Once upon a time, a little girl (65 years old) ordered a new Excalibur-21 scroll saw. It arrived last week and it's been quite an adventure getting things ready to cut. It's all going to work out, just a lot of work to get there. I thought all there was to do was take the DeWalt off the desk and replace it with the new saw. Not so! It's a different height and shape than the old one, so my custom designed dust control system had to be re-worked. Also, more vibration that I was used to, so I bolted it to the desk....that made things much worse. This desk in 6 feet on each side, built into a corner. Made of 2X6's with plywood over the top to make it all smooth. Love my desk! The larger saw goes in the corner, and the Ex-16 on the right end.
This desk is bolted to a plywood floor - in the garage - so it stays warmer for me to work. Unfortunately, the stringers for the floor aren't bolted into the concrete, so it sort of turned it into a trampoline! Next step was trying to put the saw on it's stand to see if that would isolate the motion. The inside corner of my wonderful desk now needed to be cut out so the stand would slide back into place. Next problem was the height of the stand....it adjusts from what they call normal chair height to full standing height. Maybe you can sit and saw if you're 6 feet tall, but at short of 5' 4", it was WAY to high. Next fun step was to cut 4 holes in the floor and drop it down right on the concrete. But that was 5", so now too short! Actually it wasn't bad as far as cutting, but my knees hit right on the cross bar of the stand. SO, next step, tomorrow when I get up the nerve to ask Hubby for help - AGAIN - is to pull it out of the holes and raise the stand to the next holes, which will be 2" and should be just great.
The saw itself is working out fine. Some of the concerns I had with the Ex-16 was the slow speed, and this one is faster...1550 SPM instead of 1400. Also, the table of the smaller saw has several spots around the edges that were high and the wood would drag on them. The new table seems to be nice and flat. The vibration is much better. Actually if I put my hand on the table, I don't feel hardly anything, but while sawing, it's like maybe there's more of a pulling up motion of the blade, making it so I have to hold the workpiece down harder. Noticed that with the smaller one also, so maybe something about the angle of the blade.
Anyway, soon everything will be back to normal, and the little girl can live happily ever after.
