kmmcrafts

Maybe the tension rod is too tight.. or maybe too loose on the old saw.. I think they would want the rod adjusted so the upper arm would be parallel to the saw table when the arm is all the way down without a blade in it.. At least that is how it's done on the Excalibur saws.. The issue is on the DeWalt you have to take the tension lever and the top switch plate etc. apart to make any adjustment to it... where a Excalibur or similar saw has the knob at the back of the saw to adjust that.. If it saws alright and the blade fits.. maybe just use it unless there is a issue. maybe eventually it'll wear down enough to be like the old saw,

You could call Bushton with the serial number and they would tell you what motor it came with.. I do not know for sure but I think the problem motors were only on the older saws with the round barrel clamps.. My old 220VS had the problem motor however I gave 100 for the saw and figured if it made 100 in sellable product I'd break even + gain the knowledge I desired to know about Hawk saws, LOL.. The saw never gave me a problem while I had it and pretty sure the person ( member here ) that bought it is still using it. Like Ray said, try to offer less and see what happens. If you can get it for less then if you don't like it you should be able to recoup your money easier.. Depends on how fast the seller wants to move it and if they know the saw or not.. In all the saws I've bought.. the seller was just wanting to clean house after a parent either went to assisted living or passed on.. so bargaining was pretty easy to do.. since they knew nothing about the saws.. That's how I got the Hegner for free.. the guy didn't know it was missing the blade clamps.. he knew he had them as his dad used the saw.. be he didn't even now what they looked like and he had already threw a big dumper full of stuff out.. he said if I didn't take it he was putting it in the new dumpster they just dropped off.. I couldn't let that happen.. Lucky for me I had blade clamps from another estate sale that I bought a box of blade and in the bottom was a bunch of Hegner clamps and springs misc parts. LOL Anyway give Bushton a call with the serial number.. they'll tell you the year of the saw and if they have any service records on it etc. I don't know what these sell for in your area but $450 is a okay deal near me.. $350 or less would be ideal in my area and would get my attention, LOL.. but I don't think $450 is bad price as it is.. just better the lower you can get it for. I see them in my area price range from $400 - 650 for that same condition saw.. so 450 is okay.. less is better

To bad you wasn't closer to me.. I could provide wood, patterns and blades and you could make some of my orders while trying a Hawk.. don't like the Hawk you could also use my Hegner.. The saw does look to be in nice shape. I think it looks like one of the better Ultra models so it should have the decent clamps. Not really a lot to look for on these saws really.. The wedge shaped thing on the tension mechanism at the back of the saw.. with no tension on the blade this should be able to lift it up and look at the pointed edge of it where it rides on the upper arm.. should be a pretty sharp point on it and not all rounded over.. If it is rounded it can be just sanded on a flat surface.. from what I can tell in the photo of it.. it looks pretty decent but just something to look at.. not too expensive to replace. The other thing is when you tension the blade the front lever should "lock down" against the arm and when you let go of it or when running the saw it should stay locked down.. IF it pops up some it could be a worn tension cam.. can be replaced easily but it's something to look for.. it could also just be out of adjustment.. seller doesn't need to know that though and could be a bargaining point for a lower price.. Another bargaining point could be if it only comes with one lower clamp.. The lamp comes out of the saw for blade changes just like the Hegner. If you look at the photo you will see two holes in the accessory arm.. that it where you place the round pin of the blade clamp to hold it to loosen the thumb screw so you can remove the blade or to tighten it down. The clamp will have a notch in it where it'll go unto the top of the accessory arm with the round pin in the hole.. The lower arm will have to slots for the blade holder to fit into.. the front slot is for a less aggressive cut or cutting thin stock. The farther back slot is for cutting thicker stock or a more aggressive cut.

Well, they must have liked the clocks I made for them.... Now we get a second round of them to make, LOL...

Well, I've pondered long enough on deciding what ones of the 150+ ornaments that I sell to post on here,LOL.. Honestly some of the best ones I like are actually done on the laser but I didn't want to offend anyone on the scroll saw site so I'll stick to the scroll sawn ones.. My favorites to make and most popular sellers are mostly career themed.. so I'll post a few of the more popular ones.. and a couple that I really like but really not popular sellers..

Yeah I think it could save from buying that assembly every few years. I think repacking bearings every 200ish hours would be a good idea.. I mentioned before that you cannot get just single bearings and sleeves and you can only get the whole link arm assembly. Something I want to try and look into is the Jet saw parts.. I have a hunch that the bearings and sleeves for the Jet is probably the same parts.. Jet sells just the bearings and sleeves individually so next time I have a issue with a bearing.. I'm going to try ordering the parts from Jet and compare to see.. Pretty sure it's probably the same set of bearings and sleeves.. I had DeWalt bearings for when I had my DeWalt.. many bearings was the same but the inner sleeves are different so I couldn't use them on my Excalibur and I searched for the sleeves everywhere.. they are a oddball size and maybe special made or in house made for the Excalibur.. Jet saws are real similar and the parts list breakdown shows them individual.. appears to be able to order them separately from ereplacementparts.. Worth a try..

I think the only sealed bearing in these is the one that goes onto the motor. All others are a needle bearing with a sleeve insert.

Well these two here are the common ones I've seen on the inside of the saw.. since you didn't replace the rocker arms at the front of the saw I think it's likely one of those two spots but it could be one of the others.. These days anything possible to get past quality control.

Well, sure has been some good info in this topic... I think I repaired the saw without replacing the switch.. I mentioned in the post with the photos that one of the terminals the solder only had 2 strands of wire connected.. and the other strands were almost touching the other terminal.. I think it was vibrating enough that maybe they was shorting out on that other terminal.. I reconnected the other strands on a hunch that this might be happening.. I just ran the saw for about an hour and no issues at all.. Used to be you just touch the dial and the saw would jump from fast to about half speed or slower without even turning the dial.. just touching it would do that.. Now I'm able to touch it and move it.. seems to be working very smooth throughout the range.. I believe this fixed the issue.. Somewhat off topic but on solder topic.. In the auto repair industry they do not recommend soldering anymore.. years ago that was the way to do wire repairs but due to vibration and heat cold cycles and age solder with form very small cracks.. and lose a good contact / connection.. I cannot tell you how many digital dash repairs I've had to do on some of the 80's cars.. It's also very common on some Chevy models.. probably others too.. common on the information center in a cars dash.. currently experiencing that on my 2011 Chevy Traverse.. the info center works at night but not in the daytime.. it's due to a weak solder joint on the circuit board in the dash cluster.. All of this auto info is what sparked my interest in the possibility of that being the issue with the scroll saw.. That upper arm where the switches are mounted gets a lot of vibration.. not only from the saw running but raising and lowering the arm.. So with that said.. if you have a variable speed issue.. check the solder connections before throwing parts at it that it may not need.. On the car dashes.. the solder "looks good" however if you remove it and re-solder it they work great.. so there is just micro cracks within the solder that are not visible to the eyes.. maybe under a magnifier or something but not just normal eyesight. It's worth just heating the solder up and remelting it before buying parts..

Did you happen to find anything obvious wrong with the old drive link? Just curious as to what the actual problem might have been.. especially for it to all of a sudden start banging.. Though, I will say that many times equipment gradually start getting louder or making a slight noise that goes unnoticed until it lets loose, and wakes us up saying we have a problem, LOL.. Anyway, glad to hear it's back up and running great..

Yeah, I have 6 brothers and 2 step brothers, LOL.. a step brother runs a cabinet shop and builds displays for stores / malls etc.. I'm the baby ( youngest ) of them all, what's that saying.. They finally stopped when they got the perfect one...

So as cheap as these are to buy in quantity.. There is a couple things I don't like about the replacement of these.. One being you have to take the back part of the saw all apart to access the wire plug in.. While that's not a huge job to do.. I'm tempted to build a splice kit so it would be plug and play next time.. Heat shrink connectors under that cover would prevent you from ever having to take that back part of it all apart.. I wonder how well a kit would sell if I was to solder the wire leads on and connectors so one could cut their wires and crimp on some connectors so they don't have to take the whole saw apart.. Seyco gets $55 + shipping.. I don't see any reason I couldn't make them like this as a kit to offer.. and at about $25..

I don't know if these are actual photos of the items you linked to but these "look" like they have a pretty long stem.. also mine has a knurled stem.. though i suppose that doesn't matters because I also have a set screw for the knob... My brother owns a guitar parts store so I'm going to check with him to see if he has any of them.. One brother sells guitar and speaker parts business and another has a custom guitar cab manufacturing business..

Maybe a crockpot? Only thing I know of in my cupboard that would have anything to do with electricity,

If I'm not mistaken I think this is the right one? https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/bourns-inc./PDB181-K420K-502B/2564756?utm_adgroup=&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PMax Shopping_Product_Low ROAS Categories&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_id=go_cmp-20243063506_adg-_ad-__dev-c_ext-_prd-2564756_sig-CjwKCAiA98WrBhAYEiwA2WvhOjrh0MN06QG3ToLZvM9d4TpM54uzvbeIf9_bv8MMQEP4wVJdSAmsARoCks4QAvD_BwE&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA98WrBhAYEiwA2WvhOjrh0MN06QG3ToLZvM9d4TpM54uzvbeIf9_bv8MMQEP4wVJdSAmsARoCks4QAvD_BwE Now that I think about it I think this is exact same one I put in the other saw a few years ago..

Well I decided to take the couple screws out to access the switch. Here is some pictures of what I have. The one on my Hawk had all the info stamped on the switch. This one just has some number and letters on it so I might have to do some digging to find what I need. I question if the switch is even bad. Not sure if you can see in the photos but there is only two strands of wire even soldered to the one terminal. The others were very close to touching the other terminal.

It'd be really nice to be able to replace just the individual parts needed at a much lower cost rather than throwing out several good bearings because one $10 bearing went bad.. That is one of my bigger complaints about the link arm saws that I personally have.. The bearings can be sourced but the inner sleeve I have not been able to find a reasonable priced source.. Rolf run into the same thing with his rebuild.. Instead of a $120 assembly we could just buy the couple of bearings that are the ones prone to be worn and are the main issue.. The nice thing about some of the other saws... you just go to the local hardware and pick up what would be a very common bearing or bushing for around $10.. No waiting for shipping to bring your parts..

I'm kinda thinking a weekend hobbyist saw would last longer than 3-4 years.. Really a lot of factors come into play.. such as the type of projects.. I mostly cut fretwork type projects ( Christmas Ornaments, Clocks etc. ).. so you set at a saw for 40 hours but the saw only has 5-10 hours run time due to stopping to cut the next section out and all that entails to that.. A person doing puzzles have very few if any inside cuts.. you set at the saw to make the puzzle for 30 minutes the saw is running most of that 30 minutes.. You'd be really surprised how much time difference there is on the saw when doing fretwork vrs puzzles etc.. I can spend 40 hours a week in the shop but much of it is sanding and prep work for the next project.. many times I'm lucky to get 5 hours on the clock of the saw.. even though I worked out there all week.. LOL other times I can put 5 hours in one day if doing puzzles or similar..

It could be speed, I don't know.. But what I find when I take these saws apart is lack of grease.. and sometimes it looks as though there was never any grease and other times it looks like the grease turned into a sticky thick paste.. This is usually in the bearings at the front lower parts.. which I believe the fine wood dust as absorbed any moisture in the grease and turned it into that thick sticky paste that is no longer really being a lubricant.. When I rebuilt my DeWalt the second time I put in some high quality bearings ( about double the price of any others ) and I used a high quality synthetic grease.. The saw did last a lot longer.. however taking it apart does find that the grease is just drying out.. I would say that IF there was a easy way to grease these saws regularly they'd last just like a Hawk or Hegner.. The issue is nobody wants to take it apart just to do a grease job on it.. Hawk and Hegners have everything out in the open and you just place a few drops of light oil every 10 or 20 hours per manufacture... If you don't oil a Hegner they also wear out bearings.. I tend to think it's more about lack of lube than anything.. and what happens is you have several pivot points on these saws.. If one of these points starts getting stiff and not moving freely it's putting stress on all the other points and especially that main point at the back of the saw.. that all transfers throughout the saw..

Right, and likely the same plant that produces the Seyco, King, Pegas, and Jet saws.. and probably many others..

Yeah, sure miss Radio Shack.. LOL..

If they put hour meters on saws.. I'd say the DeWalt and EX type saws you'd be looking at needing a rebuild around 250 - 350 hours.. That has been my experience.. I do around 250 - 350 hours a year on my saws but I have 5 different saws to rotate around to, LOL.. Scott ( Iggy ) replaces a DeWalt every year to one and a half years which I feel is pretty consistent to my conclusion of the 250 -350 hours.. for the amount of work he does every year.. IF a person didn't want to spend money replacing that drive link every couple years and had some down time to take the saw apart and grease all those bearings every 150 - 200 hours you could probably get by for quite a long time on the drive link. But personally I feel like for the amount of work and time it takes to clean up the old bearings sleeves etc and the whole assembly is only around $120.. just run it until it starts making noise and replace the assembly.. Having an hour meter and knowing this info.. if you're going into the busy holiday season with close to 250 hours.. you may just buy the part and have it on hand.. or a backup saw etc.. On a rare occasion one might last much longer than that.. But so far that has been my experience.. for whatever that info might be worth to anyone..

I replaced one once before on my older Hawk.. not because it went bad but because I broke the knob off trying to repair a problem with the motor and Hawk would only sell it as a set for $350 for motor and controller, LOL.. I do believe there are different ohm ratings for them but I don't remember for sure.. I'll pull it apart and make sure the numbers match when ordering the new one if I need to order a new one.. I haven't taken it apart yet.. probably won't until after the holidays.. Just gathering info about it for when the time comes to dig into it.. I do know from experience that it doesn't matter too much if you mix up the wires.. The one I did on the Hawk got the wires messed up and when I put it back together the dial worked backwards.. slow on the dial was actually fast and fast was slow... I took it apart and reversed the wires and now it works the way it should.. LOL

So my Excalibur potentiometer ( Variable speed switch ) has been finicky for a long time now.. for a while I could blow air in it and it seemed like it sort of fixed the issue but now it doesn't matter much what I do.. I pretty much run the saw at the same speed all the time with an occasional adjustment based on project at hand.. It started out as just touching the dial to make adjustment while saw running would make it jump to slow / fast until I took my hand off the dial.. and it made it difficult to get a speed I wanted but once there it was fine.. however now it will randomly slow down during cutting.. Not a lot just from time to time but, it's getting more and more common, LOL.. My question, would a electrical contact cleaner possibly work or is the contact points inside the switch? I just have some CLR contact cleaner.. I seen on ebay where there was a special pot switch cleaner.. probably the same stuff just branded specific? I guess I could just try it as the switch is going to be replaced anyway if it doesn't fix it, LOL.. but thought I'd ask.. I see Seyco gets $55 for the switch with the wire harness.. I can buy just the switch on eBay for $1.98 and solder it to the wires so if I replace it that seems like a better deal, LOL