Laura Sanders

Update ... it still works! Thanks for all the support!

Good news! I put it all back together and it mysteriously works! There's still a little more noise than before, but I'm cutting away. Thank you all for your help! Keep your fingers crossed that my luck holds out.

Got it! Do these look okay? They're about 3/4 inch each. I wiped a little soot off of them, but not much. In the mean time, I've tried playing with the blade tension -- doesn't help.

Thanks so much for the quick replies! I've removed the brushes (I think!). They look fine to me, but I have no idea what they are supposed to look like. How do I insert photos here?

I have a Shop Fox scroll saw that I've been using occasionally for about 3 months. This morning I replaced a blade and ran into trouble. Initially, the saw would start but with a pause ... as if it was taking a deep breath before moving. Instead of my usually babababa sound, it was more hmmmmmmmmmbabababa. It ran okay with no blade, or on a high speed. I stopped and cleaned the whole thing carefully, looked for any obvious problems, but it only got worse. Now there's a long pause before motion at any speed with an unhappy sound. Now I'm letting some oil soak into the arm bushings, but I'm not optimistic. I live in Bamako, Mali, so taking the saw to the "shop" is not an option. I'll have to fix it myself or probably lose a month getting a new one -- and it's almost Christmas, so the timing is terrible. Please help!