ottawa in early March??????? WOW! Where did you hide the snow?

Yes, there is button that you push as you tilt. I think it could be designed better. I'm certain that I could design it better. The upper arm is parallel.

I did mention that the saw has adjustable bolts at the bottom of the legs. But, they did not adjust enough to give me the slant that I like.

IMPRESSIONS & COMMENTS AFTER 8 HOURS SAWING: I now have the saw fully set up with dust collect and rear slightly elevated. Here is a photo: I do need to do something about all the wires but, other than that, this is where the saw and it's paraphernalia will be. The points below are in no particular order, they will be just as I think of them. 1) I've spent 6 hours working on a real project (the one that you see on the table) and another 2 hours testing out things such as really thick wood and sawing with the arm tilted. 2) I like the dust collection. I thought that the noise of the Festool vacuum would bother me but, at least so far, it doesn't. 3) Notice that the two rear legs of the stand are sitting on a 2x6. Like many others I know, I like to saw with the saw's table slanted slightly towards the front. I had thought that the adjustable bolts at the bottom of the legs would provide enough slant for me, but they do not. 4) I really really like the arm that stays up when one pushes it up. It was very tedious to have to jam something (usually a paint can) under the arm of my EX-30 in order to keep it up. 5) I mentioned in my first report that I find the hard stops at certain angles to be cumbersome. I found another manufacture's saw that has the same tilting mechanism at a nearby store and that one is just bad. Oh well, not everything about the Pegas can be perfect. 6) The blower is excellent! I did install a similar blower on my EX-30, but this one is better. 7) The clamps, of course, are excellent. One of the reasons that I purchased a Pegas was the quality of the after-market Pegas clamps that I installed on my EX-30 some time ago. 8 ) What did surprise me was that the clamps are much further apart than they are on my (about 20 years old) EX-30. I measure the separation as about 89 millimetres on the Excalibur and about 114 millimetres on the Pegas. That's a difference of 25 millimetres (or about an inch). All of that and a little more is above the table and that allows me to work with thicker wood. 9) I find that since I can clamp the blades much closer to the end, blade installation is much easier and more reliable. This also means that I am much let likely to break delicate blades. So far, on my real project, I am breaking the, very delicate, 2/0 spiral blades at about half the rate that I have come to expect on my EX-30. If this continues to be the case, the saving in the cost of blades alone will pay for my new saw. 10) I can saw at a slower speed on the Pegas. I have already found this to be advantage when doing some very tricky sawing. 11) The table on my Pegas is slightly bigger and I like that.

It's great that you are doing this Don! Some of that cutting looks quite difficult for beginners and I would save those for a second lesson. I would have them practicing on more lines. For a project, I suggest a simple puzzle.

Thankyou for that Information Melanie. I have glanced at the magazine at a store a handful of times but have never purchased one. I guess that I should do so and attempt to determine how much it might be worth to me.