Hi From South Africa

[martynm]

Hi, my name is Martyn and I'm an alc.....  opps wrong forum again!

Anyway, brand new to scrolling after getting a very cheap saw to start and getting frustrated after about 10 minutes, I went and imported a DW788 from the US of A and bought a local step down transformer as we have 220VAC here not 120VAC.

I have made a few practice cuts with the DW and my last attempt turned out not half bad, even if I say so myself (OK so the wood was too small but that was all that was available)

I have already bought some nice FD blades from a Scrolling Star in the US and must say I am really impressed with them. What I don't understand is that I can buy any scrolling kit from the US for about half of what I pay here and that includes any shipping and taxes?

My fist problem with which I need a pointer to a link, is that I am having blade movement both side to side and front to back. I see from many posts that side to side is easily fixed by blade positioning but I am not too sure about the front to back? Advice would be helpful.

TTFN  Martyn

[wombatie]

Hi Martyn, welcome to the forum.  I'm Marg from Australia.  Sounds as if the addiction as kicked in good and strong.    Have you made sure that your blade is in tight.  Plus rub the ends of the blade with some sand paper, I also use rubbing alcohol to, it helps to remove the oil from the ends of the blades which causes them to slip.

Marg

[Tomsunnu]

Martyn, that does not look like a work of a newbie , Welcome, I am Mahendra from India. Marg has already answered your question. Come in and have fun

[Russ C]

Glad you found us. Hi I'm Russ from Florida. Welcome to the Scrollsaw Forum. There are people from all over the world here. 

[julief]

Hi Martyn and welcome to the forum.  I'm Julie from Texas.  Glad to have you.

[Al W]

Greetings from South Dakota, USA, Martyn.  Welcome to the madness and addiction.

[Intarsia92]

Welcome to the forum, I'm Al from Southern CA.  Glad to have you aboard.

[newfie]

welcome to the forum i'm Todd from NL Canada

[EIEIO]

Welcome to the site. There are a lot of good people here.

I guess you know you can adjust the side-to-side with the setscrews in the clamps.
For front to back movement, the DeWalt, Delta, and Excaliber saws use the parallel linkage with short end arms to reduce vibration:

On the EX-21 (my saw), the rocker arms pin-to-pin are 3.125". Upper clamp top position is 3.375", bottom is 2.625", so the rocker arms move from +6.9 deg to -6.9 deg. That moves the blade from closest to you (arm horizontal) to farthest from you (arm at top or bottom) by about 0.024". That is the minimum front to back you can expect to see.

Is that what you're seeing, or do you see the blade closest at a position other than when the rocker arm is horizontal? If so, the clamps may not be aligned top to bottom so the blade is not plumb. Make sure you don't have any obstruction in the either clamp that would stop the blade from being fully inserted before tightening. Note the RBI Hawk saws allow in/out positioning of the lower blade clamp to get a more aggressive bite from the saw. I don't think the DeWalt has such an adjustment.   
 

[countryscroller]

Welcome, I'm Dustin from Ohio, US. Glad to have you with us.

[chelcass]

Hi and Welcome Martyn, glad you are joining us.  I am ChelCass from the U.P. of Michigan.

[Keefie]

Hi Martyn, welcome to the forum, I'm Keith from Cornwall U.K.

[martynm]

Thank you all for the kind words and warm welcome.

I will look at the suggestions on how to fix the blades and report back at a later stage.

Just as a BTW, Keefie, I was born and raised in Plymouth UK, just across the Tamar from you, left there in '85 and moved to Sunny South Africa. Mum and older Sister still live there.

[martynm]

Thanks for the assistance with the alignment.

I have now aligned the blade both side to side and back to front.

The side t side issue was actually the yellow arms were not 100% vertically aligned. I presume this was during the transport from USA to South Africa, as the main body of the saw is laid on its side in the box.

I cut a piece of 3/4 pine into an intricate shape and if i lift the main piece of wood, the cut out falls out of both sides with equal ease.

Now let the sawdust begin.

[Marcellarius]

Hallo Martyn,

Welcome to the forum, I'm Marcel from the Netherlands.
don't know the SA rules on taxes so can't help on this one, but think you bought the best blades available

hope you enjoy it over here!