Scroll Saw.. Mobile and Vibration Free?

[SARGE..g-47]

Having just purchased a DW 788 SS re-conditioned, I had read much in advance about vibration from most scroll-saws. The DW was as quiet as any of them with it's parallel link arms as on the Excalibur when mounted to the DW tri-pod stand according to the guru's.

The tri-pod cannot rock as a regular 4 legged table or bench on and un-even concrete floor and I think we are all familar with those. The tri-pod design of that base is very clever indeed and like a 3 legged stool. But does it have to be sacrificed if one wants to "go mobile" with his scroll saw?

A week of tinkering and "trial and error" concluded with a rock solid.. absolutely no vibration even at the highest speed.. and mobile all under the same roof. And by Monday an on-board "geinie" vacuum will ride in the "belly" in the forward position. No thoughts of motorizing for the street... yet!

Base of yellow pine with MDF side plates. Two 2 1/2" rear lock casters with a locking 4" front and the "tri-pod" is maintained. The rear of the belly tank has a 3/4" pipe mounted to a base flange with old 10 lb. weigh-lifting weights inserted on the vertical pipe. The base weights around 22 pounds with 60 lb. of weight added for stability. The DW weights approximately 50 lbs. for a total of a 130 pound unit that will not vibrate as tested.

Will remove the additional forward weights Mon. and place a Genie vacuum in the front of the rear weights as I did with my old 16" SS. Port it out with a pipe just under the blade opening and "dust be gone"..

Sorry for the bright, yellow glare of the DW colors which are were "hot" under my shop lights to-nite. Hot in hot-Lanta today and it's time to hit the showers.

So... can you eliminate vibration and still go mobile? Yes... indeedy! Hopefully someone might catch an idea from the pics.

Regards...

[bthere]

That's a very cool base there, Sarge. I like the wolf snarling at me, but I'm a little surprised that you didn't match the DeWalt yellow for the base color.

That's also a good way to use those weights. Right now I keep mine out to attract dust and to remind me that I used to be able to lift things that would hurt me now.

[SARGE..g-47]

Evenig bthere...

It's the old base from the Ryobi 16" that was red and blue. I modified the base to get the tri-pod and slapped a coat of black porch and floor over the blue.

I have the DW yellow.. but yellow over blue is a double coat to cover and it was hot down in L'ville as up the road in Alpharetta as you know. And the bottom line is too much yellow is just... well.... to much yellow.

"Get er done" and move on to adding a rear extention table on the Uni-saw tomorrow. I'm taking the week-end off to do some shop up-dating as I have painted the house outside and inside over the last 8 weeks. The lumber for the new bedroom suite is in the rack curing.. so with the first breath of cooler weather, all these other little chores have to be done.

Regards from L'ville...

[Knottscott]

Pretty slick there Sarge! I like the colors....

...A little tangential story for ya...that bright yeller and red reminded me of an 8' homemade hydroplane hull I had as a young teen. It was made of plywood and was darn heavy for a hydro...it also had a stock 10hp motor and a big teenage on board, so it wasn't very fast compared to the "hyper"planes that were made for speed....we'd get maybe 20 knots compared to their 30-40. We painted it bright red with bright yellow stripes so it'd at least look fast sitting still, and we mounted a couple pieces of copper on the transom with the top crimped...they'd grab water from beneath the hull and shoot it up like a rooster tail. It looked great, but the only race we ever won was when a kid in a bright red "wedge" with a 20hp Scott/Atwater motor dumped his motor around a turn....I can still picture that bright red motor sitting in about 20' of water! (...and the reason for this story you ask? ...just too much coffee and a fondness for both of those colors! )

Nice job on the stand.

[SARGE..g-47]

Morning Scott..

I built a boat once as a teen-ager also. I had the choice of welding two 40' Ford hoods together or welding old license plates together to form a more distinct design. Back in the 50's license plates were plentiful as state prisoners made new ones from the Ga. chain gang each year in lieu of busting rock for which they were grateful. Of course that has been replaced with more modern punishment ideas since the invent of cable TV.. cell phones.. stereo.. high tech exercise equipment and air conditioning.

The bad news was my license plate "custom" didn't fare too well on it's maiden voyage though as several "old salts" suggested that it was too heavy before it was launched. But young pre-teens don't heed advice to well!

The good news is it made U. S. Naval Submarine history as recording the worlds "fastest dive" in 1958. A record that might have been improved upon given a second chance as I would have gone ahead and installed the "screen doors" as I originally intended.

Yep.. too much coffee and much too much to do in the shop with the temps heading to 90* in Atlanta. No boats on the schedule today as I learned by trial and error long ago and moved on to wood butchery. ha.. ha...

Regards...