rash_powder

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.

Made ornaments for friends and relatives again this year. this is a Steve Good pattern that didn’t show up on his site but a web search gets it. 20 ornaments. A keen eye will see two are reversed from the rest, as well as a few missed detail cuts on a few. Nothing anyone can notice unless they are side by side; I’ve just got to work on double checking parts before the Final Cut.

I'm not sure if MetroVac says this in their instructions, but those vac motors have carbon brushes in them and they do wear out. I can't imagine they are more than $20 a set and not terrible difficult to replace once the motor is exposed.

I didn't see a post addressing the shape of the stand. Rectangle or parallelogram does not matter. Its just how you want it to match your saw's foot print. Rectangle is much easier. 3 legs are naturally self leveling, 4 aren't quite as tippy when moving. If you have an absolute dead level floor 4 legs would be fine; if not use 3. 4 legs will rock somewhere between slightly and a lot. My four castor stand turns into a 3 leg stand by wedging a piece of 2x4 under the front or back; super simple fix. I would add that when building your stand consider the weight and rigidity of it. By their nature, scroll saws oscillate rapidly up and down and its surprising what that small weight moving up and down will bounce around. Hegner advises bolting the stand to a concrete floor! Make it heavy and you will be fine. Also keep in mind that all that up and down motion will make things flex like a leaf spring. This causes all sorts of weird amplifications and deadenings of the vibrations your saw makes. I haven't any picks of my stand, but the top is 2x4'x laminated together; about 16"x24". The cabinet beneath is framed from 2x4 and skinned in 1/4" ply. Not terrible fancy, but its heavy, doesn't flex, and it works.

Weight and flex in your stand are the two things I have found that are critical to keeping the saw running smooth. The first stand I built flexed, though you couldn't see it. This caused the saw to have spots where it ran glass smooth and others that were unbearably rough. Increasing the weight on the stand helped some, but the flex remained. The new bench is 2x4's laminated together and bolted to a cabinet that is framed from 2x4's. It is HEAVY, and I don't think anything will ever cause the laminated 2x4s to flex. My saw now runs smooth at all speeds. If no one has mentioned it, one huge tip is to have 3 points on the floor. 3 legs/feet naturally find level on their own. Unless your floor is laser flat 4 legs will always have a wee bit of wobble. My stand has 4 casters, but I prop the back up on a 2x4 stood on edge. 4 legs to 3. Dead solid and the little bit of extra angle is nice (my saw is already angled but the extra was a nice bonus).

I have a 16" Craftsman scrollsaw from 10ish years ago. Its what I started out with; and I have to say that for the things I have been cutting it worked quite well. I currently use my Hegner for all my work, but the Craftsman would absolutely do it just as well as the Hegner. Personally, I believe that using the lesser quality tools isn't a bad thing. You learn to work around and accomodate their inadequacies, which when you get better equipment makes your work that much easier and better since you have learned 'tricks'. I also must add that on account of I cannot afford higher-end modern tools I use a lot of 'classic' tools, like braces and bench planes. Tinkering and fiddling is a necessity with this older stuff and I enjoy it so it all works for me. I've had to replace the brushes on the Craftsman motor as the originals were not installed correctly; and the speed control potentiometer on the Hegner as it had gotten dirty internally. Everything will need maintenance. Regardless of which of those saws you choose they will serve you well. Have fun!

So sometime in the last day I remembered that I cut 2 wall decorations from 1/2" poplar stacked last Christmas. A #3 or #5 was used, I don't recall. Now I know I've done it, I just need to do it again. But more. Thanks again!

I hadn’t considered drill bit length. I don’t trust the square of my drill press for anything this small so I use a dremel with a plunge base. It spins those wee little bits plenty fast. It is sounding like a #1 is the winner. I will find some and give them a go. Thanks all! Just for a size idea, the ornaments come 6 to a 8.5x11 paper. I printed them on 11x17 paper with the ‘fit to paper’ option. They are about the size of my hand - I wear an xl glove - 6’ and a 2x shirt. If that helps.

I purchased some filigree ornament patterns from Sheila Landry Designs and would like to stack cut them to try and get a better bang for my time. her instructions recommend a #2 blade, but I have to enlarge them slightly and am not sure that a 2 will cut 2 or 3 layers of 1/4” poplar. My go to blade for ornaments last year was a 5, Pegas MG I believe. I really need to keep notes. Those ornaments were all single 1/4” poplar. These are going to be the most detailed projects I’ve ever done. I’d like to hopefully start off without struggling for blade choice. thanks!!

A rack is a phenomenal idea! I just drove nails every couple inches right above the trim on the inside and outside of our doors on the upstairs floor of the house. Each door can dry about a dozen and a half Christmas ornaments. You just have to duck to get in and out. I’ve actually been thinking on a spray booth. A cardboard box with a small fan and a furnace filter to vent indoors or a small duct to vent outdoors. That has evolved into a medium sized plywood box that is collapsable with a furnace filter and a duct to vent outdoors. I’ve just to build it.

I've not tried this, but I think it would help get to a good start for a pattern. Lay the piece on a copy machine and photo copy it. Like i said, it should work as a crude start.

As mentioned it is likely the rheostat. Sometimes they get a bad spot in them from being used in the same spot always. Turning it back and forth sometimes help, but it will likely need blown/cleaned out or replaced. Digikey is a good place to source parts like that.

I think you may need a small spray booth. A cardboard box would work, I would opt for a small crate if one could be sourced. A filter and a fan in the top/side/back/bottom to control overspray and its done. Nearly everything could be sourced from a junk pile or spring cleanup week if desired.