Hard decision, need help! Hegner 2S or Ex 21

[Valld]

Hi All,

A short introduction of myself. New to this nice forum, 1 month into scroll sawing. I'm Bulgarian, 45, living in Botswana. It's a very boring country with not much what to do and I have some free time. Also always loved working with wood. Recently found the scrollsawing, honestly never heard about this hobby/profession before. Got hooked quickly and after reading a ton of online info I purchased the only scroll saw you can buy in Botswana - Ryobi 1600 16 inch saw. Works OK, after a few quick tunes/modifications/lubrication/disassembly/assembly/alignment and mounted on a sturdy 3 leg stand that I made for it, the saw performs fine (much better that when I bought it) for the price I paid (about 200 USD). But it has it's limitations/flows - even with the 25kg sand base and about 8kg stand it still vibrates at specific speeds, mostly around the 3/4 of the full speed. It started making funny noises already, after only a few intarsia and puzzle projects and I decided I'm not going to invest any more free time to improve a badly designed and manufactured with low quality materials device and I will buy a proper saw.

Money is not a problem, I can afford buying any saw on the market, my problem is bringing it to Botswana and absolute lack of service here. They are relatively heavy machines and no one in Europe (220 volts grid here) ships to the end of the world at reasonable price ... I've got a solution to this as well, every year we go back to Bulgaria for vacation usually August (me, my wife and the daughter) and we have about 120 kg total luggage allowance on the way back to Botswana, so I already started preparing the wife that I will reserve 20-30 of them for my new saw . Now it's coming the big question, discussed million times on this and other forums: Hegner or Exscalibur!

I want the best. I feel like I want both, but this is not possible and not reasonable, not now. I like the tilting and the top blade feeding of the Excalibur and I like the reliability of the Hegner. I don't like the reliability of the Excalibur and the lack of top feeding and table tilting of the Hegner. The ideal will be Excalibur with Hegner's reliability/quality. I'm reading everywhere " My Hegner is 25 years old, no problems" and never saw anything like "My Excalibur is 10 years old and never had a problem", I think the longest time happy Excalibur owners that I came across were having their saws for 3-5 years usually with a few clamp and other parts replacements. Also I saw a few folks saying they have both and the Hegner is more quite and with less vibrations.

My decision is getting even harder considering that I will be absolutely unable to send the machine for repair, if it goes down. So my first priority when choosing must be reliability. And here wins Hegner. Tilting of the table I can consider not such a big issue, but the top feeding and easiness and comfort of blade changes are the things that still stop me to choose a winner.

I also do not understand the power specifications of the Excalibur and Hegner. Excalibur has 320 Watt motor, Hegner 100 Watt. Why such big difference? At the same time the size of the motors is different in the other way around - Hegner motor is 3 times (OK, maybe 2) bigger than the Excalibur. Which one is longer lasting? Which one has more torque at all speeds? Which one runs cooler? If someone can explain....

And now naturally comes the most important question. I dig the whole web searching for this and failed to find a positive answer:

Can a Hegner quick blade clamp be installed as a bottom holder on Hegner Multicut 2s (or other models)? Did someone tried this and if it's not working, what is the problem? Is there a way to make some modification for the quick blade clamp to be used as a bottom blade holder? What modifications are needed? I just hate when there is a nearly perfect machine on the market and a small tiny problem stops it to be the best! Because in my opinion if the Hegner had a more user friendly and quicker blade clamping system, it really would not have competition.

If you have reached the bottom of my post I want to tank you for your time! If someone has both machines or can comment all the above, I will really appreciate your input.

Thanks

 

[Chippygeoff]

Hi and welcome to the forum. You have obviously been dwelling over the Hegner v Excalibur question for a while and trying to decide which is the best option. There is no doubt that the best choice would be to go for the Hegner and there are many reasons for this. I bought an excalibur 21 when they first became available and in a nutshell was one of the worst saws I have used. Since then there have been improvements made and those that have recently bought the excalibur seem very happy with them. With the current excalibur I find two things that annoy me, one is the blade clamps and the second is the saws table, in my opinion it is to thin and the coating on the surface soon becomes scratched and looks unsightly. Also take into account that the excalibur has not stood the test of time.

I have 2 scroll saws. the first one is a Dewalt 788, again in my opinion this is the finest saw ever made but sadly the MK1, which is what I have, is no longer made. It was made in Canada. The current 788s may look the same but not as well made as the original and the materials used are not as good quality. My other saw is a variable speed Hegner with a cast iron table. It's as good today as when I bought it several years ago. It has never let me down. I have bought extra blade clamps and that's about it. The Hegner is ultra reliable and I have never heard of anyone being let down. As long as you oil the bearings the Hegner willlast a lifetime and is probably the most relaible saw you will ever come across. My saws are in use almost every day as I use them on a professional basis selling what I make at craft fairs and exhibitions etc.

You cannot fit a quick release clamp on the Hegners lower arm. The quick clamp on the top arm is a must for me, especially when there are a lot of internal cuts to be made. Blade changing only takes a few seconds once you get used to the machine and I have never had a problem with blade changing. Many years ago I had a problem with my Dewalt. I had to have the motor replaced soon after I bought it, the problem was an electrical surge so now I use surge protectors on both my saws, best to be safe than sorry. I hope this helps, needless to say others will come along and make their comments. I wish you well and hope all goes well for you with your scroll sawing.

 

[Aggrajag]

My two pence, which admittedly comes with 1% of the experience of Chippygeoff, is that I adore my Excalibur EX16 bought only 6 weeks ago. It's streets ahead of the "cheap" one I had before it, it feels sturdy, quiet, smooth and like it could run forever. The quick change clamps and tension lever are a godsend. I couldn't be without it, I love it.

 

[jasdon79]

I have been using a hegner for ten years and I have just bought a ex21 and will be selling the hegner a far better machine

 

[Alexam]

Although I will be buying the new Axminster Ex 16 or 21, for you I would recommend the Hegner simply because of it's reliability and possibly world circulation. Therefore, although you may not be able to get servicing, the chances of others owning or knowing about a Hegner scrollswaw are far greater. The new tilting of the machine on the EX models is not such an important issue.

Malcolm

 

[Valld]

Thank you all guys, it will be a tough decision, but the good news is I still have about 5 months to decide. Time often helps more then we can expect. I will see how my scroll sawing goes, how the Ryobi performs and most important I will be waiting for Malcolm (and everyone else who buy it in the meantime )to give feedback on the new Axminster ex 16 or 21. I'm really tempted by the ex 21, hopefully Axminster had fixed all flows and the new ones are as good as the 110v version. Regarding the service, I'm pretty confident I can service any power tool myself, just need to get hold of spare parts.

 

[Alexam]

Don't forget Vall, all the guys on this forum are available for help and advice when you are back home, just as long as you can connect up and chat.

Malcolm

 

[Valld]

Sure, thanks Malcolm, I will definitely need help and advice and will be pretty active in the forum. By the way the thread that you started about the Ex 16 is the one that brought me to this forum, I think it should be now renamed to 'Axminster trade Ex scroll saws' and pinned, because many people will be looking at how the new machines will be performing, count me first.

 

[martinka]

And now naturally comes the most important question. I dig the whole web searching for this and failed to find a positive answer:

Can a Hegner quick blade clamp be installed as a bottom holder on Hegner Multicut 2s (or other models)? Did someone tried this and if it's not working, what is the problem? Is there a way to make some modification for the quick blade clamp to be used as a bottom blade holder? What modifications are needed? I just hate when there is a nearly perfect machine on the market and a small tiny problem stops it to be the best! Because in my opinion if the Hegner had a more user friendly and quicker blade clamping system, it really would not have competition.

I made a little video showing how easy it is to change blades and do internal cuts on the Hegner. post989457.html#p989457

 

[Valld]

Thanks Martin, I dont think anyone can question Hegner's bottom feeding, it looks as fast as Ex. The problem is the lack of top feeding for Hegners to help with large pieces with hundreds intricate cuts with very thin holes, im just surprised nobody made some bottom blade holder modification to allow this.

 

[martinka]

The Hegner would be much better if you could top feed, but even with a different bottom clamp, the top arm won't lift enough to allow it. However, I cut a loco with around 400 internal cuts and feeding the blade from the bottom was never a real problem. I can usually feed the blade by feel, instead of having to tie myself in knots to see underneath Still, if you are regularly going to be doing hundreds of internal cuts, top feeding would be the way to go.

I just had a look at my saw and I reckon it just might be possible to make it feed from the bottom. However, as it would involve an angle grinder, it's not something you would want to do to a new saw.

 

[Valld]

Haha, thanks Martin, angle grinder sounds very tempting, how can you resist? Anyway, your imput definitely adds to forming my decision. Very important point about the lifting of the top arm! It kind of explains why no one is interested in modifying the lower blade holder, even if you do it, it will probably only help with quicker blade change, which, after watching your video, will not be a huge improvement.

 

[AES]

Welcome to the Forum Valld. As I think you've seen already, there's a real great bunch of people on here, many of whom have in-depth experience.

One such is Chippy Geoff, but personally I believe his opinions of Excalibur are based on an unfortunate experience he had some time ago when, apparently, Excalibur were having quality problems. Unlike you I was able to have a hands-on comparison of both Hegner and Excali side by side and although I did feel that the Hegner was a somewhat "better-feeling" machine, I plumped for the Excali in the end. For detailed reasons look up my post and all the responses - "Biting the Bullet ....." dated approx. June 2015.

In my experience the Excali quality problems now seem to be solved, certainly on my own example, and while Geoff is quite correct about the paint finish on the table (it's far too delicate and scratches much too easily) that is "only" a cosmetic problem - the table itself is now made of approx. 6 mm thick cast iron and weighs a ton (as I found out when I removed mine to add a layer of self-adhesive transparent plastic film to protect the paint)! So I doubt there will be any problems with this or any other quality area of current Excali saws these days - and this seems to apply to the new Axi version too.

Regarding getting spares I have of course got no idea of how you'd go about getting them in Gaberone (good luck with that mate!) but of course there's always the internet. In fact the Excali needs very few spares and if you look at the last page of the current topic here - "Excalibur ..... " you'll see my response to Claymore talking about Excali spares in some detail.

But I do sympathise with your buying dilemma right now. I really wasn't sure myself until I had the chance to try both side by side, which obviously you do not.

As it stands now, personally I think that in terms of quality, performance, and longevity, you could choose either Hegner or Excalibur without any qualms at all, so your decision will come down to "just" price, plus features (such as the tilting head of the Excali, which personally I find a godsend, having previously used a cheapo saw with tilting table).

Anyway, good luck, and ask away, there's loads of people here with much more experience than me and everyone here is very willing to help.

HTH

AES

 

[Valld]

Thank you AES, yes, I did already read your 'biting the bullet...' thread, I'm trying to read as much as I can, it's kind of obsession, when I'm interested in something new I'm reading a lot. It was a good reading by the way, at one point I felt I'm there together with you and your wife testing both machines ☺. Could you please post the link to the other thread that you mention, about the EX spares, there are too many threads starting with Excalibur.... can't find it.

 

[AES]

OK Valld, glad you found the post, and thought the post helpful.

Here's the other post I mentioned, my bit about spares is almost at the bottom of P. 4:

excalibur-scrollsaws-t95005-45.html

To save you reading it all, from the Manual for my saw (note, it's NOT the new Axi machine) here's the list of spares they suggest you have standing by:

Qty 2 x Blade Clamp Thumbscrews
Qty 2 x Blade Set Screws
Qty 1 x Blade Tension Lever

Although not mentioned specifically in the Manual, remembering where you are I would add 1 set (Qty 2) carbon motor brushes to the above list.

To make all that a bit clearer I've scanned the relevant pages from the Manual which I've attached here. Once again, please note that my machine is the Excalibur EX 21CE and NOT the new Axminster Tools own version. From the pictures posted so far both versions look the same but I'm not sure how much the same they both really are, and also I doubt that the Part Numbers shown in the Manual pages attached would apply to the Axi version. I've marked the relevant parts in orange marker, I hope these show up OK on the scans.

Hope it helps.

AES

 

[Valld]

Wow, thanks! AES, could you please clarify something for me. Are the blade clamps/holders made of aluminum or steel? I did read somewhere that they are aluminum. But it doesn't make sense to keep the steel thumb screws and set screws as a spare and not the aluminium clamps. The aluminum thread should worn much faster than the steel screw, or I'm wrong and it's all made out of steel?

 

[AES]

Wow Valld, hard to be really sure.

The upper & lower blade holder "bodies" are definitely not magnetic - I suspect aluminium (but certainly not a soft alloy), or possibly die castings (but if the latter, definitely high quality - no sign of the usual "dark & light speckles" that you see on all but the best quality die castings).

The blade clamp thumb screws themselves, and the set screws on the other side of the clamp bodies, are certainly magnetic and look very much like steel to me.

But note also that the blade clamp thumb screw "wings" themselves are plastic, and are only about 26 mm long overall (centred on a 6 mm "bolt"), so the chances of over-tightening and stripping the threads in the clamp body would be almost nil in my opinion.

In fact I (shamefully) admit that when I first got the saw I accidentally over-tightened the thumb screws a couple of times and "only" had to put a piece of rag around the wings to release the blade - with no sign of any damage to the threads in the clamp body - I checked!

The thumbscrews actually only need a "normal" turning pressure to tighten the blade fully once you've got the set screws on the other side of the clamps properly adjusted (see the diagram).

But if you are even more cack-handed than me (doubtful!) , and supposing you have some basic metal-working tools to hand, if you did manage to strip those threads it would "only" be a question of drilling out the holes in the clamp body, then re-tapping the next available size up (i.e. 7 or 8 mm). It looks like there's plenty of "meat" in the clamp to be able to do that - but as I say, unless you're a real gorilla, I doubt you'd strip those threads with just finger pressure.

HTH
AES

Edit for P.S. Or, as you say, just order a spare upper & lower blade clamp body when ordering the machine and the rest of the spares.

 

[Valld]

Thanks buddy, I think I'm becoming paranoic and getting too much into details☺. It will be all good whichever of the two I choose.

If I go with the Hegner, do you guys think the SE version is worth the 110 Euro premium over the 2S version? The only difference is 2S table is aluminum and the SE table is cast iron?? And the weight of the SE (24kg) is 5 kg more than 2S (19kg), both lighter than the EX-16 (25kg) and much lighter than EX-21 (30kg). At the end I need to take into consideration the weight of the saw as well, it will fly in my briefcase changing 3 flights☺..

 

[AES]

@Valld:

QUOTE:
Thanks buddy, I think I'm becoming paranoic and getting too much into details☺. It will be all good whichever of the two I choose.
UNQUOTE:

Yes, personally I'd agree with both of your statements above.

I can't recommend which Hegner model for you - I can't even remember now which model I tried (check my "Biting the Bullet" post). And beyond that trial in Munich I have no experience of any of them.

But one thing's 100% for sure, if you're thinking about carry-on bags (air travel) my EX 21 would definitely NOT go in the cabin as a carry-on - it took myself plus one bloke from the shop plus a trolley just to load it into the boot of my car in Munich.

Frankly, I doubt that any Hegner model would go as a cabin bag either, although they are a bit smaller than the Ex 21 - it's not just a question of weight but bulk/volume as well, and except perhaps on the very laxest of lax airlines, (which I very much doubt you'd find on 3 consecutive sectors), I can't see you getting away with it at all. I speak as someone who was a VERY regular air traveller with loads of tools, etc, etc, until about 18 months ago.

I'd say forget all about airline cabin baggage completely, regardless of which saw you choose.

My EX 21 came in a pretty good tri-wall carton with a good ply base and if necessary I'd have been quite happy to ship that by air just as it came - either as accompanied baggage (no doubt subject to airline excess weight surcharge!) or as a separate airfreight shipment (cheaper). And I would guess (but don't know) that any Hegner model comes similarly pretty well packed too.

But beyond that I can't help, sorry.

AES

 

[Valld]

Cabin luggage definitely impossible. I was thinking, if I get ex-16, to disassemble it and spread in the three suitcases, something like the table in one, the base in the second and the arm + motor in the third. From the photos it looks easy to disassemble the machine, what do you think? Hegner will have to be send as a separate piece in its own box, my allowance is 3x30 kg, so ex-16 and the two Hegners will fit. It looks like the scale of my decision is going in favor of the EX-16 for now.