PROXXON DS 230/E review

Buying the Proxxon DS 230 E was a decision we took after a lot of thought. This is one of the few available scroll saws in the market. It is available at UMS technologies. They basically are dealers for aeromodelling equipment. They are suppliers of Proxxon products too.

Proxxon DS 230 E is a small but efficient scroll saw

My experience with UMS. 
I paid the scroll saw from the website only to hear that it was not possible to buy proxxon products via the web. UMS refunded the money and actually quoted lower than their web price. Service was reliable and they answered all my queries over phone, but were a little  slow in answering emails and processing. So if you deal with UMS be sure to call first, ensure that products are available in stock and that you can actually buy them, and plan a little ahead. 

Unboxing the Proxxon
The instructions on the proxxon are very sketchy on assembly. However if you are going for a scroll saw chances are you will be easily able to figure out what screw goes where. It did take me some time to assemble it.

The blade change. 
This is difficult. The screw to clamp the blade is way inside the box and has to be accessed with a long allen key. This cannot be done blindly. One has to peer into the side, carefully place the allen key and then twist. This is inconvenient. Secondly if the blade breaks, it is not so easy to get the broken bit out of the lower grip as it is not so accessible.

The lower blade grip is deep inside the machine and needs a long key

While making blind cuts, it is necessary to drill a hole into the wooden piece and place the blade through it. As changing the lower end of the blade is next to impossible once it is through the wood, I usually keep the lower end clamped, bend the blade and put the upper end through the hole. This is fine for small pieces of wood. However for larger bits of wood, the blade guide with the roller gets into the way. There is no way to move it away. It can only be lifted vertically. So If I were to be making  a large piece, I would have to improvise or detach the blade from the bottom every time. 

Blade guide that has to be lifted up to move out of the way 

Blades
Proxxon provides 5 blades with this. They seem good quality, but I did not really use them. I had a bunch of local blades that I had picked up and used these. The DS 230E has an adjustment to utilize even small blades. Though possible this requires removing three scews each time. What I finally did was to move it to the position of the smallest blade. I break my local blades to reach this size.

Blade holder can be lowered or raised by removing these three bolts

Performance :
Great. Very silent, very smooth. There is a tension screw on top, and  a small bellows. One fault I found was that the bellows tend to jump out and get stuck outside the casing if the tension is too much. This could have been avoided. The motor does not seem very powerful, and cutting trough one inch hardwood is slow. However cutting through veneer and 10 mm ply is a breeze. The variable speed is a nice feature. The machine has to be screwed on to a large base if you do not want it to jump around due to vibrations. The whole machine is very light.

Features : A fence. Really really useful. It is straight and helps you cut straight. There is also a miter  attachment for cutting angled pieces. This is also quite useful. I need to make a few mini jigs to optimize its use. There is a slot to store the blades and one to store the key. I do not use either of these.

Final Impression : Though not the easiest machine to use, with practice blade changes become easy. So it is not really a problem. The machine is smooth, reliable until now and cuts clean. It is worth the cost if you are going to use it. It is wonderful for making decorative pieces and children's toys. There is a cheaper alternative from Aaren Relipower that is less than half the cost, but this has to be pre ordered and there is a waiting time of more than a month. I have not tried it out but it looks similar to the proxxon with fewer features. Overall I feel this machine is a good buy if you are looking for a small, reliable scroll saw in India.

Small house, picket fence and gate made from veneer strips 

Featherboard from veneer strips

One of the safety features that I wanted to incorporate for my table saw (converted from a circular saw) was featherboards. These are boards that have a bit of flexibility that permit the movement of wood in one direction but prevent it in the opposite direction. Commercially available featherboards are made of plastic or wood as far as I know.
One method of making a featherboard is by cutting slots into a solid piece of wood using a circular saw or a jigsaw.
With a lot of veneer strips I tried to make it out of veneer.
Cut the veneer  into one inch thick strips. This long one inch strip is then cut into many pieces of equal length. Make two lengths. One set of long strips and one set of short strips. The difference between the long and short strips will determine the flexibility of the strips. The more the difference the more the flexibility.

Two sets of veneer strips of differing lenghts

Stick the veneer alternating with one long strip and one short strip such that it makes a slant of about 45 degrees. The tip will be appear to be step like pattern. Stick them with glue (fevicol) and clamp until dried.

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Once the glue has dried, cut the tips with a table saw to make  a smooth edge. 

The final trimmed feather board

I have not fixed the feather board as yet as I am yet to make my saw table. But in principle this works. I will have to rout out a groove on the board for easy clamping.
On retrospect I would have made the featherboard in the picture a little longer so that the base could have a longer groove. IT would also be easier to clamp. I will have to firmly fix this on some other piece of wood to extend its length. The next feather board would be after I have planned the saw table.