Bob63

Thank you John. Yes Charlie does some really good patterns. The Queen was a fine person indeed. I have lived in the UK for some 50 odd years now and have seen a lot of Prime Ministers and their governments come and go but she always seemed to be the steading force that kept the pendulum from swinging too far. I hope her son, after what must be the longest apprenticeship in history, carries on in the same fashion.

One I did a few years ago but seemed appropriate for today. A Charles Dearing pattern 16 x 18 inches.

Craftsmanship of superb quality. Thanks for sharing.

Hi Sparky - Nice to hear from someone else who prefers spirals over flats. Thanks for the suggestion - it will be on my things to try list.

Kev - Thanks for the answer for moving the back knob - I know that this may be an awkward way of doing it but if I want the extra tension lowering the arm slightly gives me and use the same blades all the time could I not set my machine up like this then re-adjust the blade back and forth movement on the motor ? Or would this just progress a problem further ?

Kev many thanks for your comment on tensioning and then re-tensioning I haven't tried this but will. Also I enjoyed your video always good to watch someone who knows what they are doing at work. Can I ask - as you have both the DeWalt and Excalibur - the DeWalt has an incremental tensioner 1 to 5 - do you always use the same tension on the machine regardless of which blades or work you are doing ? If you alter the tension as required on the De Walt what do you do on the Excalibur where the tensioner is only one position on or off ?

Grizz many thanks for your kind and informative message. May I please ask you - when you say don't move the back knob as it will put the machine out of adjustment can you please tell me what adjustments will go out of alignment ?

Thank you all for your kind assistance. I have been trying different things today including flattening the blades then getting the two flat ends in the same plane, cleaning ends with thinners as well as slightly sanding them. Sorry didn't get on to well with the chin thing. It doesn't seem that the blade is slipping but that after doing a pre-tension / pre- stretch whatever it is called although the blade will tension on and off and stay at the same tension, for me at least, the spiral blades need a bit more tension to go where I want them to and not want to wander. For someone with more experience the normal tension would probably be OK. The only way I found to get more tension with consistency may sound back to front and after reading the message from Grizz may be more wrong than I know. After normal tensioning the spiral blades do not need a lot of extra tensioning to make a big difference for me. What I tried today was to tension as normal then release tension and the top clamp and move the back knob one and a bit, of the finger notches, to the right - yes to the right opposite to the direction normally used to increase tension - then re-clamp the top clamp and re-tension. This lowered the top arm maybe 1/16" further down the blade and, with the lever giving the same tension movement on the top clamp, effectively increased the tension enough for me.

Hi NC, Yes I am only using spiral blades - FD New Spiral 2/0 and 1. Many thanks for the suggestion I will try flattening the blade ends - currently I sand them a little but they are not flat so blade slippage is a possibility.

Hi Don ; Sorry to hear your problem as well. My last saw in the UK, many years ago, was an old Diamond Fret Saw and I had no real control over blade back to front movement. It had long threaded blade clamps and by altering the lengths and also tensioning at the back there was some adjustment for blade back and forth movement but I could never say I could make accurate adjustments. These new saws , Excalibur, King, Seyco, Axminster seem to be all the same and are the only ones I have ever seen where one can adjust the blade back to front movement. I assume that they accomplish this with a motor which has its' shaft slightly offset and by rotating the motor mount it gives an eccentric movement to the arm mechanism. But I could be wrong. There may be other machines with these adjustments but I do not know of them.

First project wow - that was some daunting task - well done that man - superb job.

Hi Hotshot - Many thanks for that - I will try it. After re-reading my last reply to Scrappile I was thinking of doing the opposite of tensioning with the back knob - ie. with the blade unclamped turning the knob slightly to the right - lowering the arm a little - just don't know if that would affect the back to front blade movement. Will try you method - sounds safer.

Hi Scrappile I will try to clarify what I am attempting to say. Given you put a new blade in clamp it and tension it - it now has original tension - then without cutting you run the machine for 30 seconds - if you stop the machine the tension now will be less as the blade has stretched - you now release the tension and re-clamp the blade higher up on the blade to re-tension back and from now on you should be able to maintain this tension just by clamping and unclamping. However if you want more tension you can increase it by using the back knob which raises the upper arm. This will hold that increased tension until you release the lever and the clamp - now when you re-clamp it the arm remains higher and the blade has retracted because it has lost tension. The result is that the blade goes into the upper clamp at a lower position meaning that the distance between the upper and lower clamp has increased. As you are putting the same stretch via the lever but the blade is relatively longer the tension applied is less. Hope this is at least a bit clearer.

Hi Meflick Thank you for your reply. I have only had the Seyco since January but I really like it. I had never used spiral blades in the past but have been taken by portraits so decided I would try to only use spiral blades and spent three weeks playing and practicing with them. One great thing with the Seyco is the ability to virtually eliminate back to front movement on the blade - a blade which is not moving back and forth 1/8" or more is a lot easier to move sideways. I have only done two small patterns from books to date but can see persevering with spiral blades is the way to go for me. Only thing s that spiral blades, for me at least, require more tension and this saw, with the lever, only applies one fixed amount of tension - would be nice if the lever had two positions ( or a changeable lever with a different profile )

Hi Rocky - I have a Seyco 21