kmmcrafts

Not sure if this will help, I was just measuring some stuff and had my calipers handy. I wasn’t sure if you were using mm or inch so I did both. Hope this is useful

Someone on here made some of the swivel ends for their Hawk saw and they said they worked good. I'm not really sure it's needed as I've not really ever had a issue with them on any of my Hawks.

What kind of blade you talking about? I get that sometimes with spiral blades. Also bought some new thumb screws from the local hardware and they was not flat on the end and that did it too. It’s quite hard to dress the ends flat without going on an angle unless you use some sort of jig. Since the Hawks don’t have the spinning end insert like some of the other saws I found it to be way more picky about how flat and smooth the ends are. I’ve always wanted to build a jig out of metal but the wooden one does a good enough job. Take a scrap piece of plywood at least 1/4 inch thick and drill you a hole just the right size so the thumb and set screws will hold tightly when threading them in and screw them in just enough to protrude slighting on the back side. Now make sure they are threaded into the wood straight. Then you can sand them completely flat and reinstall the set screw with a little blue loc-tite and adjust it so the blade is in the center of the slot in the blade clamps. Doing this usually will solve any blade slipping and bending.

Where I live, during rush hour I might see 2-3 cars within a 10 mile drive .. This morning I had to go about 100 mile trip for a appointment. I left at 5am and only seen 1 car on my way to the expressway which is about 15 miles to the expressway.

I wonder if the Excalibur saw footprint would mount on a Hawk stand.. I might have to do some measuring because those EX stands are wide.. Could always make a homemade wood stand.. Excaliburs don't do a whole lot of vibrating and would do fairly well on most any stand so long as it's bolted or clamped down.

Here is a picture of the one key rack I was making for my son. This is the only photo I have of it and was before it had any topcoat etc on it. Just resin filled and sanded. I think I got the idea from a post Steve Good did.. On this project I used 1/8 Oak and then glued to a 1/2 - 3/4 backer.. then filled the resin enough to build it up higher than the main surface then sanded it down flush with the rest of the wood. EDIT To Add: This is where I got my inlace from but they no longer seem to sell it on the site, however they do list several distributors where you can purchase it. I was surprised to see Grizzly sells it.. I think of Grizzly for tools.. I'm not sure how small of amounts you can get of what is known as Epoxy but it doesn't take much and this stuff might be a better / cheaper option? Only downfall might be is this stuff is / was purchased already colored so if you need several color options maybe the actual epoxy is a better option.

Well I kind fibbed a little, I didn't realize it was a type of epoxy that I used back around 2008 when I made some key racks and keychains and I filled the cutout area with stuff that was called "Inlace" I think was the name of it. In the autobody world the stuff reminded me of colored fiberglass resin.. it was a colored resin and you mix in the activator / hardener mix it up good and fill the cutout area.. The stuff smelled like fiberglass resin too, some time ago the subject came up and I mentioned this stuff and someone told me it was actually epoxy.. I've never worked with the stuff that is actually called epoxy so I don't know.. seemed my fiberglass resin to me but they may be related. I'll try to find some old pictures of a couple of the projects I made with it.

I also have never used it but have toyed with the idea of using it for the last couple years. So I look forward to seeing some more on this topic.

Good eye Ray, I haven't been inside one of these DeWalts since around 2010 - 11 ish.. and had no clue what I was looking at or for.. LOL

I think it looks great as it is frame and all.. It's funny how people have so many various opinions on our craft projects. I have made some things that I didn't care for and my wife would be like " you're going to try to sell that!?? " LOL apparently she didn't like it either.. Funny thing is I have a handful of items that neither of us really liked and they are some of my best sellers, LOL.. On the flip side, I have showed patterns to her that I was thinking about cutting to get her opinion.. and many of these we didn't really like the pattern but the finished piece was wonderful. Just the opposite sometimes happens where we love the pattern but the cutting is less desirable. As for showing work in progress.. I have sold way more pieces showing photos and short video clips of works in progress and sometimes I sell the piece before it's even finished.. and I've gotten many custom orders from showing works in progress.. so for me.. showing my progress has been beneficial..

I thought maybe you bought a CNC until I read the description.. That's really cool...

I think all parts are available for this model.. The one that the parts are no longer available are the ones that have the tension lever like a DeWalt. This saw new would have been about $1200 if memory is correct. You can look on Seyco and see they have parts for the EX-30.. I would think the Pegas 30" saw would also share the same parts. Not sure if shop space is tight for you but this thing will take up a larger spot.. The factory stand for this is bigger than the ones for the EX-16 & EX-21.. I would think this is a "okay price " for the condition with all the goodies.. that magnifier light looks like one of the higher priced LED's? Certainly a upgrade to the old Hawk you have.. Shows a lot of blade storage tubes.. mentions a dust collection but not sure if a vacuum is included.. If so I'd say this could be a good deal. On a side note: Every used saw I've bought that mentioned several blades go with it.. when I go look they end up being blades bigger than my bandsaw blade and of no use to me, LOL.. But this one shows a lot of different storage tubes so there is bound to be a few you'd use. EDIT: somewhere on this site there is a chart with a timeline of the various colors etc of the Excalibur saws.. It shows the timeline of when they moved production out of Canada etc.. That might give you a better idea of age of the saw..

Very nicely done!! Clocks are a lot of fun to make and are a functional piece of art.. Can be custom themed to match any person's interest.. So you also wake up in the night with a bright light idea.. at least you remember yours when you wake up in the morning? sometimes when the idea is so good i have to get up and make myself a note..

You are welcome, Thank you

Funny you bring this up.. I get friends and family that know I work with wood ( note I didn't say a woodworker ) and they always asking if I can make a kitchen table or a dresser or some other oddball thing.. While I work with wood as in creating scrolled art? The term "art" is loosely used here but I definitely have no idea how to make a table, bench or cabinet and those types of things.. Mostly only use a scroll saw to do my creations and many times don't even know how to use that on some of the oddball request I get. LOL

Could almost put some LED lights inside to make it double as a nightlight, LOL..

Well, why didn't I think of that, LOL.. Probably because I don't use a router much, only have a small palm router but that would probably work.. If not then like Ray suggested to just cut it and sandwich the plexi in. I was thinking if I added plexiglass that the torso would end up being wider than the rest of the project as I used 3 layers and glued it all together. Sandwiching 1/8" plexi in there would allow me to "cut away" pretty close to the thickness of the plexi.. Hmmm.. Might have to think this over if I'll add the plexi or not. I just see it being hard to clean back in that cavity once everything it glued all together etc. Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions.. now to decide what I want to do.

I might be able to sort of cut to the exact shape as the opening and glue it in. Would be a lot of shaping to get exact fit but yeah I could do that, not sure how I would fasten it that way though. Here is some pictures of the torso and what I’ve got going on with it. Maybe someone has a better idea. My wife says I need to just leave it open as is as she said she thought it’d look better that way. But if I can find a great way to cover this to keep dust out I may not listen to her. I’ll just say I didn’t hear her. That’ll probably get me another appointment to the hearing doctor again.

You are welcome, Thank you

I'm thinking about attaching plexiglass to the front of this project to keep dust out but not sure how to go about attaching the plexiglass? My original intention was to use a pendulum in this but with the size the finished project is coming out to be I don't think it'll work, so I made a wood pendulum and will glue it on the back side of the front piece so it'll set back about 3/4".. Thought maybe sealing that area off so during dusting / cleaning someone won't break off the wood pendulum. If I was to glue the plexiglass I don't really want to glue to show.. Other thought is to re-do the torso and not have the hollowed out spot for the pendulum and just glue my wood Pendulum to the front.. Thoughts or suggestions?

Can't remember what the retainer thing looks like on the Jet saw.. maybe it's a better option and can be adapted to the Hawk.. Though it may be too small as the Jet clamps are very slightly smaller than the Hawk ones.

@meflick I haven't actually made the arms yet, what you see is here is the shoulders. I used 1" round dowel rod and then used different size Forestner drill bits to create the spiral look. Honestly I haven't measured the overall size of this so a rough guess is maybe 10 - 12 inch tall? I'm probably way off on that guess as I'm sometimes bad at these guesses. I'll measure it next time I tape things back together for test fitting pieces. I didn't change any dimensions from the pattern from the source, just printed and started piecing things together. The shortest pendulum I could find was 5" if I remember correctly and I'm not sure what the diameter of the larger part is but the inside of the area where it's hollowed out isn't very large and most pendulums I've seen have a fairly large diameter which I didn't think would look right and wouldn't allow it to swing very well so I scraped that idea and just cut a wood one and did a 3" clock insert instead. I've never made a pendulum clock so I wasn't to sure of myself on how it'd all work. The clocks I've seen for them are just the clock movement / motor and you buy / make a face and install the hands etc. onto it. It does take a special motor for use with the pendulum and they are not cheap ( in my opinion ). Just the pendulum was around $20 if I remember correct.. plus the special motor was like another $15 -20.. which is another reason I didn't try any harder than I did to make it work. The pendulum clocks and parts etc can be bought at most of the online clock parts sources.. I shopped my main go to sites like clockparts.com, klockit.com, woodworkingparts.com, bearwood etc.. I don't remember who had the better deals now. To do over again I might have hollowed out some of the parts.. I cut the torso and the head etc from I think it was 3/4" walnut and they are three layers I glued together so it's pretty heavy.. going to cost me a fortune to ship it to FL. LOL The head only has the front piece hollowed out for the clock insert. I think I'm going to take a forestner bit and drill through it a decent size hole because I set the clock in there and it's hard to grab onto it to pull it out to change a battery or set time etc.. To do over, I might have cut through all of them and maybe make a magnetic back door piece to remove to get easier access to the clock. Maybe I'll post some more detailed pictures of the pieces / parts of it to give an idea what I did. Kinda funny but the clock looked pretty nifty with just the feet and everything except the torso as I just dry fitted it with the lower section and then the clock on top.. Looked like some high end executive clock or something kinda fancy looking.. might have to make some like that, LOL

Yes, exactly! This is why I struggle to answer those common questions of "what blade to use" and also " what size blade do I need " ... Even with my Excalibur blade adjustment adjusted to the most straight up / down as possible it's still more aggressive than a Hawk.. I used to use the same blade size but switch to a FD-UR on one saw and a Pegas MGT on the other and the cutting speed / style was very close to the same, LOL. Pegas blade on the Hawk and a FD on the EX. Anyway, this is why I always answer those common questions with... "buy sample packs in various sizes, styles, and brands and find the blade that works for you.. I've seen people mention they use a number 1 blade on 3/4" stock.. for me and the saw set up I have that would be like watching paint dry..

Still working on this piece little by little in between orders etc. I need to get on the ball and finish it up. Not quite certain how I'm going to make the arms and I might redo the hair. I have some other trim type pieces to go on it too. My original plan was to use a swinging pendulum type clock.. however the size of this wouldn't allow me to fit a pendulum in it.. so I think I'm going to just saw one out of wood and maybe paint it gold and glue it in there.. Or possibly cut one from some thin brass sheet.. since I've never cut brass, LOL.. but we'll see. This is a shot of it just taped together and test fitting things before I start gluing.

I agree with Paul, That said, a lot of folks just have a curiosity of how others do something too because they're looking for tips, suggestions and a general consensus of what blade or size blade etc. one uses. There are so many blade options and for a beginner it's a lot of money to buy every blade out there when they likely will end up not using a good number of them when they find that one or two blade styles & sizes they will find that works for them. There are so many different materials and project styles, and even saw set-ups that create a different result in what a individual is trying to accomplish. For instance I have be working on a project and switch from my Hawk saw to my Excalibur or the other Hawk or Hegner and each saw has a different aggressiveness of cutting with the exact same blade cutting on the exact same board / project.. Now to answer the question at hand.. "I" use both spiral and straight blades depending on the projects at hand.. I "think" where a lot of folks go wrong with using them is they are used to "pushing too hard" or feeding to fast through the cut.. a spiral blade will follow the path of least resistance and solid wood has a wide variety of denseness throughout the same piece of wood.. you will find the hard and soft spots very quickly using spiral blades. When you push a blade too hard you can also create a bow in the blade and easily find those softer spots and send you off course.. The spiral does leave a rougher cut edge.. especially if you're pushing to hard and also especially if your saw is set up to cut more aggressively. I find using a smaller blade size than I would with a straight blade helps a lot with both smoothening the edges and also control of the blade or rather the piece since we don't control the blade ( other than speed ). I rarely use spirals on solid wood, usually use them on BBply.. but I do use them for veining fine details on thick solid wood. and the biggest spiral blade I use is a #1 and that is not often to use that large of one. Go to size is a 2/0..