Top Feed Blade Ideas

[Larry_B]

Good day fellow scrollers.

Have a question that I've seen on these forums, but the theads are rather old.  My question is top feeding a blade on a Dewalt 788.  I've been scrolling for 6 years and have always bottom fed the blade.  I can do a blade change in 12 seconds.

However I've been toying with portraits and the larger sizes are crimping that routine. I need to learn to top feed the blade.  I've looked a videos and read remarks, but honestly I tried a few times this past week and I bet I fumbled for a couple minutes to get the blade into the bottom clap (without looking) and then on my Dewalt I find to get good tension I need to push the top arm down slightly when clamping the blade.  This move really requires three hands.

So is there any update on top feeding techniques for a Dewalt 788?  Pointers, modification to clamps, suggestions?

Thanks all.  I'm going to post this across several forums to get good coverage so I appologize in advance.

Larry

[don in brooklin on]

Steve did a video on top feeding with a laser.https://youtu.be/lV-6UdeU3VY

I usually bottom feed and do very few portrait type projects but I have a couple in mind so I built one too.  It cost me $10.50 CDN to buy laser and transformer from banggood.com.

I have it ready to go but have not used yet.

I have had problems in the past in getting the hole I am going to use lined up.  Ruined a few blades and scratched up the table a little so that is why I am going to try the laser on my next project.

Don

[Norm Fengstad]

I am generally a bottom feeder. I just finished Steve's pattern "so far you have survived.......", stack cutting 3 -1/4 pieces of Ash plywood. I used a spiral #1 for most of the letter cut-outs. the blade is fragile and bit brittle and I had problems to thread from the bottom up so I used top feed , the blade was much easier to insert into the entry hole and if I had it centered over the table hole properly the blade would line up with the bottom clamp. Now it took some patience to clamp from the bottom but with a conscious effort I learned to feel my way and in time it became easier. After clamping I discovered that tension applied would line upper, lower and entry hole but the blade was often to loose so I developed the technique to tension, release and then re-tension would relieve this problem. I think I could eventually become adept at both methods.

There is over a 100 entry holes in this project so the biggest issue for me is to maintain concentration on what I am doing rather allow the mind to drift to something else. Maybe I took a little longer to complete the plaque but I am well pleased with the outcome.

[fatboyaus]

Made the laser from Steve Video, works fantastically. I made some minor adjustments, I used an old arm from a light mirror and mounted the laser on it -I have limited floor space