kmmcrafts

Just looked here on the Village and they still have them on here.. I'd probably be all over these if they was close to me, LOL.. Not that I need another saw..

I didn't know you was still looking at Hawks... This seems like it could be a good deal... There is a person on one of the FB groups that is in FL but not sure what part of FL that has both a Hawk 226VS and a G4 both saws for $400.. The G4 needed a tension lever or at least needed work on the tension lever mechanism.. I think the 226VS was a older model.. I'll see if I can look it up to see if it's still on there.. Actually now that i think of it.. seems like they also posted it here in the deals section a week or so back..

All the toy cars being posted I dug out the pictures of one I did several years back.

Looks like a interesting laser.. I hope you'll report a review of it once you've run a few pieces on it.. I really like this K-40 I bought.. I too thought about getting the laser head for the CNC router.. but the power of these are limited to what you can do and the price tag of them I can buy two of the K-40 machines that'll engrave or cut..

Been there done that... it's way too easy to forget to turn on or off.. but after awhile I got a pretty good idea of time on projects.. or at least I thought I did.. Most times I'm fairly close.. I think if one is just looking to time a project then a electric clock is maybe the best option.. as it's more precise than the hour meters like I have..

Steve Good did a write up quite some time ago about this.. http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/2017/04/i-received-and-email-from-john-fiorani.html I bought two of these and installed on two of my saws.. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hour-Meter-Generator-or-any-120-Volts-AC-60-hz-ProG713/321893404814?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649 then I also bought two of those that Steve Good used of the digital type..I just bought extension cords and cut the end off to put the connectors onto for plugging into the hour meter.. That said.. the hour meters are only a "close" timer because they are every 1/10 hour.. so each 1/10th digit is 6 minutes.. I like the analog meter better because you can see where that 1/10 digit is somewhat.. The digital one you could be 1 second away from the next change of the 1/10 but it's not going to change that digit until the time is up for it to change.. being that it's 6 minutes between changes you could be off you time by up to 6 minutes.. I didn't really get the meters for timing my work... I was more curious about saw maintenance and life.. plus I was curious how much the saw really runs.. I was amazed that you can work in the shop 40 hours a week but struggle to get 15 - 20 hours on the saw.. There is a lot of time doing prep work sanding and finishing etc etc.. Not to mention taking a break to see what other fellow Villagers are up too, LOL.. If you're just wanting to time you projects.. I recall you worked on clocks? You could wire up a electric clock in the same manor.. Set the clock time at noon and saw your project then see what time it took you.. this could be reset for each project or each saw etc..

Okay, so played around some more and done some ornaments.. I wanted to see the amount of time it takes to run 4 ornaments off the completely stock machine.. I set up the pattern to engrave and cut two each of these on one sheet of 1/8 BB ply.. Run the engrave on pretty low power setting at the speed at 300mm sec. engrave come out nice I think.. I could probably turn up the power and run it faster.. so couple possibly almost double my cut time on these.. I did the cutting out set around 10 mili-amp power setting at 8mm sec.. which is where I set it the day before when I engraved the ornament photo of my wife and I..which came out nice.. but this time I had put a sacrificial board behind the piece which made no air flow on the back side is the only thing I can figure.. OR.. the lens is getting dirty.. as I have a completely stock machine at this time.. I have upgrades to do to it but I wanted to see how the machine is straight out of the box before I just go doing the upgrades Anyway, the settings I had set at.. it took about 45 - 50 minutes to engrave and cut these toilet paper ornaments.. I did 4 of them but two of them didn't cut all the way through so I'm going to finish them on my scroll saw.. I can see I need air assist as the smoke / fire stained my pieces so I had to sand off some of it.. which sort of took some of my etching detail away.. So with that said.. I'm going to hook up my first mod today... The air assist nozzle to blow the smoke away from the cut line.. this is supposed to help keep from getting the smoke / fire damage to a minimum.. we'll see.. I need to get me a small are compressor to hook up to my mobile cart / stand.. LOL This way I can keep it all self contained.. I also plan to run these ornaments on my CNC router to see what i can do there as far as carve times etc.. I'm betting the router will be faster than the laser.. but with the router I will need to leave tabs to hold the ornament from flying away.. so I'll have to cut those tabs on my scroll saw to get the ornament cut out.. These times are roughly close to what I could saw these out on a scroll saw with by stack cutting.. I don't see where these lasers and cnc machines pump out production like people portray them to do.. Maybe the very high priced commercial machines.. or if a person had a shop full of machines to run.. but you still shouldn't get to far away from them as they can catch fire and burn down your shop.. LOL Anyway.. enjoy the photos.. I'll probably leave off on this topic here probably since this is a scroll saw sight some folks don't like to see this laser and CNC stuff.. plus I need to get back at the scroll saw.. OH, I said completely stock but I did throw away the software the laser came with and run K-40 whisperer

I said I would post another one with a story to go along. This one is a throwback from many years ago (2006 to be exact). This is the third piece I’ve ever cut on a Scrollsaw. Back around 2007 ish a friend was over and we was going through some of the stuff I made and he seen this and had to have it. I gave it to him thinking I could make another and he just loved it. Then a few months later I was at his place and no sign of it anywhere so I asked him where he put it. He couldn’t remember it so I showed him this picture then he remembered that I gave it to him etc but he claims he don’t know what ever happen to it. His kids were big time brats and I suspect they got mad on his way home and they probably got mad and broke it. Needless to say I’ve never given him another piece since. He has bought many from me but never been given again. I rarely give anybody anything these days as free has no value to others so they care less about the hard work I put into making a piece. I do give as gifts for occasions but never to just give for the sake of giving. Shame that someone took that giving gratitude of mine away as lots of people could have enjoyed that. Lol Now the second half of the story is when I finally had the urge to make it again my hard drive that I stored patterns on crashed and I lost the pattern of this and of many other great patterns from back in the day. I do have the drawing of this as a icon but as soon as I enlarge it, it gets real pixelated so I’ve never made another.

My brother has one that is the plumcrazy purple color with the white stripe and white interior.. has a built 340 with the 6 pack carb. / intake.. I can't remember now if it's auto or manual transmission..

I'm sure it probably would..just not willing to waste steak meat trying to figure out the power setting for cooking a steak... Maybe I'll ask that on the laser forum.. some body has probably tried it.

Yeah I doubt it.. every "new" toy is a distraction for a while... most are just fr a short period of time.. This laser would probably get boring quite fast because you literally just set the board in and the rest is computer work.. I'm not a big fan of setting at the computer and doing design work etc... Right now it's fun because it's amazing what can be done so easily.. Thing is way less complicated than the CNC router..

Since it was my first time it took about 40 minutes because I didn't change any speed settings.. it was set at 100mm a sec. and the second one I did this morning I set at 500mm sec. I also just engraved it so it's not cut all the way through.. Been using 1/8" BB ply.. I haven't done any cutting on it yet.. just learning the power and feed speed settings doing engraving work.. The first one I played around with the power setting in a couple areas while it was running so you probably see some darker spots in the engraving.. While playing around tuning the machines mirrors I burn a hole right through the one piece... you might be able to make that out on top of the ramcharger picture I engraved..

Having way too much fun with this thing.. I did this engraving of my friends Ramcharger this morning.. showed it to my wife and she informed me I'll be making Christmas presents with it this year, Hahaha.. she likes the engraved details this thing makes..

Well, i did my first run on it today.. just practicing..and this image was the only thing that I had on my old laptop that would work on the program so I ran it.. ( too lazy to come in the house to get a different image, LOL ) Took some tweaking to get it to run decent.. the mirrors as way outta wack.. once things was tuned properly it seemed to work quite well.. Here is a couple short clips made into one video of it running and a finished engraving photo at the end..

The water actually flows through the C02 light bulb.. and contaminates can ark from the beam... believe it or not antifreeze has conductivity properties... There are folks using antifreeze and RV antifreeze etc.. but it shortens the life of the laser tube.. replacement tubes run as much as I paid for the whole machine, LOL.. So hoping to get at least a couple years from it.. From what I've read... the best option is a fish tank heater.. For the time being.. I'm just going to run water.. Possibly just flush the water out and winterize it, then wait for spring / summer to run it.. If I find I can run it with little learning curve and add products from it to my selling inventory... I'll add the tank heater and run it through the winter if needed..

Red Green would have made a duct tape table..

I'm assuming it would be the same as the Excalibur for the air tube.. You should be able to remove the air tube cover housing and spin it so the tube goes on the other side if that is a hindrance to you.. Or just use it as is.. you'll eventually get used to it..

2nd the johnson paste wax!! Use it on all my tool tables. and wow.. it sure helps more than one would think.. I use it on my jointer table, bandsaw table, table saw table.. planer bed.. also like to use it on the saw body and stand.. the sawdust falls right off it and onto the floor much better.. keeping my saw looking much cleaner and unused.. Kinda a bad thing though when the wife comes in to see what I've got done and the saw doesn't even look dusty..

That's one thing I'm afraid of doing.. burning too many unexpected things, LOL.. like burning the shop down or? I won't fire it until I get a fire extinguisher.. LOL Not sure what to run in the laser for coolant yet too.. I know they say distilled water.. but I'm in an area where water will freeze solid during the winter months... I could run the water until I figure out what I can run to keep it from freezing.. since I'm a couple months before I need to worry about it yet..

So one reason I haven’t messed with my laser yet even though I’ve had it for nearly two years is I needed to figure out a stand, being busy and trying to learn the ropes of the CNC router the laser just sat on the back burner. Earlier this summer my bbq grill bottom rusted out. I fabricated a new bottom for it to get by while this COVID was so rampant. Last week the igniter quit and I’d had enough of this piecing it together with tape and glue so to speak. Went and got a new grill. My wife asked me what I was going to do with the old grill while we was moving it out of the spot to put the new grill. I said put it on the scrap trailer, ( I have a dedicated trailer that I throw metal scraps on to haul to the metal recycling centers) then it hit me. I unmourned the grill from the stand and had this scrap 1/2” osb already cut to the right size. I have some 1” too that I used for my flooring in my loft but this seems to be plenty heavy enough ( laser doesn’t weigh much) . The spot on the bottom where the lp tank goes is a perfect spot for the 5 gallon bucket of coolant for the C02 laser tube. I’ll probably build a heavier top later with enough room for a work bench spot for the laptop etc but this seems to work pretty well like this for now. Planning to have the laser setup outside of my main shop due to all the fine dust that I haven’t been able to get 100% control of yet from my saws and sanders even though I have dust collection and air filters etc. and I’m assuming the dust and the laser won’t get along with one another to well. So anyway I’m setting it up in my loft above my shop.

Honestly can't agree more with this statement... And as for the Hawk.. ( Made In The USA! )... BUT.. that said... they both have a different style of cutting and the ergonomics of each saw is different... not everyone likes the long arm saws.. I have 3 Hawks and a Excalibur.. Most my cutting is done on the Hawks.. I put about 500 - 600 hours on a saw per year.. The Hawk saws are expensive but in comparison they really aren't too bad priced.. I mean... a new Pegas will run you $800 - 875 shipped and add about $100ish for a stand.. A Hawk 20" saw will run you $1300 -1350.. with stand.. So yes $200 - 300 more.. but in the end.. less.. I can get about a year or so on a DeWalt - Ex type of saw.. if I only had one saw I'm rebuilding / replacing once a year.. Why I have so many saws.. LOL .. I've got probably around 900 hours on my oldest Hawk since I bought it.. I did basically rebuild the whole saw as it was really worn when i first got it. BUT maintaining it I see very little wear.. I'm thinking that saw would most likely outlast me with proper maintenance. I bought the saw well worn for $100 and put an additional $200 into replacement parts / upgrades.. some was just luxury upgrades like the flex air hose.. This is why when I was looking to buy a NEW saw.. I didn't have to really "LOOK" because knew what I wanted and bought the new BM226 Hawk.. The three Hawks will last me through my life.. I'll never "need" another saw.. Want and Need is two different things though... As I've said though.. they both have a different style of cutting.. provided you tune them to your needs.. you can get them pretty darn close to the same cutting.. and for a hobbyist a EX type saw would probably last them several years.. and maybe a lifetime.. Hawks aren't bullet proof.. they have bearings too.. and yes... I've had to replace the pitman arm bearings on all but the newest Hawk.. which btw only has about 115 hours on the meter so that's probably why I haven't had to do any repairs yet, LOL

I'm glad that I took on the project... Deep down I really just wanted to throw the saw away and buy a Pegas, LOL.. I still want to get a Pegas saw.. but I also felt that since there is no info on parts or repairs on the EX saws especially the China clone ones.. I was always curious how close to the same thing they was.. and if Ray could be a parts source.. or anyone else for that matter such as Pegas parts etc.. The only real difference I found was just the aluminum rocker arm mounts wouldn't it into the saw arm tubes.. I've been considering selling this saw now and get the saw I really would like to have and / try.. ( Pegas ).. Pegas did some upgrades to the bearings at the back of the saw.. My understanding is they put in larger higher quality bearings in the saw.. This is just what Bob Duncan has said.. I have no personal experience on this to know for sure if that is true or just a sales person talking up the product.. I'd like to know for sure.. and may buy a Pegas this fall and find out, LOL.. I think it was really a fairly easy task to rebuilt this saw.. but it is time consuming.. or for me it was.. Mostly because I have 2 boys that like my tools.. and also sometimes they like to leave them in the wrong drawer or in their car.. Took me a better part of a afternoon to do the rebuild.. Could have done it faster but I was in no hurry and was also carefully inspecting parts.. since I was doing a rebuild on a China clone with parts not really made for that saw.. So Far So Good With My Rebuild.. I've Got Around 30 Hours On The Meter Since The Rebuild..

I got mine in 2017 and it was before anyone even knew of the China version.. I thought I was getting the real deal.. Mine was Nov, 2017.. But.. I also bought it second hand new in sealed box.. so I don't know.. You also have to consider the stock that the stores may have had on the original saws.. I bought my parts from Ray.. everything fit fine except the front rocker assemblies.. you can see my story in the link.. Any questions feel free to post or send me a message..

Glad you enjoyed the topic.. big reason I went ahead with the rebuild was to see if the parts would work.. It's hopefully going to be beneficial to others that own the China made saw.. without a doubt there are going to be some people having issues with the bearings etc in the future.. As for your vibration.. have you turned the motor to adjust the blade movement? Mine was the same way but I was able to buy some time with it by rotating the motor slightly.. You might try it.. just to get by for a while..

Exactly why I run my saw full speed when cutting BBply... I typically stack cut 4-6 pieces and this sometimes happens.. I find it ( for me ) seems to happen in thin spots where two cuts are real close to one another with just a thin like separating and sometimes I've attributed it to pushing a dull drill bit though the wood rather than letting the bit do the drilling, LOL Usually a new bit helps with some of it for me.. though on rare occasion it just happens..no matter what I do..