De Walt 788 - Gloat Warning!

[Gill]

A local wood turner is retiring and selling his workshop. In amongst his tools were two that hadn't seen much action but which I found attractive. One was a router lathe which has found its way to my workshop; the other was a De Walt 788 scroll saw .

I haven't had an opportunity yet to give it a serious work-out, but the fast blade changing, lack of noise and minimal vibration are pretty impressive at first sight. I can understand why these saws are so popular in America.

Gill

 

[Alf]

Collector... :wink:

Cheers, Alf

P.S. Really like Tom Paine btw

 

[Gill]

Collector... :wink:

Unashamedly guilty as charged! And I don't mind who jeers coz at the end of the day I can console myself by looking over my serried ranks of saws . Heck, I might even use one to make something.

Really like Tom Paine btw

Thanks Alf.

Gill

 

[StevieB]

Dang! That really is a good find, congratulations Gill!

Steve.

 

[CHJ]

:mrgreen:

 

[Anonymous]

Nice find Gill and welcome to the DeWalt 788 club !

I'm glad you can now see first-hand why I love my 788 so much.
It will be interesting to see if like me, you end up using it as your main saw.

Alan

 

[Gill]

So far so good, Alan . I can see why you like the Yellow Peril; it's as good as anything else I've tried and has significantly less vibration than all of them. Mind, with its weight it ought to have less vibration.

I have one quibble - the upper arm is a pain in the proverbial when you're doing piercing work. Give me a Hegner instead any time. You have to physically lift the DeWalt's arm and hold it while you try to inveigle the blade into the pre-drilled pilot hole. I'd much rather have an arm which automatically lifts out of the way, as with the Hegner and Diamond.

Gill

 

[Carter Johnson]

Congratulations, Gil...

My DeWalt has cut over 300,000 puzzle pieces and is still going strong!

Carter

 

[Anonymous]

So far so good, Alan . I can see why you like the Yellow Peril; it's as good as anything else I've tried and has significantly less vibration than all of them. Mind, with its weight it ought to have less vibration.

I have one quibble - the upper arm is a pain in the proverbial when you're doing piercing work. Give me a Hegner instead any time. You have to physically lift the DeWalt's arm and hold it while you try to inveigle the blade into the pre-drilled pilot hole. I'd much rather have an arm which automatically lifts out of the way, as with the Hegner and Diamond.

Gill

The minimal vibration is due to the design (and weight) of the arm movement which is far less than conventional saws. Less mass moving= less to vibrate.
What little vibration remains is easily absorbed by the heavy table and machine in general.

There are a few commercially available arm lifts for the 788 and also many home-made ones well documented on the net.
However, I didn't want the arm to lift fully up as that means you have to pull the thing fully down again ! This in itself isn't a problem but it is time wasting when many inside cuts are being made.
My own workaround was about as simple as you can get......tighten the pivot bolt up just enough to make the arm stay where you put it and voila !
I've arrowed the bolt to tighten in the pic below......

 

[Gill]

Apologies, Alan - somehow I overlooked your last post . I'll certainly have a fiddle with that bolt... when I've stopped fiddling with this:

A Hegner SEV (cast iron table) plus stand. It retails new for £780 and the one I snapped up on the 'bay is in practically brand new condition. If it had been used much, I'm sure the vendor would have worked out that the blade should be fitted so the teeth point down! There's no wonder he said the saw doesn't produce much breakout on the underside :roll: :lol: .

It was a case of seeing the saw for sale, submitting a silly bid for the sheer hell of it, then wondering why nobody else put in a realistic bid. I'm glad they didn't, though; this saw is a really beautiful heavyweight . It's got the least vibration of any scroll saw I've ever encountered.

Gill

 

[CHJ]

:mrgreen:
Methinks it must be getting awfully crowded in that there shed.

 

[Taffy Turner]

:mrgreen:
Methinks it must be getting awfully crowded in that there shed.

Gill's next gloat will be along the lines of "look at this enormous shed I picked up on ebay to house my saw collection!!!". :roll:

Taffy

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Gill

At least somebody has the guts to admit that they are a c*****tor. :lol: :lol:

It looks as though you've done very well.

Enjoy,
Neil

 

[Gill]

I'm thinking of forming a scroll saw collector's self-help group, but I fear my case might be hopeless :lol: .

His Lordship has already agreed that I should move some of my wood out of the workshop into the spare bedroom (result! ) which should clear some space. However, in the long term he has plans to create a dedicated room for my scroll saws at the side of the house.

Right now I'm testing my latest acquisition in the shell of a room we laughably call the kitchen. It's the comfortable way to do woodwork 8) .

Gill