Hitachi CW40 16" Variable Speed Scroll Saw Hot

This is my second scroll saw. An upgrade from my older saw. I have used many different blades, including the spiral blade with no problems. I also use a clamp on light that is brighter than the provided light. This saw has plenty of power to cut most soft woods up to 3/4" and hard woods up to 1/2". I love the soft start. I would like to see longer legs on the stand that are adjustable for hight.

This was my First scroll saw. Since then I find I can definitely upgrade later, and will when this one wears out. My second project on the saw was with
Spiral Blades (reg. not flat end ones) It worked fine for them. Just put them in like any other plain end blades. Don't know why they didn't work for the other reviewer. Too much tension makes the lower blade pop out sometimes, but I just tighten down more and then it usually works OK. Only have this with very fine 37 tpi blades however. The light is pretty much useless - get a better brighter clamp on type. One day I will get a better saw, but it will and has made many projects for me and I love using it.
I did also remove the Hold down clamp as it actually got in the way and made it more dangerous to work on small projects - when you can't get your fingers in the right place to hold it down! (We all know why they put them on the saws).
I also Used the gray screw clamp from the hold-down Clamp in place of the little round one from the upper arm (that uses Allen key). That way I do not need the tool to tighten the top clamp. A big plus to me.

I bought the Hitachi CW-40 to do a quick small project that I had been commissioned for. I am a professional woodworker and this is at least my 3rd scroll saw. The saw had adequate power to cut through the 1/2" MDF I was using at the time. The saw was quiet and it passed the nickel test for vibration. Installing pin blades is a little akward but I was ok with it. I did not expect this saw to be an upper end saw or expect to perform like one and it didn't. There are what I consider to be 2 MAJOR PROBLEMS with the Hitachi CW-40.

1. This saw will not accept a standard spiral blade. I tried just about everything. The blade either broke, bent, kinked, or slipped, every single time. My feeling is that a spiral blade is not a new invention, or rare, or even uncommon and this saw should be able to accept spiral blades without a problem just as a lot of cheaper scroll saws do, such as the Delta or Ryobi products. I can only credit this problem to poor design.

2. I tried contacting Hitachi customer service about the spiral blade problem. They had NO SOLUTIONS, NO SUGGESTIONS, NO RETROFIT BLADE CLAMPS, and gave me no indication that they were interested in helping me solve the problem with my brand new saw. Poor customer service is inexcusable.

The bottom line is that this is an ok saw if you never want to install a common spiral blade or if you never have a need for customer service. Otherwise, don't buy this saw.