Seeing the blade!

[OldWood]

I'm new to scroll sawing and have to admit that I've started with one of the badged far-east clones. So far for what I have wanted to do it has worked well and I have no real complaints about it. I'm sure that a more expensive tool could work better,but it's 'horses for courses' and I didn't want to invest good money on something that might just get low usage.

As it is a year on, a grandchilden's toy project has had me slaving over the machine for several weeks. One frustration I do find is the ability to see the blade clearly when presenting the work to it - it's an uncoloured blade against the black background of the plastic insert and needs careful watching to ensure the correct entry point on occasions. I'm sure that this is a common problem and has been resolved on other machines - what retrofit can anyone suggest ?

Thanks
Rob

 

[boysie39]

Rob , you can get a magnifying lamp which will help .I think Amazon do one very useful .

Good luck hope this helps .

 

[gilljc]

have you tried printing the patterns in different colours, I find a lightish blue or red easy to follow and the blade is easy to see against it
I started with a titan scrollsaw from screwfix, and it was and probably still is great for a lot of stuff, was only when I was struggling to cut veneers and intricate inside cuts that I got frustrated, not with the saw, but with the choice of pinned blades I could use

 

[OldWood]

Hi guys - thanks for your replies.

I'm seeing the pattern OK and can adequately follow the black pattern line without a problem - I changed the supplied bulb on the saw (6w car tail light bulb) for a LED one that is considerably brighter.

I'm cutting out a large number of pieces for animals for a Noah's Ark at the moment and on occasions have difficulty getting the blade and the pattern to line up at the start of the cut as the blade is so dark against a black background that its 3 dimensional position is difficult to assess.

Two thoughts occur - an additional light under the insert plate, or make the background vertical face of the plate white. Do other saws have a contrasting light colour behind the blade so that it can be seen easily ?

Rob

 

[mac1012]

I have a hegner saw and they are made out of a brushed aluminium I think which gives a good contrast

I just have a good light in my work shop that comes part way over my saw and it is enough to see the work piece

I don't think you need to go down the road of putting a light underneath or anything

you could either make a new insert out of some thin birch ply or depending on the diameter by a spare one say from hegner or make one out of some thin aluminium or something

should be fine once you have a contrast between the insert and blade but make sure you have good lighting above machine if possible

mark

 

[martinka]

I made an aluminium insert for my Chinese saw, but it's difficult to get it the correct thickness, especially as the hole in the table isn't always the same depth all way round. Another idea would be to make a plywood auxillary table to go over the top of the original table and this way you can also have a much smaller gap around the blade. But by far my favourite scroll saw accessory is the head mounted magnifier.

Martin.