New Jet 22-Inch Scroll Saw - Excalibur No More?

Jet recently announced a new scroll saw that features a "revolutionary blade change process", but the first thing that popped into my head was, "this looks a lot like an Excalibur Scroll Saw". After some internet sleuthing, I discovered that Excaliber Scroll Saws are no longer available. The unavailability of the Excaliber Scroll Saws might not be such a bad thing, though. From what I have seen, the Jet Scroll Saw has some pretty nice upgrades.

Jet's Revolutionary Blade Change Process

If you are doing a lot of interior cuts, easy blade changing is a feature you are going to want. While most manufacturers use a thumbscrew to clamp blades into place, Jet chose to finally do something better.

Jet's design uses a cam-level that draws the clamping mechanism between to ball-bearings to clamp down on the blade. In addition to clamping the blade, it also tensions it at the same time, thus removing a step from the process. It also seems like their method grips the blade with a larger surface area, which should also reduce slipping. The design looks so good, it is a shame they didn't use it as the means of clamping the bottom end of the blade as well.

Jet Tilts The Blade Not The Table

Like the Excalibur and unlike most scroll saws, Jet's scroll saw handles bevel cuts by tilting the scroll saw blade and not the scroll saw table. The advantage to this design is that the user can let go of their work piece while making a 45-degree cut and not have to worry about it messing up a cut or falling to the floor.

Jet's Scroll Saw Improvements

For the most part, the Jet saw seems identical to the Excalibur, with only a few slight design differences. One thing that I like the kept the same is the dust collection. The dust collection uses a down-draft type method that sucks dust through small holes in the table to your chosen dust collection system. This method makes a lot of sense because most of the dust wants to fall there anyway.

Where Jet made improvements was in the overall beefiness of the saw. Jet is using cast iron for their table and it appears to be much thicker than what Excaliber was delivering. When you have a saw that can make up to 1550 strokes per minute, the more weight you can put into the saw to add to stability and to reduce vibrations, the better. At almost 90-pounds, I think it should be pretty stable.

The Jet 22-inch Scroll Saw (JWSS-22, 727200K) will be sold as a set that includes a stand and a foot switch for $989.99, or as a Kit with the scroll saw and the foot switch (JWSS-22B, 727200B) for $899.99. BUY - Amazon