Of scrollsaws, jigsaws, ducks and going in circles.
Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:06 pm
For my kind of woodworking I find the the SS bandsaw and older SS "jigsaw" serve my fairly simple needs for curved cutting both common and stuff requiring piercing cuts. I have owned a number of other "jigsaw / scrollsaw"s mostly with crappy or failing (with parts made of unobtainium) blade chucks. I think I got rid of the last one of those now that I had stuck back. (see, I really do get rid of some stuff 
)
Some years ago my wife expressed an interest in maybe doing a little bit of scroll-sawing. The SS scrollsaw is highly spoken of but have observed over time that sentences usually contain too many $$$$'s for my needs. I didn't want to put a lot of money in the possibility of her losing interest in 20 minutes but she seldom does that. I also didn't want her to get frustrated by having to "tinker" with my old crap that too often requires tinkering with. One day I ran across a Tradesman scrollsaw at Menard's and kind of liked it. It has soft start, easy blade changing and general operation. It was pretty reasonable so I bought it. I later found that it was the same as Hitachi, and generally Craftsman and several others.
She did putter a little at it but some of my old shops were not super "beginner friendly". I thought with this basement shop coming together SLOOOOOOWLY that she might like to do some more in it (heated, air conditioned and pretty well lit with a low population of spiders). I've used that scrollsaw now and then but not often. One thing I don't really care for is the hold-down on this saw. Just wondering if anyone is aware of a "whiz-bang" scrollsaw hold-down foot that I might get to convert to my Tradesman. Such conversions should be pretty simple, the existing hold-down is made on a simple vertical post up through a hole with a thumbscrew...
.
)Some years ago my wife expressed an interest in maybe doing a little bit of scroll-sawing. The SS scrollsaw is highly spoken of but have observed over time that sentences usually contain too many $$$$'s for my needs. I didn't want to put a lot of money in the possibility of her losing interest in 20 minutes but she seldom does that. I also didn't want her to get frustrated by having to "tinker" with my old crap that too often requires tinkering with. One day I ran across a Tradesman scrollsaw at Menard's and kind of liked it. It has soft start, easy blade changing and general operation. It was pretty reasonable so I bought it. I later found that it was the same as Hitachi, and generally Craftsman and several others.
She did putter a little at it but some of my old shops were not super "beginner friendly". I thought with this basement shop coming together SLOOOOOOWLY that she might like to do some more in it (heated, air conditioned and pretty well lit with a low population of spiders). I've used that scrollsaw now and then but not often. One thing I don't really care for is the hold-down on this saw. Just wondering if anyone is aware of a "whiz-bang" scrollsaw hold-down foot that I might get to convert to my Tradesman. Such conversions should be pretty simple, the existing hold-down is made on a simple vertical post up through a hole with a thumbscrew...
.