Attempted Repair of Shipping Damaged Excalibur 21

[KellisRJ]

Posting this in case anyone has needed to perform major surgery of an Excalibur.

eBay seller was honest as far as they knew on return damage done by terrible packing by the original purchaser.  But as I started to look it over, I found more. The tension assembly shaft is bent and I could see a flex crack in the base of the upper arm base.  Rather than pay return shipping, the seller refunded my purchase and told me to keep the saw.  Figured I may as well see what all I could find. 

Even with bent tension assembly, I was able to level the upper arm. May have been a mistake, I used the blade tensioners to square the blade.  Ran the saw. One serious vibration was the lower blade guard banging into the blade holder. Thanks to an earlier post, that's sorted out. Vibration is gone, saw appears to be cutting properly. But don't forget the flex crack.

The primary damage "appeared" to the tension knob assembly. But about the upper arm.

I didn't remember reading in the manual the upper arm lifts for fret work until I saw a demonstration YouTube video, darned if I can find it in my history to give credit. The arm didn't want to lift. I let all the tension off the upper arm and with difficulty got it to move. My opinion is that it's bent. But what else?  Could also include the control box. Worse case rocker arm and both drive link assemblies are also bent. So it cuts, but could be pushing the rocker arm, drive assemblies, and blade holders to an early violent death.  Have to make some calls and price out parts. Could start with the upper arm and see if that "straightens things out." Decisions . . . 

[BadBob]

Have you talked to Seyco about the parts you need?

[KellisRJ]

Thanks, no. West coast time, was past business hours when I finished that troubleshooting session. Been here two years and I'm still getting used to being on the other side of the country. After reading earlier posts, I'm hoping @kmmcrafts might see this and offer his opinion on the arm only or if the both the upper arm and drive parts should be replaced. 

[Denny Knappen]

I would also suggest talking to Ray at Seyco.  He sold me an EX21 and answered any questions I had.  He no longer sells the EX21 as they now have there one scroll saw.

[OCtoolguy]

When facing the saw from the operator position, on the left side at rear there are some bolts. One of the has a slot in it and a lock nut. Loosen the lock nut and turn the bolt/screw with a flt screw driver. Once loosened the upper arm should move through it's entire range freely. Now go back and slowly turn the screw back in until there is just enough drag on the arm to hold it in the up position. Now lock the nut while holding the screw at that point. There should just be enough drag to hold the arm up. I hope this helps. I may have missed but where was your saw made? Canada, Taiwan or China are the only 3 choices. If it came from China, I'd definitely talk to Kevin about what to change out. Since you got your money back you have wiggle room to fix the saw up and have a good machine when finished.

[kmmcrafts]

Ray beat me to it.. I would check that arm tension adjustment.. this may not be damaged at all because my saw was the same way when I got it and I had to adjust the set screw deal like Ray said. On that back side ( inside the saw) of that set screw is a spring loaded ball bearing that keeps tension on the side of the arm to basically hold the arm up in the air while you change a blade etc. 

As for the tension rod, I'm not sure where you're saying there is a stress crack. If you can post a photo that would be helpful to understand what part is cracked.   

[KellisRJ]

1 hour ago, OCtoolguy said:

When facing the saw from the operator position, on the left side at rear there are some bolts. One of the has a slot in it and a lock nut. Loosen the lock nut and turn the bolt/screw with a flt screw driver. Once loosened the upper arm should move through it's entire range freely. Now go back and slowly turn the screw back in until there is just enough drag on the arm to hold it in the up position. Now lock the nut while holding the screw at that point. There should just be enough drag to hold the arm up. I hope this helps. I may have missed but where was your saw made? Canada, Taiwan or China are the only 3 choices. If it came from China, I'd definitely talk to Kevin about what to change out. Since you got your money back you have wiggle room to fix the saw up and have a good machine when finished.

 Answering both @OCToolguy and @kmmcrafts Thank you both for chiming in.

Saw was manufactured in China.

Attached are two photos. One shows the place where I first thought the paint had been flexed. Taking a picture and enlarging it, there is clearly a broken weld. 

Completely removing the tension bolt was one of the first things I tried. With no difference, I next loosened the bolt through the link arm. Still no difference. I snugged the link arm bolt back up and got my machinist's square. Definitely not to to .001", but using feeler gauges the arm checks out parallel to at least .01" for the 8" of my square. 

If the arm is pretty square, the only thing left is the main body, part 1, getting pinched together. Don't think I can make it much worse, so decided to see if I could open up the interference gap. This time I removed the bolt through link arm and loosened the control housing bolts. The ~ 4mm housing bolts closest to the top were bent, indicating a hit on the left side.  

I then made a wedge out of oak to fit just above the arm.  Took a good dozen good whacks, but it opened up enough the arm moves down with gravity, and re-installing the tension bolt had the desired results. Looking inside the body, it's obvious from the paint rubbings where the main body on the left was pinching the arm. Done I'm sure by me when I really lifted on it. Holding off on setting the arm height because I have a new tension knob assembly to install. The new one has a nylon set screw to, I assume, better hold the tension. "But"

The new assembly was not made real well. To keep it simple, it's out of square by ~ 1/64" Combine that with some possible loss of alignment from the hit, and it's enough that it won't fit in the hole. I did some light file work, but I'm going to need to take it to metal working area and really take off some metal. I'd rather make the one with the set screw work than simply replace the knob and "leaver" that's for all appearances a threaded rod. 

 

[OCtoolguy]

I'm not sure what I'm looking at in your pics. Maybe not so close up or another pic or 2 showing what area the pics are looking at. I'm a bit confused about what you are fixing now. Maybe Kevin gets it but I don't.

[kmmcrafts]

So that split is supposed to be there if I'm looking at what area I'm thinking I'm looking at, which is just under the upper arm at the back of the saw table between the upper and lower arm at the back ( base ) of the saw. I see where it looks like it was bent in too far near the bottom of your photo.. I think you're on the right track as to bending it back out etc.. 

As for the tension rod, you are basically correct that it's just a threaded rod. IF I had to guess the square block down inside the saw where that threaded rod goes into is going to need replaced too and I might suggest you add a little blue loc-tite on it since these are pretty common to have the threads get loose tolerances and they'll start adjusting the saws upper arm each time you raise and lower that arm it'll move a little... unless you put a little thread locker on it while you have it apart might save you a headache down the road in a year or so. 

IF you end up replacing any of the saws frame portion of the saw I also suggest getting the parts from the Chinese manufacturer rather than Seyco because the tubing and frame have different size specs.. Most all the guts of the saws are the same thing but the main frame tubing etc. is different.. 

Anyway, I think you're on the right track to getting the saw repaired.. Hopefully you'll be able to save it, they are nice saws once they are tuned and running good. Yeah the China made one may give some folks a hard time but you seem really mechanical inclined and not afraid to tackle a repair.. 

[KellisRJ]

@kmmcrafts Thanks for the kind words. @OCtoolguy the view is with the upper arm raised and the frame it is mounted inside of. The picture with the gray splotches is the paint marred on the left inside the frame by the arm because the frame is bent in pinching the arm. The second picture is where the left and right sides of the frame come together under upper arm. I first thought only the paint had cracked when the saw was dropped, then I thought a weld had been broken. Kevin corrected me on that.

OK, the saw now appears to be running well. I have a small metallic sounding ring from below the table, but it doesn't sound serious.  I had to tighten almost everything and maybe I simply missed something.

Kevin, I have done a lot of things in my life, one of which is a mechanic. Auto & metal shop in high school, then earned my FAA powerplant certificate. I've worked on aircraft, wheeled and tracked military vehicles. Fulfilled my dream of going to flight school, then later became a maintenance test pilot. During my 27 years in the US Army I continued to do most of my own car maintenance and repairs. Now retired for the last time,  I have a decent metal shop though I also spend a lot of time fixing my machines that are almost all older than I am.

Kevin, the new block assembly came with lock-tight on it, and a rounded end where it makes contact with the upper arm rather than the nylock nut under the block. It also has a nylon set screw coming in from the side of the block to put friction on the "leaver"/rod. 

I found the replacement block is a full millimeter taller than the old one. Also I may have been wrong on the poor manufacturing, the block "may" have been made to only go in one way. Anyway, what I decided to do was rather than making the new one fit, drill and tap the old block to take the nylon set screw. That's done and the block installed.

Thank you everyone for their kind assistance. Kevin, if I find the frame needs to be replaced, how do I locate the Chinese manufacturer?

Attached are a couple of photos of the block. The first is the block in a 4 jaw chuck on my 1954 Logan 10" metal lathe. The "Oh" ring is used as a quickie depth stop for the drill bit. The hole for the thread tap has already been drilled. The bit you see is to enlarge the hole for screwdriver clearance. After that was done I tapped the hole to match the threads on the set screw. 1/4" 20 threads per inch (TPI). Go figure. The second picture in the old block with the nylon set screw installed next to the new block.

Now to cut some silhouettes for my love. Later I'll try the fancier work for an automata.   

Ron

[kmmcrafts]

I've never contacted the manufacture myself but through messages on here and helping others get their saws fixed they were able to get parts they needed through a phone number in their manual.. Sounded like the company was very helpful to get them the parts they needed etc.. but that may be based on "who" you get on the phone because I also have read that they were basically useless, so take that with a grain of salt, LOL

That's good to know they put the thread locker on the new parts.. When mine started acting up I wasn't going to pay for new parts when the old block / rod was fine. I just chased the threads to clean them up on the block and rod then put the thread locker on and reassembled it.. haven't had any issues since and that was several years ago now. 

They need to get those types of shop classes back into schools. I was able to only need a couple "required classes" in high school so through my high school years I had to have shop classes to fill out my school day. We had machine shop, welding, wood shop, architectural drawing, auto shop, fiberglass and plastics. I'm probably forgetting some but I had to take them all plus a sewing and cooking class just to fill my day out, LOL. Some of these classes I never do that stuff now but the skillset is used a lot just knowing how things are made or a understanding of how things work.. Now days the machine shop would be CNC and there is a lot of lost knowledge because the CNC calculates a lot of stuff for you.. still a skill to run them but not the same skills.. same for the drawing class.. it's all done on computer now. Though the kids need to "want to" take those type of classes too.. because if they have no interest they won't learn it as well either.. for instance I also had typing class but I hated that class and to this day I just hunt and peck the keyboard.. kind of a skill I wish I had taken more seriously as it would have been helpful now days, 

Nice shop set-up you have.. I'd love to have some machines like that.. I'd probably need retrained as I haven't touched a old metal lathe since high school and coming up on 40 years since I graduated.. 

 

[KellisRJ]

@kmmcrafts Great, good to know. I looked over the manual a lot, but didn't think to look for other parts sources other than Ray at Seyco. 

My story is pretty much the same. On the Hobby Machinist forum my tag line is "Avid destroyer of many materials." Believe me, your belief on shop classes is a common one. Too many hobbyists have out fitted their shops from school auctions.  Hang in there, it only took till I was ~55 to be able to start building out a set of tools. 

Ron

[OCtoolguy]

Reading everything you guys have written makes me wish we could all start over again. I too took all those same claases in high school. The powers that be did a huge disservice to the youngsters when they discontinued all the classes that truly counted. I wonder how many folks use algebra in their everyday lives. It's still required. Duh! So sad what has happened to our school systems.