Sorry to correct you but Hobbies did make and sell Powered fretsaws, in fact long before anyone else did, in 1931 they made a bench fretsaw that was powered by a small electric motor and was supplied with a BC adaptor to plug into a light socket. A little later they produced the Anchor Fretsaw also motor powered and a very good machine it was too, it offered a true vertical stroke and was available right up until 1942. In fact over the years they made several powered fret-saws. all of which are listed on my soon to be published Fretworker website.
The original Hobbies company never made this saw, they ceased to trade in 1968, however a new company was formed by an ex employee under the name Hobby trends, he later bought the original Hobbies name and became Hobbies again. This saw was not made by Hobbies but was offered for sale by them in the 1980's. In 1983 it was being sold for £79.75. But as someone else said it was based on the old Hobbies Gem machine with a motor and stand attached.
Scrimper, thanks for that information, I stand corrected and bow to your superior knowledge. Pleases let us know when the Fretworker site is up and running.
Have to honest, I don't have superior knowledge, in fact my old brain forgets stuff very quickly but I have always been a fan of the Hobbies company and I have spent a huge amount of time searching through old hobbies weekly magazines to find stuff for my web site and I was surprised to find Hobbies power fretsaws that I did not know they made, Well I only knew of a few.
Hi. Many thanks for swift repl
Sorry for delay only just noticed your query, The image below from my website might explain it more. Hope this helps. John
Scrimper, no worries on the delay. I like the look of some of the earlier american machines with vertical blade movement, although I believe that some of the treadle machines have that too. I keep coming back to the thought that a vertical cut would mean greater cutting depth, possibly approaching that of a hand frame.
Well the question is, just how well does the Royal Hobbies work?
Here is an image of the Royal showing the 'motion'.
Thanks powertools, I had overloked that one.
Scrimper that's great, thanks. I am really tickled by the 'effective blower'. The drive of the bellows may be annoying, noisey and sometimes damaging, but what a great piece of basic engineering nouse.
