rash_powder

I have found 1/2 to 3/4 turn on my 22vs is adequate for the way I cut. Hope it helps you get going.

I typically break blades in one of two places with my Hegner - just under the top clamp, or very near the work piece. I'm guessing I side load too much or bend the blade when bottom feeding when they break low; when high I feel it is because the top clamp cannot rock like the bottom can so it repeatedly bends the blade causing it to fatigue and fail. The next most common blade problem I have is they pull out of the clamp, typically the bottom. Thats tension or getting the blade clean and installed correctly.

Vibrations - bolt the saw to your work table/bench/stand. Make sure that stand is as rigid and heavy as practical. Aluminum - I don't know how thin you are thinking, but personally i wouldn't use a scrollsaw for anything thicker than the craft stuff at stores like Michaels/Hobby Lobby. Maybe 1/32" and less. Thats just me considering the way aluminum galls so bad, cold welds, and loads saw teeth. If you try it, I've found that the metal bandsaw we have at work cuts aluminum better at slow blade speeds and very very slow feed rates. Blades - Olson are good, I do most all of my work with them. It will be personal preference for brand and size though. A rough rule of thumb is you need at least 2 teeth in the material at all times. 1/8" wood, #3 and #5. If you want to break stock down quickly a #7 will rip through it super fast. Reverse tooth blades will leave a better finish on underside. I like #3 and #5 for the 1/4" poplar i use most often. Crown tooth blades can be flipped over to use the unused end if they don't break. Lexon/plastic - this will all cut like wood. Slow blade speed to avoid heat, melting, dulling blades quickly, etc. Blade tension - personal preference again. My Hegner recommends no more than 1 turn of adjuster bolt. Its about a 1mm thread pitch. Exotic wood - look up safety precautions for what you are cutting. some woods the dust can make you very sick. Speed - personal preference and material. some materials want a fast blade, others want a slow one. It will also depend on blade choice. Start slow and speed up if it seems like you can. cut stroke - scroll saws cut on the down stroke. blades with a few reverse teeth at the bottom are available to help with tear out/fuzzies on the bottom of your work. vibrations will almost always, in my experience, be from an inadequate support for the saw. I hope that helps some. Its really going to be a lot of loose guides and then your personal preference for work flow/process. Take notes on blade size, tooth count, type, brand, saw speed, and material and how things did/did not work. After a few projects you will have enough info to make good decisions for your setup.

Regarding the fine dust making it through the collection system - one could exhaust the blower air out an exhaust vent or window. A dryer flex pipe and one of those window adapters for portable air conditioners would do the trick.

Ask around church, work, school, etc. for old phone cords. We kept EVERY USB cable for EVERYTHING. Its been a great resource for miscellaneous repairs and lost cords. I'm sure others have a junk drawer or similar with those cords. I bet you can get lots for little to nothing by asking around.

$80?? He stole it!! I got mine for $400 from a pawn shop. IIRC, its a 1996 model. Runs great, does everything it should. The parts from Advanced Machinery still fit just fine. Hope he has fun with it!

So somewhere I did bad math. to get the 15,000psi a bandsaw would like, we have the equivalent of 6.72lbs on the blade, and a stretch of .002586” over the 5” blade. my hegner 22” saw has a tension rod with 1 thread per mm; one rotation changes its length by 1mm. The back portion of the arm is 19cm and the front is 40.3cm. That gives a mechanical advantage of 2.12; so 1mm of shortening the tension rod is 2.12mm of stretch on the blade. 2.12mm is .0835”. This is the max Hegner recommends. 1 turn of the adjuster yields 484,300psi for a pull of 216.917lbs 1/2 turn yields 241,860psi for a pull of 108.35lbs all based on an Olson #3 crown tooth. those little blades are really under a lot of load! It’s no wonder the blades break. so that’s it. Curiosity is satisfied

This really has me super curious now. It’s something I’ve wondered for quite some time too. I’m 3 hours from home this weekend, but when I get back I may measure the thread pitch of my tension rod and the lengths of the levers involved and see what I can figure out.

If it hasn't already been mentioned, different blade thicknesses will produce different tones at the same tension. So, let's do math! (blade stretch/distance) x young's modulus = tension in psi x/5" x 29000000 = 15000psi young's modulus for steel is 29000000, bandsaw blades are good for 15000psi, so a good stand in for us x = .0026" of stretch over 5" of blade or .00052" per inch of blade psi x area = tension in pounds 15000 x (.032" x .014") = .000448lbs or .007168oz .032 x .014 is an Olson crown tooth #3 More importantly, 1500psi is consistent from blade to blade, so stretch can be found easily. We also can work out how much stretch we give the blade via the thread pitch of the adjusting screw and the lever arm. So things could be dialed in exact. Or, as Hegner recommends, somewhere between 1/2 and 1 turn after the slack is out. Then account for user preference and people who do not have 'perfect pitch'. Basically, don't go farm tight; just a light finger tight.

A silicone basting brush from the dollar store works great for spreading glue too. When the glue sets it doesn't stick to the silicone - it just peels/pulls off; and for $1.25 they are cheap enough to be expendable.

This is the very thing I am most afraid of happening. One must always try to see the good in such things - be it practice or learning new techniques. Condolences on the loss; it looked to be a fine piece.

I've got 4 casters mounted to the bottom of my stand. It rolls wonderfully, and when I want it 'parked' I stand a 2x4 on edge in the middle of the back. It lifts the stand just enough to not roll and gives an extra wee bit of table tilt toward me.

I've sleep apnea, likely for longer than the 9 years i've had a CPAP machine. I don't think it works as well as it could, but I definitely know when I don't use it OR the power goes out - forced air suddenly stops and now you breathe through a small partially blocked hose. Aside from short naps on the couch I have to have that machine. If there is better I would be willing to try it; but the VA has not said anything about alternatives aside from I need to lose weight. Should you try the Inspire device please let us know the outcome. Thanks!

Aside from the standing for hours, her saw setup gives her great ergonomics. She looks nearly straight down on the blade, its good hand height, and standing forces a proper back position. Just that standing thing. But I suppose proper shoes and a mat and you are money. The work is amazing so it must work; right?

I have an Ottlite, not sure if it is LED or not though. I would like an LED one as the light seems to be brighter and more directed; at least to me anyway. If you watch the sale ads JoAnne Fabrics every now and again will have Ottlite marked down 50% off. Sometimes there is a coupon in the app. Sometimes it all stacks. Thats how I got mine.

I figured out how to change my phone to save jpeg's last night. Thanks for the help!

How did you change the format? A separate app? I would have changed them if I knew how. Apple changed the file type and that’s given me troubles. I feel this computer stuff is losing me; and that’s kind of ironic as I work with microwave radios that are quite high-tech. Anyway, thanks for the assist.

this is my dust collector. a 1/2 gallon jar with a Dust Deputy on top. the vac motor is a household central vac motor/blower assembly. I rtv'd a 1 1/2" pvc couple to the suck side and built a manifold to hook it all up. its powered from a treadmill speed control i scavanged, you can just see it on the side above the motor. theres also a choke coil to help with any noise the motor may generate, but I don't think it does much. the vac is an ac/dc type motor so it works great with the treadmill controller as that puts out a max of 90VDC. At full power this thing will SUCK. I have a potentiometer installed to adjust speed, and a push button to trick the controller into thinking the motor is set to zero so i can leave the suck power where i want it. it took quite a while to assemble the collector as a few of the parts are scavenged and others just required a lot of luck to find. its quiet, but not super quiet so i have just gotten a 90cfm blower motor from a furnace. i'm not sure it sucks hard enough to work yet, but if testing shows it does it will be quite quiet. If all else fails I will figure out how to get the current collector outside and just turn the suck up to compensate for the extra length of piping. IMG_5497.HEIC IMG_5496.HEIC

this is the 'cup' i use under the table and lower arm to help catch the dust. its a 3/4" to 1 1/2" T with a plug in one 1 1/2" opening. i hot glued the Loc-Line into the 3/4" hole. its holding very well. IMG_5495.HEIC

sorry for the wait - i forgot i was to do this. please ignore the mess in the background. IMG_5493.HEIC IMG_5494.HEIC the manifold is pretty standard. 3/4" pvc, i made cuts in the ends to loosen them up some, but then had to shim them tight again with paper. it will be a pain, but put only 1 cut in, not two. 3/4" Loc-Line for the flex pipes.

My Hegner setup is very similar, but I took that black thing off the front to make a bit more space under the table. I also use a 3/4" to 2" T connector with a plug in one end. I've hot glued my Loc Line into the 3/4" end and can position it under the saw arms. It seems to work a bit better with the larger cup to catch the dust as it falls. I wish I had pics, but I'm at work and no access to my saw for another 6hrs. I've also plans to completely rebuild my dust extraction system.

If you watch closely a lot of HF tools have multiple part numbers for the same tool; usually with no difference or very subtle differences. Its quite likely they spec a tool and whatever outfit can build it to spec most cheaply for a particular run gets the contract.

I've seen some very ingenious DIY designs for air filtration on YouTube. Lots of people are building housings to mount multiple filters (as highly rated as you like) that filter gobs of air. A HEPA filter on a high-quality box fan hanging from the ceiling above a scroll saw might be a cheap and effective way to control that dust.

The motor in the MetroVac and in whole home vacs are brushed motors; that is they have small carbon blocks that ride a commutator to switch the magnetic field and make the motor spin. Turning a motor on and off often doesn't really hurt the motor itself as its just a lot of wire wound in loops. However, those brushes... If the commutator isn't perfect smooth or their springs are weak they will bounce a bit and they will arc causing accelerated wear. The inrush current at startup could cause additional wear too. Fortunately they are replaceable and not very expensive.

Tallbald, when you neck the piping down you increase the resistance to air flow, which causes less air flow through the vac impeller/basket. Less air means less work for the motor, so it will actually spin faster and draw less current. Matthias Wandel and a few others on YouTube have good vids of homebuilt vacs and discuss this. It is totally counter intuitive. My scrollsaw dust management at the moment is a central vac motor driven from a treadmill controller. I can spin it as light or hard as I want, up to 90 VDC. The motor and controller are mounted to a small cart with a dust deputy and a 1/2 gallon jar. Its quiet, but my family says it could be quieter. So I am working on a 'new' solution. I found an oil furnace at the dump this summer and salvaged the fire box blower motor and housing. I've got it mostly cleaned up, but dropped the motor and it landed on the fan basket and bent it all up, so it needs replaced. This fan will run from an induction type motor so dead quiet, just like your HVAC system! It will only be single speed, but quiet is the goal and it should be.