Iguanadon

Yeah, a list of "Things to Check and Calibrate" would be nice to have with the saw out of the box. I don't mind adjusting, I just have to know how/what to adjust. There are dozens of little things I wouldn't even know are adjustable. But I've had good luck with my 4 DeWalt's... pull out of the box, bolt onto the stand, slap a blade in it and start cutting.

Update: Using just the set screw in the lower blade holder, I was able to shift the blade over to where it is now plum and my table is accurate at exactly 0 degrees. The set screw was actually rather loose and I think it was working itself out and that's why the blade wobble and my periodic issues with puzzle pieces not sliding in and out was the result. I put a dab of medium strength loctite on the set screw to hold it in place. The blade wobble is now limited to only when the saw is running at full speed. I knock it back a little and there's no wobble. Major improvement. I'll have to give the saw another try in the near future. Now that it's not in my cutting "room" and is just in the garage, I'm going to have to wait for the summer heat to break before I can sit in the main garage and cut. If there are any other adjustments anyone can think of that I should check, let me know.

OK Kevin, and others, you guys may be on to something... I just went out and eyeballed the blade and I can definitely see that it is not perfectly plum. I actually have the table tilted about a full degree to one side. I just figured the scale was off or something when I was setting the blade plum to the table. It appears to be pretty sizable of an angle, now I have to figure out how to compensate for that. I'll look at various set screws etc. Any ideas (along with pictures please) of things to look at or try will be appreciated. SSV is an amazing community. The amount of knowledge and general intelligence is amazing. Thanks for helping poor, dumb Iggy figure out how to fix his saw.

Great news that your Hawk is running well out of the box. I'm very interested in reading your review as you start using it.

Yes, I only have one lower blade holder.

So, here is a section of the layout map from the event. When I received it and reviewed it, I was pretty happy with my location. Near the food trucks and bouncy house... decent foot traffic. But... in reality what happened was I did get some foot traffic from that as expected, however the majority of the shopping foot traffic followed along the red lines, the major rows of vendors, and I got a lot of what I refer to as the "neck crane" passersby... as they're making the turn at the corner, they kind of look over, crane their neck to see "what's down there?" and 90% of the time they turn the corner and just keep walking along the primary row. I think I've also learned a lesson... At some events, on the application, they ask if you want access to electricity and I usually check the box saying yes because I like to be able to shrink wrap any display puzzles that are purchased. But, that then limits the number of places they will place me because only so many vendor spots are near electrical outlets. I need to just say No to that question and be placed in the main vendor area(s). I have other bags that I use with a twist tie for events in which they don't offer electricity and I'd rather have a more prime location.

It was funny Roly, when I received the layout map a few days ahead of the event, I was happy to see 2 food trucks nearby to draw foot traffic over... until I got there yesterday morning and they kicked on their generators. Never again. LOL

I'll be very happy if they decide to stock more puzzles in the gift shop. I hope to hear from them soon saying they sold the ones they bought. :-) No nibbles on the letter names today. I need to figure a way to display them in a way that stands out so they get noticed. I'll experiment over the next few weeks/events.

I cut a 2 day event short by packing up at the end of the day today for a couple of reasons today. Number 1 is that there was supposed to be 2 booths between me and a food vendor, but ended up with nobody between us, which would have been fine, but... he was running a very loud generator for his operations and I had to listen to it for 10 hours and couldn't take it any longer. The venue folks were great, they tried to help by putting bales of hay around it to try to buffer the noise and it helped, but it was still crazy loud and annoying. I told the organizer I wouldn't be back for day 2 and she offered to move me to a new spot, but I kindly declined and she said she'd give me a discount for the booth rental fee at the next event I sign up with them. Sales were "good" today, but not great. If it hadn't been for the director of the plantation house (and stables and farm) where the event was held asking me if I sell wholesale and then buying 8 puzzles to put in her gift shop, today would have been sub-par. And unless it's a mega event... no more 2 day events for Iggy. The 2nd day is always much less in my experience, so it just isn't worth it financially as well as losing an entire weekend. Mrs. Iggy wants to go to it tomorrow to browse and shop, so I'll be a customer for day 2. :-)

Thanks Don, I figure I'll see how much interest there is and adjust pricing as needed. First test, today's event... no interest. :-D

I keep dreaming of that... but my company is foolish enough to pay me way too much so I can't walk away from it. If they get rid of me though... I'll consider it.

She's using Inkscape. She found some You Tube tutorials, watched a few of them the night before last and whipped out these two patterns for me as a test.

It will be all custom orders. I'll display samples and let customers choose their style. If anyone is interested in any, Mrs. Ig can use some practice :-) $5 per name.

Hi Steve, yes, as a matter of fact, that's kind of the next step in the plan is to offer her services to make custom name patterns for $5 each. I really like the JAVIER example with the randomness of the letters. She has a great eye for stuff like that and I think people will be very happy with how she lays out the lettering in each name if they choose that style.

Alright, I'd love everyone's thoughts and feedback. Looking into doing names... my artist for this is... Mrs. Iggy. Orangeman and I were discussing a couple of days ago and I had happened to see a video online recently showing the design being done in Inkscape and Mrs. Iggy is a computer graphic artist so I challenged her to learn how to do it. She watched some tutorial videos and she was off and running. I'm imagining coming up with maybe 6 different style/fonts and offering as a solid piece or as a puzzle. I actually prefer the solid piece option, but since I sell puzzles I figured I'd offer it as an option. I cut these 4 this morning and I plan on displaying them at my 2 day event this weekend and see if there's any interest. Iggy

Yeah Kev, I'm not holding my breath. She's the first one to ever come this far after promising great things. At least she bought 25 puzzles up front. Anything beyond this will be gravy.

Lucky day for Iggy, I came across a bundle of poplar yesterday. I'll be getting some extra cutting done now.

Target shelves... ha! With a little sticker on it that says MADE IN IGGY'S GARAGE I thought about the Hegner and I'd love to test drive one.

A lot more questions than answers at this point. She took a mix of everything to start with and we'll see what, if anything, sells and I'll likely replace sold items and then if she wants to stock duplicates or broaden what she wants to show and display, we'll figure it out. Fortunately I'm very well stocked right now but a lot of events coming up between now and December 9th.

Over the past 15 months I've had various folks speak to me at my booth saying they'd love to stock my puzzles at a local zoo, or a dog rescue is interested in buying them for the people that adopt dogs, etc, etc, etc. The first couple of times, I got rather excited about the possibilities, but as each one never materialized into anything, I no longer get excited. The latest one was a month ago a woman started talking about a business she was going to be starting up having to do with customizing furniture and she though my puzzles would be great as little decor items... Uh-huh, yeah, right, sure, I've heard it all before... but this time she actually followed thru and came by my house today and ended up walking out with 25 puzzles. She's also going to be offering paint classes and decided to do one for kids using my kids puzzles made from pine. I'm selling to her at "wholesale" and she's going to put them for sale at the same price I sell them for at the location she'll have. I warned her that I've had them in stores before and they didn't do well because they had to be packaged up and people couldn't get the full experience, so she's going to keep one unwrapped allowing people to touch and feel. We'll see if it turns into anything, but hey, she decided to buy them outright, upfront rather than just stocking them and paying me as they sold. The kids puzzles to be painted, she will place an order with me once she has a class signed up and knows which animals she wants. If this works out, it might create some sales during the slow winter months.

Thank you Steve, I'll be taking you up on that offer. I'd very much like to try an EX.

I think he knows what you're referring to. He said there was a known issue with the Type1 in that the table needs to be shimmed in the back, which makes sense to correct the front to back travel of the blade... Can't adjust the blade, so adjust the "pitch" of the table to align 90 degrees with the blade. Hopefully he finds the "easy" solution to share with ya.

I appreciate all the comments and feedback, I want to hear 'em all. You aren't the first, nor will you be the last ones to call me insane, or worse. ;-) I don't consider myself a DeWalt loyalist or anything. It's just that they cut consistently, other than wearing them out, they do the job well. I never have to adjust the table or anything at all... just start cutting and never touch a thing for 9 months. It's just that after about 700-800 puzzles cut out of 3/4" poplar, I'm pushing them to their limit and apparently a good part of that is my fault being too aggressive and pushing too hard. I'd love to find something else that will last. Honestly, cost is not an issue at all. I was willing to go with Hawk or Hegner as I don't mind paying for quality. I'm just not familiar with the other options and if they'll be able to stand up to my "torture". If it comes down to it and I have to buy a new DeWalt every year, I'm willing to do it. It adds less than $1 to my overhead cost per puzzle. I actually had someone suggest taking out the extended warranty if buying from Home Depot or Lowe's and simply take it back and get a new one when it does wear out. LOL Agreed, I'm not going to bad mouth the Hawk or the maker, I wouldn't do that no matter what. I will however show what is happening even after replacing the lower arm that was sent to me.

So... the 2nd DeWalt that I wore out was still under warranty, so when I had my big event near Raleigh a couple of weeks ago, I took it to the DeWalt repair center in Raleigh (which is the closest one to me, 155 miles). I dropped it off, the guy said they'd look it in about 5 days. When I hadn't heard anything after 10 working days I called this past Friday, he looked it up, said he has only 1 guy that works on scroll saws and he'd work on it Monday. No big deal, I'm in no rush. Well, UPS just pulled up and Mrs. Iggy said "Did you order something heavy again?" "Nope, not this time..." Lo and behold the UPS guy rolls up with a brand new DW788 on his cart... I guess the technician looked at mine Monday figured it was dead and had a new one sent to me. No phone call, no nothing, just SURPRISE! A new saw. Finally, a nice surprise for Iggy. A very pleasant surprise as I've decided I'm going to stick with DeWalt's and just use 'em til I wear 'em out and then buy a new one. The Hawk just isn't working out, it's going back to Kansas at some point. I just have to figure out how to box it up to send back.

Thanks Scott, I just sent you a message.