hotshot

or if you have a harbor freight, you could powercoat it yourself. Lots of videos on line about doing this, you basically put the coat on, bake it in your oven, and presto

I consider a weathered table a symbol of pride :-). However, you do have some options. King has the same saw, so see how that support mechanism works and get a table from them. Also, just sand the finish off the entire table (or use a solvent). You should be able to easily sand to a reasonable finish, then wax.

Grandad had an old van from the 50s, steering wheel had so much play you might mess your pants. So spirals, I like "playing with them" and perhaps when I'm feeling a little on the wild side, I'll break them out again :-) I just haven't found anything I couldn't do with the straight blades. I like sharp corners, and control. If I were doing huge fretwork pieces, Dearing style, then those blades suddenly start making a lot of sense.

Not sure what is going on, but it is a buyers market out there. Really great deals have been coming up lately.

I posted the Lovely Cats coin some time back and promised to post the pattern . . . . . and almost forgot . . . Here it is. I suggest cutting on an Eisenhower, but it is possible to cut on the Kennedy, but those whiskers are very tricky at that size. Pic of coin below is on Kennedy, cut on the Dewalt. Just click on the link below the picture to download the pdf pattern. If you cut on a Kennedy, then print at 100% on a Eisenhower 124.5%. Or you can blow it way up and cut in wood. LovelyCats.pdf

Nice price, but no quick tensioner. Luckily, at that price, there might be enough money left over to buy the replacement arm to upgrade it.

I say kudos for taking it apart. When anything is not working right, there is always a reason, it just may be suddle/undetectable. There are a few people out there that are masters at fixing this kind of thing, but I think it may be because they have done it a lot and know what to look for. The club in Atlanta is Dewalt Heavy, so I think the "Scroll Saw Doctor" get's plenty of practice. Luckily he has shared some of his experience with the community. Wish we had more of those types that frequent this forum. No need to apologize, this thread has created some good info from posts like Jerrys'

I have been rotating through my fleet of saws and am currently using the 788 for my primary coin cutting saw. I need to be very close to the work piece for the magnifier/4x glasses in order for me to see clearly. The saw is doing amazingly well, but the saw sits a little too high for my chair. I'm currently looking for the right seating arrangement. Standing while bending over the saw to get close enough would be very difficult for me to do for any reasonable length of time. On the Hegner/Hawk, I'm not cutting coins, so I usually stand as I don't need to have my face so close to the table. I also have a high bar chair that I use on the Hegner. ------Randy

Both of these saws were great in their day. I would never pay more than a few dollars for a saw that parts will become an issue. Not used to looking at Kijiji, but didn't see that much there that was a good deal. Also checked the Craigslist for Ontario, not much better. The Dewalts listed were stupid high (600 Canadian translates to 475 U.S), we can often find it new for close to that price here. With the options available to you on Kijiji, I would go for the cheapest delta (like $150 Canadian) and see if you can get the seller to come way down on that price, then save for the Excelsior which is one of your better options in Canada.

Get a load of this, a Hegner 22v in Atlanta for $400, now that is a deal. https://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/tls/d/scroll-saw/6487694421.html

Yep, there is another saw that look similar that Rocky posted later for 400. If this saw had to be "re-built", that actually doesn't make be feel too good about the state of the motor/controller, and other items not rebuilt. I would say the vast number of owners by these "toys" with great expectations, do a few projects, lose interest and move on. That is the kind of saw I want to buy used. I would never buy a saw from a serious cutter. My mom bought the Hegner 22v in the 80s thinking it would be a good hobby for my dad, but dad was not interested. I think he may have used it to cut a few things, probably had less than half an hour on it, and the original blade. Now that is a find. Only thing wrong with that saw was that the years are not good on the plastic connector rod, so it dry rotted/broke, and I had to replace it very early. That connector Rod probably had less than 15 hours use before it broke. (I was cutting boxes, so that kind of cutting puts a lot of stress on the saw). -------Randy

Gere us the corrected link: https://cosprings.craigslist.org/tls/d/26-hawk-scroll-saw/6484838013.html It looks like an 226 ultra, meaning, the clamp is behind the angle guide. That is the huge advantage of the G4/BM series

Green is the color of the old EX, congrats! --------Randy

Yes, I had some vibration in one of my Hegners, tightened the bolts that connected it to the stand, and bam, it was like a miracle. Running on Concrete was the second thing that really brought that saw under control. In the portable barn with flexible floor, it would resonate and dance. ------Randy

I am one of those that did put a big knob on my top clamp. But I top feed, so the bottom clamp with the stock clamp knob is the one that gets the most use, got loose and eventually stripped. It is great that the stock clamps work for your style (and they lasted me a good while), but I prefer a clamp that can handle the tension that feels right to me, without having to overthink it. I like the idea of the Titanium clamps, but somehow I don't think paying a machinist to make these from scratch is going to be within my $$$$ threshold . . . but I love that idea. Of course, if the Pegas last as long as the original clamp, I won't need it for several years. That said, I don't see anything in the Pegas design that would reduce stripping anyway. Yep, don't see a good way to test accurately between multiple saws while cutting as cutting depends on a lot of variables, I'll leave that to someone smarter than me. In normal cutting, I don't see a reduction in vibration with thin stock, and see an very noticeable increase in vibration with very thick stock. But I do believe that the stress of cutting resistance is probably much more brutal than the stress of the additional weight. I do know that the saw with the Pegas clamps "seems" quieter and my perception at my normal cutting speed is that the saw is noticeably smoother, so it is a meaningful reduction in vibration for me, or at least that is my perception. Regardless if this is or is not a "good upgrade", and I'm a little mixed on it at the moment, I am very excited to see attempted innovation, successful or not. I first noticed vibration increased when doing thick boxes on the Hegner, but later noticed it increased on all my saws. I did a quick monitoring of the EX under load to show this. I think this is why the DWs that have owners that cut thicker stock seem to give up the ghost earlier, and I'm assuming that would be true with an Ex also.

I’m not as concerned about the age as I am the miles. And you can usually spot a worn ex by the scratches in the table. I would also just ask the owner. This table doesn’t have the worthless dust collection. And was apparently pre-move to overseas manufacturing (though I have my doubts about that) if mileage is low, would be a great deal, especially for the better older table.

Results of Pegas Clamp Testing: Decided on using an IOS app called Seismometer on the Iphone. (http://yellowagents.com/seismometer) This app records the numerical data so we can get a qualitative measurement The phone was placed exactly at the same place on the table for each long duration test. Since the saw takes a few seconds to reach speed and stabilize, there are some variations in data at those speed changes, so to counter I started the saw and let is stableze before I started gathering data, then if the data was skewed for the first few seconds or the last few. There is some technical nastiness I had to juggle to get the results, but in short, I wrote some code to translate the raw data to a systematic measure of peak to peak amplitude. Basically, higher amplitude, the more vibration. Long duration testing ran for about a minute so that any variances would Balance out. Speed changes tend to upset the balance for a few seconds, so I eliminated skewed data where the speed changed. My EX doesn’t have speed reference marks, but the numbers on a clock line up pretty good, so I cut out a clock face, cut out the center, taped it over my dial with 1 being the lowest speed, and top speed just happens to land exactly on 11. Vibration starts kicking in 6, but stays about the same until 8, then starts getting more dramatic after that, so I decided to use 7, 9, 10, and 11 as my speeds to use for comparison points. There is one particularly important thing to understand about changing the weight of these components, when you add or subtract weight, you may move the point of harmonic resonance. When I tested the heavier Hegner knob on the original clamps, I saw increased vibration, except at one point, where resonance had made vibration with the lighter clamp higher. In the results chart below, just know, the higher the number, the more vibration. Speed All Original Original with Hegner Knob All Pegas Pegas with Hegner Knob 7 15.0 14.4 12.1 10.7 9 35.1 34.3 20.2 20.5 10 29.0 31.8 28.1 45.6 11 39.8 37.7 35.1 42.2

Yeah, I'm with Scrappile, I like playing with saws, and enjoy figuring out how to efficiently operate each of them. There is no rational justification. To myself, I can always say, "well at least I don't have near as many as Rick Hutchinson.

I suspect the 14 is not really a 14. There is an upgrade for the 14 which give you a quick tensioner in the back, but not in the front, unless something has changed.

These clamps are mechanically like the old. The tensioner is smaller, there is a nut that locks the set screw so you don't have to use loctite (at least in theory). The clamp knobs are interchangeable with the old, which is nice, because my modified Hegner knob, which is prefer, fits great. If you compare the old and the Pegas, you will notice there is still a lot of aluminum in the front clamping part where you need it to be strong, but less in the back, to reduce weight. I have hesitated to install mine because I'm trying to figure out how to take good vibration measurement using the old clamps before I switch. There are a few factors that can affect vibration on the EX, like lack of tension, blade travel, and possibly my heavier Hegner knob. I'm tried out a lot of various "Vibration Meter" IOS apps, but they are all pretty lousy for this purpose.

I am excited anytime someone tries something new/cool. Another friend on this forum who is in the Hawk family made himself and me a set of special clamp knobs that have the rotating tips, yet still fit the original clamps, and they worked in eliminated the twisting of the small blades. Bushton did not seem interested in helping us out in this regard (I'm assuming because this issue affects so very few). So, I envy you folks that have the ability to create and experiment to tweak your tool to your own needs. Simply Awesome! On the BM, both clamps use the course thread (or at least the same thread), so that might be an option for you. For my own use, I would rather the thinner metric threads that are used by the Hegner as I would love to use those clamp knobs. -------Randy

It's hard to prove that the EX saws are more durable, though from the reports we hear back on the forums, it sure seems like the bearings and motor go out a lot on the 788s. Sometimes the controller boards. There are folks that do thin board cutting (puzzles/fret work) that have been using their 788s for 10 years. The service centers don't really know how to work on the 788s, but then again, the rest of the saws, (except possibly Jet) don't have that option at all unless you live close to the single source vendor. So, I believe the EXs are more durable, but can't prove it. That won't work in persuading your wife because she would just say, "then use it until it dies." If you were doing bowls, or a lot of angle cutting, then the EX really shines. If you want variable aggression, again the EX shines. If you want consistent agression, then the DW will be predictable, with no back knob to trick you into screwing up your "tuning." The stand on the EX is more flexible (and harder to figure out where to put your feet). If I had to justify my saw purchases, I would probably be still using the Hitachi CW-40

If you are happy with the 788, then the answer for you may be that there isn't any compelling reason to move up to the EX saws. The Ex does have some nice features, but you may or may not benefit from them, depending on your project types and how you use your saw. You can always wear that saw out, then look at what saws are available at the time and see where your money would be best spent. ------Randy

Here is my raw opinion: Hawk and Hegner are not the Cadillacs of scroll saws. I would say they are the John Deere of scroll saws. None of these saws are outright better than the rest. Different project types might give one an advantage over the other. Hawk/Hegner defiantly have the lead in Durability. There is just less mechanical things going on. Very simple designs. if you feel the need to cut fast, that goes to the EX. I don't like the way Hawk slants the blade to increase "agression", and Hegner doesn't have an adjustment for agression at all. If you are going to be cutting thick boxes, Hawk can cut projects that can not be cut on any other of these saws. If you are not a fiddler (you don't want to figure out how to adjust the saw to get it to cut right), Hegner is locked into alignment, and there are almost no adjustment. You can adjust blade stroke length on the Hegner, but it is a binary adjustment, meaning, it is either set, or not, you don't have to fiddle with it. If you don't want any aggression at all, I would say Hegner/Hawk, though a tuned Ex is pretty good. When using spirals and moving sideways, you don't want blade travel widening your kerf. For fretwork, or frequent blade changes, for me at least, EX stands well above the rest. As an EX user, you well know, those processes are trivial. With practice, they are manageable on the other saws, but they are not as easy. If you switch to one of the other saws, folks will say "be patient, there is an adjustment period", and I'll be telling you that too, but there is a reason for that adjustment period that was beyond what you had when you went to the EX. If you want a big table, that goes to EX, then Hawk. Top feed goes to EX, and then Hawk For smoothness, evidently different folks have a different perspective on this. The current Hawk has some heavy vibration at certain speeds of which the vendor call this a harmonic point. Hegner is also moving a lot of mass along those long arms. On a non-concrete floor, for me at least, the EX was much smoother than the Hegner. On solid concrete, the Hegner smoothed out for me. Very few people use the very small blades, but the mechanics on the EX style of saws put less stress on the blades as the top arms are independently powered. This really only affect a very very small number of people, but it does affect me, so for coin cutting, I've removed my recommendation for any saw except the EX style saws. Is there something about the EX that you don't like, or are you thinking you are missing out on some greater capability because of the reputation of these other saws? If you are second guessing you EX because you think you are missing the holy grail, you really really really need to test drive these other saws before you pull that trigger, or look for a really good deal so you can play with it. I see really good Hegners at great prices on Craigslist often. There just isn't that much difference between an old and new Hegner, so I would always buy used. There are not a great number Hawk BM users, and hardly any G4 saws that come on the market, so a used saw of that Brand will be a tougher find. Unless you are wealthy, I would never buy a new Hegner, and would hesitate to buy a new Hawk. My big hesitation on the EX style saws is the support model. It is not real obvious where you will take your EX/King/Excelsior saws to be fixed. This gives and advantage to the Seyco in that line of saws. The new Pegas clamps make the Jet viable for me, and I have to believe the Jet support should be sound. ------Randy