Thread: finetuning excalibur sroll saw

Hi folks,
I joined the forum a little time ago when I started looking for a scroll saw. As a beginner I wanted to find out how to do things with the scroll saw and look at some projects.

My first step was to inquire whether there were any available for around the $500 mark here in Australia and that could be recommended.
Sadly, when I contacted some stores for information, the request apparently was not considered important as I received no replies.

In the end, at the urging of my daughter, I decided to buy an excalibur 21" scroll saw at $995.

I found it a beautifully made unit. I liked the concept of tilting the head rather than the table.
However, I found that when I turned the speed up there was quite a lot of vibration.
Little problems with vibration at the lower to middle range, but above that it was pretty considerable.
I am assuming that with such a well made saw, it may just require some minor tuning and I ask if there is anyone in the forum who has had experience with fine tuning an excalibur scroll saw or could advise where I can get good detailed information.
There is very little information in the manual.
While I am willing to agree that some of the problem may be me, as a beginner, but would argue that the only vibration from me that could be attributed to the problem would be frustration.
I completed my first scroll saw project. It was a 1/6 scale rocking chair with a lot of fretwork in it. It was well admired by family and friends, but I was critical and looked for the faults and problems to see how I could improve. However, I can say that there is no doubt I learnt a lot from that exercise.
One thing I learnt was when making tight turns, not to dilly dally but to get into it.
The second was that when making a tight turn, tend to turn on the back of the blade. I found that if you did not, then it was easy to creep forward and cut where you don't want to. Am I correct in that assumption?

I also found that scrolling plywood there was some breakout on the bottom when you were cutting small narrow pieces. I was thinking that if I painted the bottom of the ply with some thinned estapol wood finishing stain that might tighten and bind the wood fibres up. would someone comment on that idea please.
regards
professori_au