Dewalt Service

[pierhogunn]

A while back, I some how managed to sacrifice my Dewalt DW317K Jigsaw to the gods of home trim carpentry in the construction of my latest built-in while trying to cut an arc through 3/4" mdf.

A piece of the magnesium housing flew off, and exposed the greenish grease that they use to keep the orbital stuff working.

Well, I took it to the dewalt factory store with the logic that even though it's 1 year warranty has long since expired fixing it would be alot less expensive than a new one.

I have to tell you the repair was going to be over $60, but the guy who rung me up said,

"it's obvious that you weren't using this as a hammer, and this looks to be something that we will cover, we will call you when it's done"

I was shocked, I was ready to shell out some good cash for my tool, and these guys just fixed it for me, no questions, no looks, just a smile and a sort of thanks for trusting us to fix it sort of smile.


Needless to say I am a Dewalt fan for now

on the down side, though, some of the parts are factory back-ordered until at least july 12th...

They said that the innards of my saws orbital workings were a complete mess...

that said, does anyone have any tutorials for setting up, and cutting large radius arcs in sheet goods?

[cabinetman]

It's pretty simple to do. You can cut a trammel arm out of most anything, even 1/4" ply will work. You could cut the end that will mount to your router base the width of the base. Use a 1/4" carbide tipped straight cutter. Measure back from the backside of a flute to a point on the trammel arm the length of the radius. Drive through a finish nail (could be a 4d) into the substrate to be routed. Leave the nail proud of the trammel arm so you can remove it. Make a few passes, like 1/4" depth of cut at a time per pass.
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[pierhogunn]

trammel arm? okay,

the arc in question was a 5'11 long arc with a 6" Deflection in the center,

after several tries with a guide bent into an arc, and never getting a cut where the jigsaw blade started to go all sideways, I just settled for a nice piece of molding to cover the place where the arc was going to go

[cabinetman]

If you have a router, that's the way I do it. You can use the trammel arm as a compass to draw the cut line and to rout the substrate. If you remove the plastic plate on the bottom of the router, mount the 1/4" to the chassis of the router with the same screws. Countersink the holes in the ply so the screws are slightly recessed. Handling large sheet stock to be cut on a band saw is very cumbersome. I wouldn't recommend a band saw. If it's that large, in lieu of a router, I would use a jig saw.

The trammel arm is easy to make as long as you like and would look like this:
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[jhart]

I've used the local DeWalt service center in the Twin Cities and couldn't agree more that they do a fine job. Never had them tell me it would be free though. Sounds like you're getting a good deal, although it also sounds like something wasn't right with the jigsaw to come apart like that.

You can also buy a trammel if you don't want to make one yourself. Rockler/Woodcraft, etc. has them. They are really easy to make yourself.