A new blade clamp in town

Pegas has recently come out with set of blade clamps that fit the Excalibur (and clones), and also can be used with the Jet.

This means that Jet owners who are not happy with the all-in-one upper cam clamp can use a more conventional system.  It also means that you can now top-feed with the Jet.

Installation is fairly simple, provided your setscrews and bushings are not loaded with gunk, and the clamps appear to work as promised. Only time will tell how sturdy they are, and at about $90 they're not cheap, but they certainly open up possibilities for those attracted to this type of saw.

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!

Setting the cutting angle: a cautionary tale

Most scroll saws have tilting tables, but some have a stationary table and tilting arm.  Having used both designs, and having just ruined a project because the blade was cutting at the wrong angle, I decided to try to prevent someone else from repeating my mistake.

My problem arose because the blade was not perpendicular to the table at the zero setting on the saw's angle gauge.  If that's off, then the angle gauge will not be accurate.

On the Hegner, with a tilting table and blade clamps that don't use set screws, the blade is always perpendicular to the table at the zero setting.  However, because of the possibility of parallax when reading the gauge, I use an engineer's square to check for true vertical.  And, when dealing with fractions of angles, I use a Wixey digital angle gauge on the blade and table to double check.  It's tricky to hold the Wixey on the little blade, but possible.

On the Jet, the blade may not be perpendicular when the gauge says that it is because the top and bottom set screws of the clamps are positioned to create a slight tilt when the blade is clamped.  The usual fix is to move the upper set screws in the cam clamping mechanism in or out until the blade is vertical and to leave the bottom one alone.  I made the upper correction, but may have inadvertently changed to a different lower clamp, which resulted in the tilt being off since the lower clamp also uses a set screw.  The cut was off by over half a degree, enough to ruin the project.

Most of the time, small deviations don't matter, even with bowls, especially since I always increase the angle slightly to allow for a margin of error.  However, for double-bevel inlay or for collapsible baskets, half a degree can make a big difference.

The moral of my story:  be sure your blade is perpendicular to the table when the angle gauge reads zero.  If you get into the habit of checking this each time you begin your work, you'll save yourself a lot of time, grief, and wood.

Choosing a foot pedal

I had never used a foot pedal until I got my Hegner scroll saw, which came with one.  The pedal was small and thin, and very easy to use.  The only drawback was remembering to push it under the saw so that I didn't step on it unintentionally.

When I tried using the pedal that came with the Jet scroll saw, it felt like my foot was suspended in mid-air.  I know that this is a standard design, but for my size 7 foot, it was just too large and high.  It was easy enough to replace with the smaller one, since both types have provision for connecting a tool to the pedal.

Here's a picture that shows the size comparison for the two different types.  If you're in the market for a foot pedal, it would be a good idea to try out both types to see which is most comfortable for you to use.