Thread: New Scroll saw

I have had a Ryobi scroll saw for some years, and had fitted it with WMS adapters for pinless blades. Whilst these adapters did work, I was for ever stripping the 4mm bolts, whilst trying to get sufficient clamping force to hold the finer blades. I was buying 4mm x 25mm socket head bolts, 24 at a time. Last week I broke a bolt off in the holder, and it proved all but impossible to remove. At this point I spat the dummy, and wandered off to Cabatec to see what was available.

I ended up buying a General 16", which was waaaaaayy\ more than I originally intended to pay. However, when I looked at the caba-tec 18" for $689, it had the same awful system for handling pinless blades as the el-cheapo Ryobi. Whereas the General is designed for pinless.

So having got it home, I have had the chance to have a go with it. Some of the lines are still in the wrong place, but (first time ever) I am actually cutting on the bulk of the lines. I had thought that the accuracy problems I was having was due to lack of hand/eye coordination. But it must have been the saw, for I can see that with a bit more practice, I will be getting all the cuts where they should be. This saw is chalk and cheese to the Ryobi, and is an absolute joy to use. My only negative, is that, at the price, I think it should have been fitted with a light. I have just ordered a selection of blades from Helen Hunt.

First scrolling on the new saw, is a try at intersecting wordart as per pawoods. Not even close to the quality of Peter's work, but far better that anything that I have previously done.

EDIT: sorry about the pic orientation, but I can't seem to get it to display correctly.