Nick, You absolutely don't want an old Delta or Rockwell scroll saw. Those old saws have the spring to pull up the blade. Think about it. If you have a mechanism that pushes and pulls the blade up and down from only the bottom, and you bind the blade in the cut, what happens? I'll tell you. The mechanism under the table pushes the blade up anyway, and it buckles and breaks. You will go through many saw blades because of this.
It wasn't until the new design scroll saws came on the market, that you could use smaller blades and they would last, usually until they were too dull to cut any more, and if you keep cutting with a dull blade, you will be pushing the work hard into the blade. It will get hot, loose it's temper, and break. With the new design saws that both pulled the blade down, and also pulled the blade up, saw blades don't break easily any more, and it's possible to use smaller and smaller blades in these new design scroll saws, which then brought on the pin less blades, so smaller start holes can be drilled to allow even finer work. Blades with pins are huge when compared with what I regularly use now. I'm useing mostly a #1R skip tooth. The R version has backwards teeth on the bottom 1" of the blade to reduce splintering of the back of the work as the blade exits.
There are people who cut nickels, dimes, and quarters, leaving the outer edge and the buffalo, face, etc. in the middle to make unique jewelry.
My most used scroll saw is a DeWalt 788 Type 1. It was made in Canada. The type 2 was made in Taiwan. I believe the type 3 is being made in Mexico. The type 1's are highly sought after, because they were more precisely made and assembled. I believe that the very early type 2 had several early manufacturing problems that got them a bad reputation, because I've used some newer type 2 saws and found nothing wrong with them. I haven't yet seen a type 3, but it likely had some start-up problems with the new manufacturing line too.
The bearings that seem to wear the most are the larger bearings in the back of the saw. The motor has an offset shaft that functions like a crankshaft in a car. A kind-of connecting rod pushes and pulls on a rocker arm, and there are bearings on both ends of the connecting rod and smaller bearings on the rocker arm. These are the bearings that suffer the most wear. The top and bottom of the rocker arm pushes and pulls long rods that work the short stroke arms that move the blade. All of these pivot points have very tiny needle bearings, and the internal race of these bearings is actually a sleeve that the bearing pivots around. The sleeve has a bolt through it.
You need to study a DeWalt 788 and try using it to understand how it works, and why this saw design is so much better than those spring return blade mechanisms. Every quality scroll saw that has come out since about 2000 uses this same basic design. Excalibur invented it, then made the saw for DeWalt. The rest is history.
My other Scroll Saw is a Delta 40-650 Q3 scroll saw. It came out in 1997 and was a revelation over most of the other saws on the market. It both pushes and pulls the blade from both top and bottom, but the saw arms form kind-of a large "C" with the blade connected across the opening between the ends of the "C" This C frame pivots from the rear, so the saw blade kind-of rocks forward and backward as it goes up and down. For fast cutting this saw is way faster than the DeWalt 788, because this rocking motion makes the cutting more aggressive. Detailed fine cutting suffers as a result of this, so I use it when I have larger work without the fine details. It's a pretty good saw, but not so much when the smaller finer cutting is desired. The blade clamps tend to be finicky too.
The DeWalt blade clamps are so much easier to use than the ones on this Delta saw.
Shortly after Delta offered the 40-650, Delta and DeWalt merged. Then, not too long afterward, Delta was sold, but Delta kept the rights to make a saw very similar to the DeWalt saw, and they are selling their version today, cheaper than DeWalt is selling their version, but this new Delta company has had some major quality and CS problems, making many shy away from their products.
Now Jet, Pegus, Seyco, King, and several others are also making similar saws. All of these use the same style blade mechanisms that Excalibur came out with and built for DeWalt. I don't know the reliability of these saws, but all use the same style blade motion and control. To me, DeWalt is the lowest priced when not considering Delta, but for the price, Delta might be worth considering, if you don't have the money for one of the better brands.
Notice that I haven't said a thing about RBI saws. Some people like them. I don't. I'm a retired EE Automation Engineer, and the RBI saws look and feel like an experimental prototype to me. RBI no longer makes them and a company called Bushton now has the rights to them. I heard that this was a small company owned by a farmer, and when it's crop season, the saw business takes second place. I have never verified this, but it could have something to do with how slowly their product technology progresses.
I've said too much. Go to
www.scrollsawvillage.com for more.
Charley
