Hegner vs. Excalibur EX21

[Redbythesea]

Hi All - new to this forum but just by reading the help shown and given to other subscribers I'm pleased to have joined.

My partner put me onto scrolling as she had used one in work and said they were great fun and very theraputic.

I am aware that these kind of threads get tedious but I am contemplating purchasing either the Hegner 2 speed or the Excalibur EX21. I have Youtubed and searched the net for advice and help. Hegner appears to be highly rated but I like the 'look' of the EX21 - the tilting arm looks sensible and useful and the blade changing looks easy. Creating internal cuts looks simple - I read somewhere that the Hegner is more 'fiddly' and will only take bottom feed ?? Likewise - you have to use a tool etc. Having a quick feed facility is most important to me and certainly want a top feed as my back couldn't stand constantly bending down and trying to threadle blades etc under the table!

Equally - I am aware that Hegner has a great repuattion for realibilty and that customer service is excellent - I have been alarmed by the many complaints re Excaliburs are not so realiable. I certaintly do not wish to spend most of my time packaging up a faulty good and having to get it to the post office paying for such a heavy item being returned all the time. I want to be using it...

Also - confused - went onto Hegner's website and it appears that the same model (with same wattage, dimensions, throat clearence etc) but different prices? Also - can you purchase Hegners from other sites or are all they sold direct from them?

Sorry to be a bore except when one is about to make an expensive investment I'm not certain if it just luck of the draw in getting a 'Friday Afternoon' product or whether there are serious design faults with either model etc.

At your mercy ladies and gents...but thank you in anticpation of all your answers.

Cheers

Phil

 

[ChrisR]

Phil.
First welcome to the forum.

I am not going to comment on the Excalibur, as I have never seen one in the flesh so to speak, let alone trying one, so it would be pointless to pass comment for or against.

I have however owned and used a Hegner for many years. The use has been heavy during those years, and I have never replaced one part in that time, (excluding blades), which run into the thousands.

Blade changing on the Hegner is very straight forward and simple, my projects are varied from completely external cuts, to work with in some cases hundreds of internal cuts, blade threading never a problem.

You mention the two Hegner saws with the same model number but with different prices, if you check closely you will see that the more expensive one is variable speed, why the same model number, I don’t know ?. :?

Hope this is of some help.

Chris R.

 

[kfenelon]

I have an Excalibur 30 for the past 3 years purchased from Axminster and found the scroll saw to be excellent. I have replaced the blade fixing bolts and tension arm once direct from Axminster at a very reasonable price of around £30 I use the scroll saw at least 5 days a week without any problems to make wood toys. I purchased the 30 at the time thinking you never know when the deeper throat would be required and I could afford the larger model at the time. If I was to purchase knowing what I know now I would have purchased the 21 I trust this helps By the way Axminster tech department are very helpful.

 

[Gogsi]

Hi Chris,
Just read your post ChrisR and I was heartened to read the "some cases hundreds of internal cuts, blade threading never a problem". I too have recently watched a few videos of the Excalibur in action (particularly one with Sheila Landry) where she moves at lightning speed from releasing the tension and loosening the blade and going to the next hole. I wonder if any member can point me to a video showing this similar action on a Hegner? Can you also tell me which model you use, enabling you to make so many internal cuts with seeming ease?
Am I correct in believing that, to do so with ease, one needs a model that has both the quick release blade clamps and quick tensioning release? I may have these terms a bit botched up a little.
If I am correct, which models will have these features?
Thanks in advance. It's great knowing that there are friendly folks out there willing to answer these questions.

 

[scrimper]

I have to be honest I can never for the life of me understand why people seem to think that blade changing on a Hegner is awkward! It is so quick and simple you can practically do it with your eyes closed. If one does lot's of internal cuts (I do) then with a Hegner and the quick blade clamp you really can remove the blade from the work and refit it thorough the hole for the next cut out with your eyes closed and in about 3 seconds!

My advice would be to go for a Hegner variable speed model, I am 99.9% certain you will not regret it. many times I have read of people who have bought other makes then after a short while swapped it for a Hegner, yet I have never (to date) heard of anyone who has bought a Hegner, regretted it and swapped it for another make.

I have 3 Scroll saws inc a Hegner, no prizes for guessing which one I always use!

Whatever make you go for There are 3 things that I would recommend.

1) buy a variable speed model, yes it costs more but the benefits are enormous and you will soon forget the extra amount you paid. Variable speed is IMHO essential if you are a beginner and it excellent when cutting intricate work or thin materials.

2) Quick blade clamp. for easy quick blade changing, without this it will drive you nuts if you do internal cuts.

3) Quick tension lever. Pointless having a quick blade change if you have to spend ages screwing up a knob to get the blade on tension, plus it's hard on your fingers.

Plus get a saw that uses an induction motor rather than a carbon brush series wound type, Induction motors have a very long maintenance free life, they are extremely quiet and give very little vibration, in contrast series wound motors often offer harsh noisier running the brushes arc and eventually need replacing they vibrate a lot more and the armature and or windings can 'burn out' . An induction motor only has a stator winding and it is very rare to have any problems with them.

 

[Bryan Bennett]

Hi Phil a very warm welcome to the forum,you have started a interesting post.I bought my Hegner Multicut 1 single speed over 20 years ago.

Then I did not know that other scroll saws were available,I have replaced the concertina spring at cost of less than £10.I think that the quick blade change can't be bettered by any other machine.

I can see the advantage of variable speed if you can afford the extra cost,I have seen the variable speed one and I still prefer the single speed for the work that I do.


Bryan

 

[ChrisR]

Phil.

I think that Scrimper has answered your question, re the quick change blade clamp and the quick tension lever on the Hegner.

The quick change blade clamp used to be an extra, but I think it is now included with a new saw, together with standard clamps.


Don’t be misled by some of the scroll saw videos, as they are run at 1.5 x speed or even 2x speed

Chris R.

 

[PeteG]

Hello Phil I bought a Hegner back in February and use it pretty much every day. I was very tempted by the Excalibur and would have bought one, but with the UK version being made by Axminster it put me off.
I know after speaking to a couple of chaps at Axminster a number of parts have been replaced, but personally I didn't want to take any chances on a machine that I would be relying on on a daily basis.
Back to the Hegner, and please remember these are only personal views For me, blade changing is a pain, it's not quick but it doesn't take several minutes, but I find it a little irrevelant to be honest as I'm never in that much of rush, and I doubt many folk would be. A big advantage with Hegners system is doing internal cuts on larger pieces, most of the time you'll only have to undo the quick release knob for the top of the blade, and then feed the blade through the work piece from below. On larger work pieces you remove the block holding the blade from underneath the table, feed the blade through and slide the work piece on to the table so you can replace the blade block underneath, and pop the top of the blade back in to the quick release. I believe with an Excalibur you do this by feeding the blade in from above, but I couldn't comment if this system is limited by the thickness of wood being used.
I have three points with the Hegner which could easily be improved at manufacturing. The table is too narrow, I'm not a lover of using faulse tables, you can't gaurentee what your using is perfectly even/flat, and it becomes a disadvantage when using reverse cut blades. I find the top speed of 1400 is a bit low, an increase would help when cutting thicker hardwoods. You can send it back to Hegner and they'll increase it, but why not just supply it as standard. My biggest bugbear is the insert plate! It would be nice on a machine that cost £900.00 for the insert plate to be level with the table surface. If you look on older models there wasn't an insert plate, and for the life of me I can't see any reason why they changed it.
Saying all that, the Hegner is very accurate, and built to last, which are the two most important things for me. If the table was a little wider, it had a bit more speed, and they did away with the insert plate, I'd say it would be the perfect machine.

 

[summertime]

Hi, I have a Hegner multicut 3 and a EX 30 from Axminster.

In my opinion the ex 30 is much more accurate and more enjoyable to use
The hegner is engineered to last for 100 years but to my mind is old technology ( also have a meddings scroll saw which is even older technology and engineered like a Volvo
new cars are not engineered to last a lifetime but are much more comfortable and nicer to drive
Shelagh Landry would not use one if the was better at a reasonable price (Eclipse is one of the best)
Hegner spare parts are a rip off . alot of people have only tried Hegners
Do you want pleasure or engineering
Regards Roy Ames

 

[scrimper]

Regarding the post from Roy above about the only thing I agree with is the price of Hegner spares! They are horrendously expensive for what they are.
I don't agree that just because a design is old a new design of machine is necessarily better, some things are made just right and cannot be improved, for example the bicycle frame its basic design has not changed for 100 years because it is still the best design.

Some people like lot's of gadgets and electronics on their machines, personally I prefer simplicity, they are mostly more reliable and can easily be repaired if they do go wrong, I do not want lot's of fancy settings that I never use nor LEDs to tell me when they are in use, I want my saw to be good at cutting fretwork, I want it to be accurate and easy to use, in my opinion the Hegner fulfils these requirements.

The first Hegner saws appeared around 1974 they were deigned in Germany be Helmut Abel and the design has changed little since then, the design was good then and it still is today, how many times have we complained when a new model of something comes out and it does not work as well as an older one!

 

[Gogsi]

Hi ChrisR,
Thanks so much for your reply. Much appreciated.
You said, "I have to be honest I can never for the life of me understand why people seem to think that blade changing on a Hegner is awkward! It is so quick and simple you can practically do it with your eyes closed."
Now the thing is, I'm certain that all of us who are trying to decide what machine to spend our money on haven't used and (at least in my case) don't have any supplier within a couple of hundred miles where we could even try it out or have a close up look in person at the machine.

I would ask you to please have a look at this video of an Excalibur in use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUC7wutR3A4

At 0:38 you can quite clearly see how internal cuts are done when doing piercing work. This certainly gives us who have never used a Hegner or an Excalibur a very clear picture of what is involved and I can certainly say that it looks like child's play on this saw,
I would kindly ask if you seasoned users could point us to a video that shows the same operation performed on a Hegner. This would really help us to decide which saw is for us, after of course weighing up all of the other pros and cons and the many valuable comments from forum users like yourselves.
If there are none available, and I have scoured the net and so far not found any, this would be a great opportunity for one of you UKWorkshop pro's to make a very worthwhile contribution to us newbies and to many others who will visit this invaluable forum.
Scrimper, Thanks for your great post. Can I ask you do Hegner's all come with induction motors? If not, can you tell me which do?
Thanks so much to all of you for your superb help.

 

[scrimper]

Hi ChrisR,
Thanks so much for your reply. Much appreciated.
You said, "I have to be honest I can never for the life of me understand why people seem to think that blade changing on a Hegner is awkward! It is so quick and simple you can practically do it with your eyes closed."

It was actually me who made the above comment so I will try to answers your questions.

There is a difference between blade changing and reinserting the blade to do internal cuts, I looked at the video you put the link up to and in that video the lady is just reinserting the blade in the top clamp for an internal cut, the process show is practically identical to that on a Hegner i.e. you release the tension on the top clamp with the lever, then twist the knob on the side to release the blade, reinsert it in to the next hole, tighten blade clamp then push back the tension lever on the top arm.

I have not used an Excalibur but looking at the video reinserting the blade looks the same as on the Hegner. (providing you get one with the quick tension lever fitted)

Blade changing is also simple on a Hegner as you can have several blade clamps ready fitted with the blade in the lower clamp and it's simply a matter of releasing the top of the blade (described above) then hooking the clamp out of the bottom arm bracket below the table, you can do this in seconds by feel. What I do is have several different sizes of blades fitted so that I can quickly shift from a thicker one for straight cuts to a much thinner one for delicate work on the same piece.

Regarding induction motors, as far as I know all Hegner's are fitted them.

 

[Gogsi]

Hi Scrimper,
Thanks ever so much firstly for taking your very valuable time to watch the video and for your clear and concise explanation.

It's very comforting to know that the Hegner's process of re-inserting the blade is almost identical to the Excalibur because that could have been the deal breaker for me. I definitely would be doing a fair amount of internal cutting on the future projects I have in mind and so you have cleared up a big question mark for me. And with that in mind, I'll keep my eyes peeled for a Hegner with a quick tension lever and a quick blade release knob. It'll take all the saving I can do from my very modest pension but I want the very best I can afford ........and that's that : )
It's so good to get such valuable information from you folks on this forum.
Thanks again.

 

[Gogsi]

I wonder if by any chance someone can tell me how to determine the age of a Hegner.
I've found one on ebay and the machine number (Masch.-Nr.) is 939435.
I've searched on Google with no luck.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Cordy]

Hegner on eBay
Ask the owner; all Hegners are clearly date stamped

 

[Gogsi]

Thanks Cordy. That sounds like a no brainer : )

 

[Bryan Bennett]

Hi Gordon If it any help the machine number on my Mulicut 1 single speed is 926477,which is over 20 yrs old.

Bryan

 

[Gogsi]

Hi Bryan
Thanks a lot. Yes that gives me an idea at least, approximately. The one on ebay is 13,000 machines newer than yours.
Let's guess that Hegner makes 50 machines a week. Then this machine on ebay is about 260 weeks or 5 maybe 6 years newer than yours making it approximately 14 years old, made in 2001. But, I'll contact the owner and see what he says.
Thanks again Bryan.

 

[scrimper]

I wonder if by any chance someone can tell me how to determine the age of a Hegner.
I've found one on ebay and the machine number (Masch.-Nr.) is 939435.
I've searched on Google with no luck.
Thanks in advance.

Does it have the quick clamp release lever on the front of the top arm? If not I would not consider it if you plan to do lots of cut-outs, one of my recent pieces had over 130 internal cuts, without the quick clamp it would have driven me nuts!

If it has the quick tension clamp and looks in good condition I would not worry too much about it's age, Hegners are built like battleships.

 

[scrimper]

FWIW I bought my Hegner in 1999 and by then they were fitting the quick tension lever so if the saw on ebay does not then it is probably much older than 15 years.

As I say above don't buy a Hegner without the quick tension lever IMHO it is a must, the absence of a quick blade clamp is not a problem as one can be fitted retro, the tension arm cannot unless you are prepared to spend a huge amount for a new top arm!