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Scroll saw or fret saw recommendations

Roger Pellett said:
From participating and closely following all of these tool debates here on SOS there appear to be two separate and distinct camps.

1. Those of us that have lots of space and who can disregard dirt and noise. Usually those living in houses with basements or separate outbuildings. We tend to prefer full sized tools driven by high voltage (110 or 220) motors. Some of us like Bob Cleek and me like older tools made when machined cast iron and steel was standard. We enjoy the simplicity of operation, their long term reliability, and ability to tackle large jobs.

2. Those living where space is a premium. Sometimes where ship modeling is done in the presence of other family members. In these cases dirt must be minimized and noise can’t be tolerated. For good reasons, the newer smaller and often low voltage machines appeal to this group. The Proxxon saw that someone posted above was an 18v machine.

So, each group has its own good reason for buying the tools that they do. Trying to convince someone living in an apartment to buy a large Delta jig saw is as pointless as trying to convince me to give up mine for an 18v Proxxon.

Roger
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Hi Roger

I posted the Proxxon. It isn't for small places, as suggested. Is as big and heavy as a Delta, just a little less bulky on its design. And does a fantastic job on this hobby. I never used the Delta, because I got the Proxxon. It was one or the other. So I can't compare by own experience. The negative part of the Proxxon tool and any other tool coming from EU are the new taxes (tariffs). In that case a Delta, due to quality, as explained, and final price, will be a better option. I paid my proxxon, ~4 years ago something around $400. It wasn't cheap at all.

Cheers
Daniel
PS: And does not jump or walk at all :-) . It is very heavy.
 
Desert Sails said:
I’m looking to upgrade some of my tools. I’m currently using a Delta scroll saw but it’s not very accurate. Short of buying a a Hegner what recommendations would you all have for an upgrade to my Delta for wooden ship modeling?
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For what it's worth I have a no name scroll saw that was not cutting as hoped until I went to a working with wood show and bought a range of blades from the guy who was the Hegner agent here in Australia.
The difference these blades made was unbelievable, so I would recommend trying some different blades.

Cheers,
Stephen.
 
Alex Bellinger said:
The knob tightening the drop foot tends to loosen with the vibration of the saw, but when tightened up, can make it difficult to move stock through the blade. This is further complicated because the throat plate is just slightly lower than the surface of the work table. Stock tends to get caught on the higher edge of the work table. The drop foot must then be loosened to proceed and hastily retightened once the stock is past the surface discrepancy. Makes accurate cuts sometimes a challenge.
Perhaps I should have bought a bandsaw instead.
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I could see where that would be frustrating. The DeWalt has no throat plate - only a small hole in the cast iron table through which the blade passes. There is no need for a throat plate because the center of rotation of the tilting table is right at the hole. I've already mentioned that there is no vibration - a nickel balances on its edge on the saw's table with the saw at full speed. As for the hold-down, it is the first thing that 99% of all scroll sawyers remove from their machines. It gets in the way of seeing your cut line and introduces drag on the workpiece. With the proper blade and technique, it is not needed.

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I don’t know if this is possible since I have never seen the saw but I sometimes replace control knobs, thumb screws, etc with socket headed cap screws that can be tightened with an Allen wrench. I did this with my bandsaw. I would also shim up the throat plate so that work does not catch. This can be as simple as gluing layers of paper to the backside.

None of this excuses shoddy workmanship by Rikon, but could help you to make this tool usable.

Roger
 
Stevedownunder said:
For what it's worth I have a no name scroll saw that was not cutting as hoped until I went to a working with wood show and bought a range of blades from the guy who was the Hegner agent here in Australia.
The difference these blades made was unbelievable, so I would recommend trying some different blades.

Cheers,
Stephen.
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Hello Stephen...what saw blade brand would you recommend for my Hegner?
 
Hi Manning16,
I can really only tell you of my experience.
The scroll saw blades that the Hegner guy sold me in Australia were PEBECO.

I don't have a lot of experience with these things but the other blades that I tried were Olson and they didn't work anywhere near as well as the PEBECO that is not to say there aren't any other blades on the market that are as good or better than the PEBECO but they work for me and I stopped looking once I got them.

Cheers,
Stephen.
 
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