FDPiper

Occasionally we have children visit our home. We like to have things for them to play with and make their visit fun. I keep a box of building blocks made from scrap 2x4's (they are such a big hit & a favorite with the kids), a small home made cradle and a doll my daughter helped me pick our that is young child safe, lots of Fisher Price, and games and puzzles. Some of the toys are just imagination toys from my scrap wood bin. little wood cars, airplanes, turned tops, etc. These are a couple I made one morning when I was feeling lazy and had a hard time being productive.

Thank you Puzzleguy! Take off the sheet and use that guy. Mine is an early model believed to be pre-WWII. belt drive, no guards, just an open belt. The motor is dated 1935 or 1937. I took them to a motor shop, they were put under load, and passed. The motor guy told me those old motors will last longer than if I replaced them today with new ones. I have some old scroll saw blades, and yes, they are longer than what I find in stores. Thank you for telling me about the blade length. I also saw that I could cut band saw blades and grind off the set teeth at both ends to make my own blades. I have not tried that yet, but may. The instruction manual I found specified "light winter-grade automobile oil or Finol to within 1/8 inch of the lower end of the oil cup SP-2476." The crankcase capacity is 1-1/4 pints. based on that, I used non-detergent 10W oil. It seems to be running okay. While I did not measure when I filled the crankcase, it did take a lot of oil, almost a quart as I recall. Thanks, and I am looking forward to being part of the group.

Thank you Foxfold from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, UK . I have almost been in your home town. When working I had the opportunity to do work in the UK. two of the towns I visited were Hull and Leeds. It appears that you are not too far from those cities. Cheers!

Thanks LarryEA. I live in the southeast not far from Philadelphia. I got the machine over 20 years ago and began to take it apart to restore/refurbish it. What I found was that I mainly cleaned it up, changed the oil in the reservoir, changed the main gasket, set it back up. During this process, I had questions so I called Delta and was transferred to a fellow in the parts department. When I explained the machine and what I was doing, he said I called just in time. One of his coworkers was retiring "next week" after over 40 years of service and knew those machines inside out. He was right! This fellow started asking about the machine starting with newer components and working back through the years. He started with was the light shade plastic or metal, was the compressor plastic or metal, and worked his way into the machine asking if the fiber reciprocator was round or square. Then if it had a belt guard, etc. He explained the machine was from pre-WWII design based on what it had. He explained that when we went to war, civil production ceased and war production began. During WWII the machine was not built. When the war was over, the old plans were pulled out of the drawer and production restarted. Then, modifications were made to update the machine beginning in about 1947 era. Also, based on my Uncle being over 80 now, and he remembers the machine in his father's basement shop as a very young child, the saw was probably there during the war. There was no television when my Uncle grew up, so every evening they went down into the shop to make projects and build wooden models. So, after that long story, I want to say there was at least one very helpful employee at Delta. I appreciated the time he spent with me and the oral history of the machine that he gave me.

Hi, my name is Walt. I do very basic stuff, mostly cutouts for the kids or as part of another project I am working on and need to make a few cuts. I have an older pre-WWII Delta 40-440 rigid arm machine. The machine was my wife’s uncle’s father’s machine. He died in 1964 and the machine sat unused in the basement until I bought it almost 40 years later when our Uncle cleaned out his mother’s house. I restored the machine with advise from a Delta employee who knew them well and it is working really well. I need to better get the hang of scrolling. Looking forward to learning a lot from all you experts! Open to any tips and tricks on using this old machine. Now that I am retired, I have been doing a lot to renovate our house and get it back in shape and am running out of rooms to gut and redo. Beginning to tackle the last big job now and once that is done, I am looking for more fun things to do in the shop! Despite having a shop full of power tools, I have been restoring old hand planes, chisels, hand saws and other tools and getting back into hand joinery. I will be building a wood fret bow saw to try my hand at some hand scrolling, too. A photo of some cutouts I made for some young friends to decorate for Halloween, and their wonderful job completing them. plus my little scroll saw shop buddy. Thanks.