hotshot

If you are in the U.S., you probably have some much better options. The Ryobi is not a good saw. I bought that model of Ryobi to use as a "portable" saw. Getting to and changing blades in that bottom clamp make the saw very very painful to use. As JT said, the clamps will take pin or pinless, but you pretty well have to feed that bottom clamp through the hole in the top of the table, then a long tool is used to put under the table to tighten the clamp. Harbor Freight/Ryobi/Skill, and countless other brands have slapped their Name on that same basic design, but regardless of the variances between the various offerings, they all have inaccessible bottom clamps. Tell us where you are, and we can help you to see if there is something better in your area within your price range. ------Randy

It would be very interesting if a somewhat slower speed resulted in faster cutting on a Hawk. Would like to see that tested with sled & weight.

Lawson, what is your primary saw right now? I"m about 100 miles from you, but have a Hegner 14" that I would give you. If you are ever over this way, might be fun for you to play with. It is single speed, and to keep vibration under control, you really need to run it on concrete or something really solid. Though Hegner should really be embarrassed by this version as the single speed sucks, having easy access to that bottom blade is great, which is why I would use it over a Ryobi. Like many old Hegners, the blower baffle dry rotted, so needs to be replaced if you need a blower, but the saw itself works.

Hegner is putting inserts into their saws, one of the very few changes to their saws ever.

Ernie came up with a completely different mechanism for the scroll saw. I think it is going to take that level of "re-think" to create a scroll saw that retains it's simplicity, yet drives the upper arm. However, I think it would be easy enough to come up with some improvement to current designs that would be feasible/easy to achieve if the manufactures would seek feedback about possible improvements from their customers. Dewalt: Ship it with the mechanisms to hold the Arm up, should be trivial. Improve the bearings to the point that they outlast the motor. Beef up the motor to stand up to heavy use. Dewalt could very easily create a membrane over their power switch which would prevent issues that have bitten many 788 users. Beef up the circuit board to make those replacements less frequent. Hawk: Bring the G4 back, use Rolfs' version of the improved clamp retaining clips. Create perfect alignment in the base that does not require alignment if if gets jarred during shipping. I will trade anyone my BM26 for a good working G4. On the EX/Clones/Variants: Fix the clamps, please. I want to be able to tighten the clamps without constantly worrying about stripping or spreading the clamps. The stand is sturdy, but with that front cross bar, where am I supposed to put my feet? Adjusting blade travel for the non-mechanically savvy is an issue. I'm sure some users have given up on the EX type saws because they didn't understand that messing with the arm height would change blade travel, create vibration, and such. I'm not sure how they would lock these setting in , but put some engineers on it to see what can be done. Hegner already has a lot going for it, but tweak design to enable easy top feeding please. I don't think a lot would have to be changed for that to happen, and I believe we had someone on the other forum that filed some stuff to accomplish a version of this. Give us some other options for the stand as tall and narrow does have some advantages, but may not be right for every person. Give the customers the choice of a much larger table. Ryobi (and the countless other sellers of this very poor saw design): Delta Patents on most of their older small saws have expired and are now free game. Some of those saws were small/simple and you should be able to reproduce very cheaply. Give up your current designs' and copy this or another saw worth copying. Hire a veteran scroll saw enthusiasts to sanity check your designs. I don't think we are going to ever get the "best for everything saw", but, I think some of these changes would help.

Just Ordered from Amazon :-)

Fodder for another thread, but I would very much like to see a similar tutorial for Marquetry. It has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I understand double bevel inlay, and have done some neat stuff using it, but not sure how that work on very very thin wood. ------Randy

Awesome, fantasy saw time: High Level Top Priorities: 1. Top feeding/bottom feeding operations are trivial. 2. Low Vibration. 3. Reliable/Servicable Specific Thoughts: From the Hegner, grab the simplicity of design. Overall, I want a saw that I don't have to tweak/tune. I want the alignment of the saw to be locked in the like the Hegner, so that there is no room for things to wiggle out of alignment. Precise simple construction, that works out of the box every time. With minimal blade travel as the default. Blade clamp mechanisms that is easy to get tight, but no risk of stripping the clamps. From the Hawk, let the saw use as much of the blade as possible with long stroke. I want the Hawk ability to Cut thick pieces. From the earier Hawk, the change of aggression isn't an adjustment, it is a switch from one setting to another. No trial and error to get it back to zero travel. Like the DW/EX lineage of saws, I want both arms powered both directions independent of the blade. Tension on the blade should be constant throughout the stroke. Should be able to run any blade at any speed without causing any additional stress other that what inertia places on the blade itself. I would rather aggression be created by adjustable forward movement of a perpendicular blade than angling the blades. Again, this should be an configuration based on absolute stops, not an "adjustment" that requires tweaking to get it set back to zero travel. Like EX/Jet, built in mechanisms to hold up Arm. Like the DW: All tensioning should be within easy reach. Like Ryobi, mass produced but not a premium placed on the "Brand" stamped on the saw. Be unlike the Roybi in every other way. Make a quality tool, mass produce it so that you get efficiency of scalescale, then make a "reasonable" profit. A simple saw, abeit precise, with simple components should not be cost prohibitive. That bottom clamp has to be easy to get to, and use. Most of our higher end saws already do that, but none of the lower end saws do. I really do like the tilting Arm of the EX style saws, but would gladly sacrifice it to get some of the other features. For me, no swinging clamps. Like the eclipse, few moving parts, very very low vibration (or at least, that is how the Eclipse works in my dreams), but with blade changes as quick and easy as any other saw. I have tried almost every lineage of saw out there, except the Eclipse. I suspect my dreams would be dashed by reality if I were to actually get my hands on one.

JT, 5/0 not 5. These are like a hair. PM me your address and I’ll send you some.

Until recently, I've been using the EX exclusively for coins. I've tried a few saws with coins, but the EX has always been my primary. For coin cutting, I can handle some blade travel, but I still prefer minimal blade travel. Because of the minimal blade travel of the Hawk, I was hoping the Hawk would be the perfect coin cutting saw, and it certainly fits the bill in regards to minimal travel. With that in mind, I've been running the Hawk BM26 as my primary for coin cutting, trying to make it work for that project type. I have been using some custom clamp knobs on the Hawk that have a insert similar to the DW/EX/Seyco/Jet line of saws, and that has eliminated the issues of twisting the very small blades. However, there are other physics that are applied because of the design of the Hawk that makes it very hard on very small blades. Since the mechanics of the Hawk use the blade as part of the mechanisms to drive the top arm, the faster the Hawk runs, the more stress it exerts on the blade. So the very little blade travel on the Hawk is ideal, getting the clamp knob situation resolved eliminated another major roadblock, but the physics of the Hawk (or Hegner) mean I have to run the saw at a much lower speed than I need, and even then , the stresses on the blades mean I'm continually changing blades as they break quite often. Needless to say, I have been breaking a lot of 2/0 Jewelers blades. The #5/0 that I use to create the ultra sharp inside corners, I can not use with the Hawk at all. If someone want to try coin cutting on the Hawk or Hegner, they can certainly try it out, and make it work if they run very slow, but if they are going to get into it coin cutting seriously, they probably need a saw where the blades isn't part of the "drive train." So, in defense of the Hawk, the ability of the Hawk to effectively cut coins is pretty meaningless to about everyone else. However, the Hawk can cut puzzle boxes thicker than I can cut on any other scroll saw I have. So for those projects, the Hawk isn't just the best choice, it is the only choice. Another project type where the Hawk and Hegner have the advantage is when using a spiral blade. Moving the work piece sideways, with spirals, with a saw that exhibits a lot of blade travel could create some interesting lines. There is no "best at everything" Scroll Saw! -----Randy

Yep, been following the issue for a long time, and I also have a DW Type 1. I'm pretty confident I understand what is going on with that tweak, but I like the way my 788 is cutting, so no reason for me to mess with it. There is one important difference in Hawk aggression, and DW aggression. When the DW rocks forward, the angle of the blade to the table is still perpendicular (unless you apply the tweak). This is why, even with blade travel, that travel doesn't affect the vertical cut. On the Hawk, you increase aggression by tilting the blade, which is an entirely different mechanism, and is why Iggy can't increase the agression on the Hawk without messing up his puzzles. The mechanics are completely different. ------Randy

You know, I've known about this adjustment for years, but I didn't really understand the mechanics of why this tweak worked, but I think I got it now. They angle the blade back at the bottom, so that when the blade goes down, the forward motion is counteracted by the angle of the blade. I'm still trying to get my head around what the impact of angling the blade like that would be. If I'm right, on a saw that has this adjustment, the blade travel at the top would remain the same.

Marquetry on the Scroll saw? Or did you use the knives/razers?

Try This: Link to PDF Tutorial In Inlay The site trying to be too smart and Preview the contents of any link, which may confuse some browsers, so using the forum link tool to include the link explicitly seems to work more like what I intended.

Here is an inlay tutorial that might help as well. You might have to click image below, then click again to bring up the pdf so that you can scroll through it.

I think critical critiques of the saws may be a no win. I personally love critical assessments, but candid conversations are hard to have in the forums without a lot of emotion. I love all my saws for different reasons, but if someone came on the forum and said: 788s/Deltas are nice but for some work are over aggressive and seem to wear out with less hours than the higher end saws. The EX/Clones are great, but the dust collection system sucks, the clamps easily strip, and the stability of the patents holders and the manufacturing companies making them are questionable Jet seems promising, but the top clamps may need tweaking if you change blade sizes radically, or if you want to top feed, you can forget it. Hegners are Awesome, unless you prefer top feeding, a big table, aggressive cutting, affordability. You can use as a clamp firing rifle. Hawks are exceptional, except the Owners don't run their company like a business, the adjustments are tricky, and the clamps swing, and the aggression settings change the angle of the blade making the higher aggressive settings useless for puzzle type applications Ryobi, Harbor Freight, Wen (and all the saws that look like them have bottom clamps that are incredibly inaccessible) and are tools evidently designed for torture. Proxxon sure is pretty, but the 115 model specifically is more useless than stuff used to add nutrients to my garden. CW40, Rexon, PCB 370, Craftsman, Tradesmen, and all the saws that look like the CW40 are great beginner saws, except they wear like a 788, are bottom feed only, and the dust collection panel has to be removed in order to easily access the bottom clamp, and has a table almost as small as the Hegner. Eclipse may be the best saw ever, except changing blades seems a little clumsy, it was very very expensive, and it seems to have died with Ernie. ......if someone were to actually say that . . . wholly Molly would that be bad. :-) I actually love and appreciate most of those saws, (except Proxxon and Ryobi/clones, which I got rid of, and hate without out bounds). -----Randy

A few tips that might help: Practice with scrap of the same thickness, and cut circles, tweaking the angle, until you get it set perfect. Biggest secret for getting these perfect is to make sure you cut without any "side pressure." Take it very very slow on the corners (the blade needs to be caught up with zero bow). Hide your entry hole in the deep area behind the wing, between the wing and the tail. With a little practice. you can put the hole right at the edge of your line, in the waste area, and drill through so that it just barely hits the the waste area on the bottom piece, but the angle has to be exact. If you can do that, there will be no visible entry hole at all. It a neat trick if you can pull it off. -----Randy

Kev, it occurred to me that, it could be that if you move you spent blade from the Hawk to the 788, the aggressive action might make it feel like it has more life. That is to say, maybe that Hawk doesn’t dull the blade faster, but maybe it needs sharper blades because of the less aggressive cutting. That is one test that would be easy to do.

I loved the speed test. Would love to see you do a variation where you test longevity.

These are the "PS Wood Super Sharps". I don't know a lot about them except they are super expensive (about $1/blade at Woodcraft). Another member on this forum did some informal testing and found these the fastest cutting for the scenario he did. I've had projects where I was having a hard time getting through a piece, and really having to push hard to get it to cut at all. I would have probably given a few dollars to ease that pain. If these are indeed more aggressive/sharper, I suspect they would have been marginally faster, but still painful. Just for the fun of it, I might pick me up a package next time I'm in woodcraft just to have around the next time I struggle with a piece.

It makes sense to me that the Dewalt would cut faster because the blade moves forward significantly on the down stroke (abeit staying perpendicular to the table). So slamming the blade into the wood seems like it would create a more aggressive cut. But tests are always fun. There is a video on the Pegas site where they do a hands off test comparing their blades to the Mach blades. Their setup is not complex, but I think it uses a weight to pull the board forward. http://www.scies.ch/products-in-use.html. It looks like a simple sled, with a pulley and weight hanging off the back would work. Of course, the Hawk would need to have the blade perpendicular to be valid. I think what would be very interesting is how each saw would do on thinner wood.

Kevin, I think it might be an impatience thing for you and me, but for Iggy, I think it is about the numbers. Like you, I'm not a production cutter, and may get impatient trying to make it through thick hard wood, but I'm not moving a lot of product, so losing sales doesn't play into this for me at least. Iggy is able to sell a lot of product, so it makes sense that creating these as fast and cheap as he can makes sense. So, for Iggy, time is money, and he has to find the balance that works best for him. On the note of cost effectiveness, in production mode, I wonder if the blades last longer in the Hawk, because the longer stroke uses more of the blade. Compared to the cost/profit of the puzzles, the cost of blades may be nominal, I don't know. So going a little further down that road, would the time saved by using expensive "Super Sharps" actually be more cost effective because it get's more puzzles out the door? Staying with that line of thinking, maybe the best combination is a DW/EX paired with the "Super Sharps." Or maybe an EX tuned for more aggression than the 788, with Supersharps. Iggy, if you lived close, I would kick the agression up on the EX, buy you some super sharps for fun, and let you test drive it. Why I love this conversation, and believe it is important: We usually judge saws based on things like durability, depth of cut, ease of blade changes, and blade travel is usually seen as a bad thing. It is kind of nice to turn this on it's head, and in light of different circumstances and needs, and look at the saws in terms of productivity for this specific project type and see how that affects overall costs. The game would change considerably if the project type was fretwork, thick puzzle boxes, or traditional puzzles cut on thin baltic birch. Despite the tension in the conversation, I think the over all conversation is awesome! --------Randy

Here is how to do it in case you have never seen this done: 1. Make the arm level with the table using the back knob (then never touch that back knob again (Smile) ). Just measure the arm distance to the table on both ends, or put a reference block under the arm, and move it along the saw under the arm until the gap remains the same. 2. Loosen the screws around the motor with your Hex wrench 3. Turn the speed all the way to slowest setting, then turn the saw on, and then rotate the motor, finding the sweet spot with the least movement 4. Tighten the motor back up and you are done. You should not have to do this a lot. Just remember, don't mess with that back knob. ps: It occurred to me that you might not like the minimal blade travel setting. You can make the travel very very aggressive if you like that, or can make it minimal. It's kind of cool that you can go back and forth between the two. If you choose the more aggressive setting, make sure you have the blade moving forward on the down stroke.

My 788 is pretty smooth, not not as smooth as the Ex by any stretch. The Ex can be tuned for minimal blade travel, and that can affect smoothness of that saw. Have you done that yet? ------Randy

Gotta wonder if there isn't some Warrantee angle that could be played to get more miles out of the 788s. On Amazon, it lists the warrantee for 3 years. If you could burn through one per year, then send it in for warrantee repair, seems like you could get like 3 Dewalts for the price of one. For this strategy, you would have to rely on a backup for some long stretches as I don't think these replacements would come quickly.