New to scrolling - A couple of questions

[Anthraquinone]

My normal woodworking hobby is turning but I have just got my first scroll saw. While I do not mind experimenting myself I am also aware that asking advice can save a lot of time and sometimes pain.

1) My Hegner saw has a fitting for a vacuum to collect the dust. The manual mentions a "vacuum cleaner" which sounds like a household one. Are these suitable for continuous use say for up to an hour and is there a preferred make?? I have a Camvac for the lathe but that is large, noisy and overpowered for the saw.

2) I have a lot of birch ply between 4 and 30 mm thick but if I start with something like 12mm just to cut some simple shapes lets say letter for a name plate - what size of blade would you recommend and is running the saw fast better than slow. A quick play certainly seamed easier with the saw running quite fast.

I am sure I will have some more questions later but thanks for any answers to the above.

AQ

 

[Chippygeoff]

Hi. Glad to hear your have got yorself a good scroll saw. The fitting for the vacuum hose is pretty useless and most of us make up our own extraction system and the favourite vacuum is the Henry because it is about the quietest there is and will easily run for an hour without any problems. Make sure you keep the hose diameter the same with all fittings and this wille nsure you don't burn the motor out, as I did once by conecting the hose to the very small hose on the scroll saw.

I to cut a lot of birch faced plywood and my ideal blade is a number 5 reverse toothed blade, this will wasily cope with most thicknesses of plywood and still enable you to work in tight corners. I always opt for the faster speed but as a beginner it will pay you to go a bit slower until you get used to following the line on the plywood and then as your confidence and skill grow increase the speed. Always have good tension regardless of what you are cutting.

 

[Anthraquinone]

Thank you very much that was very useful. I will have a look at those vacs.

 

[Budwozza]

I use a George vac (Wet and Dry version of the Henry - its also a bit more powerful) - I tested a few different vacs from screwfix and as already said my George was the quietest and most powerful of the 3 or 4 that I tested. I have mine on a custom made dust extraction system that is very effective, and it also connected to a Master / Slave socket so it turns on / off with the saw.

 

[martinka]

Anyone got a working link to a master/slave plug/socket? All I can find is a 6 gang strip.

 

[NazNomad]

Would this do it? https://www.amazon.co.uk/OneClick-DSK10 ... ave+socket

 

[martinka]

Would this do it? https://www.amazon.co.uk/OneClick-DSK10 ... ave+socket

I'm not sure Naz, it's made for switching a PC and peripherals, and they do a different version for laptops, so I have to wonder if it can handle the Hegner and a vac. Still, I reckon it's cheap enough to give it a try. Thanks for the link.

 

[NazNomad]

Mine is a Masterplug about £15 from B&Q has about a 2 or 3 second delay on start up and the same on overrun.

... from auto-switch-for-dust-extractor-t54081.html

 

[NazNomad]

... and

Here you go, I use one of these with my sander. Works great, plus it has surge protection.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004 ... ge_o01_s00

(Currently unavailable on Amazon though)

 

[martinka]

Yeah, Gill gave me the link to the Amazon one some months back but they are no longer available. I looked in B&Q today but the only one they had was a 4 gang one for £20, which I would probably have gone for eventually if nothing else turned up. As it is, I ordered the one you gave me the link for.

Apologies for hijacking the thread.

 

[Anthraquinone]

No problem with hi-jacking my thread as I was going to ask your question at some time
AQ

 

[martinka]

I bought the Intelliplug from Amazon that Naz linked to. It does work OK, so far, but I have found out it is a discontinued model and was produced between 2006 and 2010. Obviously that's not a problem if it carries on working. I emailed the company and asked for the spec, but as they say there's no longer support for this model, they may not be able to supply the spec. We'll see.
Its intended use is for PC and peripherals, so there's a 5 second delay before the vac starts, which I suppose could be a problem if I have a lot of small internal cuts where each cut is finished before the vac starts. I'm thinking of cutting the recent Steve Good chopper motorbike pattern, which has around 50 internal cuts, so I'll report back on reliability when/if I finish it.

 

[Claymore]

Looking forward to the Bike project Martin, for starting my vacs and extractors in the workshop I use a remote control from Ebay at about £10 and works fine (starts instantly) I have seen multipacks of them at Aldi/Lidl in the past and you could plug all your kit in.
Cheers
Brian
ps Had a near miss today after fitting a new 8" grinding wheel in my bench grinder and just turned it on and dropped the bolt i was going to grind so switched off quickly........ as I bent down to pick the bolt up I notice a fine crack on the stone wheel so unbolted it and it fell into 3 pieces! the thought of it exploding while using it makes me very wary of them now, always wear a pair of goggles or better still a crash helmet lol

 

[linkshouse]

Looking forward to the Bike project Martin, for starting my vacs and extractors in the workshop I use a remote control from Ebay at about £10 and works fine (starts instantly) I have seen multipacks of them at Aldi/Lidl in the past and you could plug all your kit in.
Cheers
Brian
ps Had a near miss today after fitting a new 8" grinding wheel in my bench grinder and just turned it on and dropped the bolt i was going to grind so switched off quickly........ as I bent down to pick the bolt up I notice a fine crack on the stone wheel so unbolted it and it fell into 3 pieces! the thought of it exploding while using it makes me very wary of them now, always wear a pair of goggles or better still a crash helmet lol

My word Brian, that was a lucky near miss :shock:

It just underlines how dangerous our workshops can be...

The chap that showed us how to change grinding wheels when I was an apprentice said to always stand to one side when spinning up a newly fitted wheel and let it run for a while, do that twice and then it's okay to use. As a bairn I thought he was being a bit over cautious but your experience just proves how right he was...

Phill

 

[martinka]

The bike won't be up to much, Brian, I'm using some 10mm ply that was in the shed, and when I pulled a bit of tape off, some of the top veneer came off with it. Still, if I paint it black, (like I always used to do with bikes I built), it should look OK.

For the first time, I put clear tape over the pattern, but I don't like it as sawdust sticks to the cut in the tape. It's not much, but it's enough make the line difficult to see on delicate cuts. I've only done a few cuts so I might bin it and start again.

Only ever saw one grinding wheel explode, or rather the results of it. It was a 12" diameter by about 2" wide that we used to shape angle iron and 2" steam pipe. No one was near it at the time, but its guard of quite thick steel was destroyed, and the window behind it demolished. I have 3 grinders, 2 with 6" wheels and 1 with 8", and like Phill, I always stand well away when switching on and I always wear a face shield.