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Sunday, April 9, 2017

Finally got it off!

Most scroll saws arrive with a part that just about every experienced user removes as soon as possible--the "hold down clamp", which only serves to get in the way of effectively holding down the workpiece with firm finger pressure. Fortunately, this is always easy to remove.

The Jet scroll saw, however, arrived with an additional and unexpected part: an odd piece of metal attached to the underside of the saw table.  I'd never seen anything like this, and found that I had to work around it when inserting the  lower clamp into its holder.  I assumed the piece was a blade guard, but couldn't imagine anyone sticking their fingers under the saw table while the saw was running. Removing it seemed like the sensible thing to do.

My first efforts were not encouraging.  The piece was held on by two Phillip's head screws at its straight end, but there was so little room to work that I could not use my offset screwdriver.   I didn't want to take the table off, and since the piece didn't interfere with the cutting, decided to leave it on.  However, I read of someone's success with the offset screwdriver and decided to try again.

This time, I tilted the table fully to each side, which gave extra headroom for removing the screw on that side.  I alternated the offset with a small ratcheting screwdriver, and when I ran out of room as the screw started to come out, I removed the ratcheting bit and used a tiny wrench to turn it.

Took about an hour (!) but ultimately I prevailed.  Here's what the piece looks like when installed, and here's what I removed:




Now access to the lower clamp holder is much easier, and I think my fingers will be just as safe!

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