scroll saw recommendation?

Hi guys...
I have jet 16" scroll saw which after a bit of heavy use started to fall apart... very disappointing...
I'm cutting 20mm thick pine so can't say I'm using hard material or such..
So what was happening is..
While using it.. table is slowly getting miss aligned.. as I'm cutting rings it becomes more and more obvious as suddenly outer ring will fit to the inner only one way and not the other.. while at start of cutting first few rings fitted nicely one into the other from both sides...
Then.. the screw holding the bottom end of the blade... such a pain.. it is allen key style but the hole on the side shield doesn't seem to go as far as the actual mechanism goes so lots of times you either have to start the saw again and hope it will stop high enough or try to push it up by hand... attacking it with allen key at the angle wears the screw head a lot so I can see that getting replaced soon..
the on switch started playing up in a way that once pressed on.. it actually doesn't want to stay on.. now not sure whether the motor was overheating due to pretty much 6 hours of almost continuous use or something more sinister is happening there
and the worse thing of all.. the screw attaching the motor to the actual saw started coming off... after 10 - 15 mins of cutting I have to re-tighten it. and in order to do so I had to take side shield off.. which has also fixed the issue of getting to the allen key screw to release blade

As you can see.. issues left right center.. At least now I know why it was so cheap... brand new for about $170..

Now I have fair bit of scroll saw work to do and I'm afraid this guy won't last long enough to complete the project..
what saw do you guys recommend??
I've been looking at the General scroll saw from Carbatec which looks exactly the same as .. now I can't find Excalibur anywhere anymore so I'm assuming that Excalibur was bought by someone else who renamed them as General. I've heard that the General is no longer as good as what it was before.. Or have I heard wrong...
Anyway... open for suggestions..
Thank you
Alen

Excalibur is going strong. Don't know if they are available in Australia, but when I do a search, I find them for sale on Amazon, Woodcraft, and others. Course shipping may make it cost prohibitive.

Well.. bit the bullet and bought 30" General (formerly known as Excalibur) scroll saw... Carbatec is currently having them on special..
Done about 14 vases on it so far..

Huge difference!!! Much quieter.. the fact that the whole arm lifts to make it extremely easy to pass the blade through the hole is a great bonus!!!

Additionally having a 30" monster is providing me with nice and wide table so no more balancing on a little plate......
And the tool less quick change ... :)

Still have to connect dusty to it.. and perhaps make stand for it... but at 1100mm length that will be a bit of a work... :)

I just bought an Excalibur a little over a week ago. I got the 21". Haven't got to spend a lot of time on it yet, but what i have has been enjoyable. I do a search on General scroll saws and get pictures of the Excalibur so they must be the same or very close.

I have been having a great time with my Excalibur....added a foot switch this week and works a treat. The only minor problem I am have is getting the blade to travel vertically. It might be a case of taking more time to get the blade vertical.....Otherwise it changes the position of the cutting point which is annoying.

Any suggestions on the easiest way........ is it just by eye or is there some adjustment on the Excalibur that lines up the Upper & Lower clamps.

Cheers
Skot

Hi skot
Mine came out nicely aligned... so i have no issue.. apparently the one I got is the latest model which has some improvement.. such as dust extractor at the bottom etc...
In preparation for the purchase of it, i've done some research and found following page for tuning, which might provide needed information for blade alignment
http://www.scrollsaws.com/SawReviews...ar_tune_up.htm

I hope it will be helpful
Alen

After reading that article & some other info I think I can adjust the position of the clamps by rotating the motor (it has that adjustment) and therefore the arms will move forward/backward.

I'll give it a try this weekend.

Prle77,
Thanks for that link, I did a bit of adjustment today and it worked a treat. My Excalibur seemed to be running "rough" and seem to be vibrating more than I had expected based on posts by other Excalibur owners together with the large oscillation of the blade from back to front. I turned the motor by about 1 1/2 slots (turned as far as it could go then moved the bolts to the other holes and turned it some more).

Not only has it removed most of the oscillation the machine runs much smoother and passes the 50c piece on it's edge test. The coin stayed upright right up until I got the speed to max.

I may even try a bit more adjustment next week to fine tune it further.

Hi Skot
Glad I was able to help...
I've been busy with mine last few weekends and it has been quite enjoyable experience so far..:2tsup:
Attachment 324596

Great Work.........Are they segmented ?

Hi Skot
nah.. they are made out of single piece of pine.. cut circles in zig-zag..then each circle is rotated a bit so it sits on top of the other...

Now I see what you've done....very clever...once a piece is "deconstructed" it all seems so clear