bobvan

I do tend to be detailed. Sometime I drive myself nuts. Also I can spin my wheels on details. My motto has always been: Anything worth doing, is worth doing to excess. Need to change that. Randy, thanks for the good idea. It sounds simple when you say it. I knew I should keep my hands off the back knob. just needed reliable conformation. Thanks all

Thanks everyone for the responses. I will try to remember as many as I can. Just got back from the wedding that my puzzle was used as the registry. Every one like it and thought I came up with a great idea. Had to admit it was not mine but a young lady in a magazine article. My saw is on a factory stand. I will check its connection to the stand tomorrow. As I said after all the tutoring from the factory production manager the vibration was much reduced. It may be in complete spec. The only way I will be sure is to see a 30 run in person. I have mine sitting on a concrete floor. Here is the way I was instructed to adjust my machine. As you stated start with the big black arm parallel with the table. The written instructions said within an 1/8" front to back. I fussed with it until I was well within this tolerance. Then verbal instructions were to cycle the small arms thru a full stroke top to bottom turning the nut directly inside the inspection plate. I was to place a penny or something similar at the back of the blade just touching it with the stroke all the way up and run it all the way down. It should start out touching, then thru the stroke it should move away from the penny and then finally move back and touch the penny at the completed stroke all the way down to its bottom position. All this adjustment being accomplished by rotating the motor. I did this and again after fussing I got my machine to do just that. I've read and watched articles about this adjustment adding to or taking away from aggressiveness of cut. I assume that the factory means this to be the most neutral setting. Me being completely new to scrolling I do what I am told until I have time to experiment on my own. It sounded reasonable and seemed to run pretty smooth. I still think the mobile base removal was the best fix of all adjustments. I used an Olson #2 to do my puzzle. The puzzle blades were from bills and also flying Dutchmen. I did not turn the saw on. The blades popped as soon as I completely tensioned them with the white lever. The tension was too much for the tiny blades. In all cases. I probably tried 6 or 7 before I switched to the #2s. I barely understand anything about this machine but thought after you achieve the horizontal adjustment (top arm parallel with the table) you do not mess with this setting and trust that the white plastic tensioning arm would be automatically adjusted to achieve the final tension. I now would guess that the only way to fix the breaking of puzzle blades would be to back off the adjustment knob at the back of the saw that's used to do the horizontal adjustment in the first place. I'm going to hunt down a functioning 30" EX and see if mine mimics it. I owe the factory some videos of mine running with a nickel on it. Now that the wedding if over I have some breathing room. I will try to post a photo of the finished puzzle on display at the wedding. Sorry for the book.

I purchased an Excalibur 30" last December. Along with a number of other woodworking machines with the idea that I wanted to acquire the best machines I could afford as I do not plan to have the money or inclination to buy replacements for half measure decisions. So thinking that the Excalibur seemed to get good reviews, and the features seemed well thought out, I bought one and forgot it. With no immediate plans for it. Just wanted a good scroll saw when and if a project popped up. So as I have done before, I saw an idea in a wood magazine and said, "I can do that". It was an article about a young lady that put herself through college sawing puzzles for weddings. I have a step son that is getting married on Sunday so why would I rush the project along before last Friday. I have periodically purchased different size blades, read article and watched videos on different methods of cutting puzzles, mounting photos, etc. The last blades I purchased, two weeks ago, from two different sources were specifically called puzzle blades. About the size of a human hair, or close to it. So I turned on the machine for the first time and it is not what I expected. Not smooth. Lots of vibration. Sounded like it had a rod knocking. Panic sets in. I have a little over a week to make my first and only promised puzzle for the upcoming wedding and I have a bad machine. I went in the house and called General in Canada. 4:oo pm E.T. and chat briefly with a fellow that gave me an idea to try and to call back Monday if it didn't work. So I rotated the motor a couple of times, and each time I moved thru a full slots worth, and removed the screws to get another full slot rotation, it helped marginally. On Monday I called back spoke with the same gentleman who gave up and passed me onto a production manager. I had no trouble getting him on the phone. He was in Canada not Asia. He started to work thru some different ideas. All of which were spot on. He stayed on the phone as I did as he instructed. We tried a number of things. most helped. We were only trying to get the vibration down to the point I could try to cut at least the one puzzle and we could solve any remaining issues after the wedding. I'm not sure if it is fully in functional spec. for this machine but it did a darn good job on two puzzles and one of which turned out nice enough for the wedding. It still has some vibration. having not experienced one in person, only thru internet videos I may have a fully in spec. 30" Excalibur. Finally my observations...... The Internet does not give you enough insight to know exactly how a machine should sound and function. They will sell you one but You CAN NOT LEAVE YOUR SCROLL SAW ON A ROLL AROUND BASE and expect it not to vibrate. That was made clear to me by the production manager. (I didn't see that written down anywhere when I purchased the base). I could have missed it. You can work thru problems over the phone if you are working with a good company. One that will spend what ever time is required to fix the problem. So far General is just such a company and Pat, I hope I have his name correct, Magro is excellent at trouble shooting problems, some real and some perceived. I also observed that I could not keep from breaking the puzzle blades when I tensioned them. Having no experience and time to experiment I went to a number 2 and had some very good results. With this brief experience into scroll sawing I learned quite a bit and know I have many questions about the best procedures for making photo jigsaw puzzles. Sorry for the length of this post but I needed to start somewhere and give kudos to General and the fine folks that work there. That's enough smoke up their skirts, but they were great. "so far" I would like to hear thoughts about vibration for an Excalibur 30" and how I can be sure I have a smooth one (in spec.) Also any Photo Jigsaw puzzle insight would be much appreciated. Tips Tricks etc. Best Bob V.