First Look at the Triton 16″ Scrollsaw (updated)

Got to have a first look at the new Triton 16″ Scrollsaw, so I thought I’d bring you a few pics of it. I haven’t had a chance to do anything with it as yet, but that didn’t stop me getting out the camera. I’m not a scrollsaw expert by any stretch of the imagination, but you have to start somewhere!

This is a tilting, variable speed scrollsaw with active dust collection, and some other neat features to make things a little more convenient. (Blowers, lights and the like).

So a bit of a tour. The first thing is a huge flatbed, cast aluminium, and non-tilting. On this unit, the arm and mechanism tilts, the table, and therefore the workpiece doesn’t have to. The arm itself is fully encased, so there isn’t the same exposure to the vibrating arm that I have on my little GMC scrollsaw. Despite being aluminium, the machine is pleasantly heavy – a benchtop machine should weigh like it is serious to my mind.

On the front, there is a speed dial and on/off switch. The speed dial provides a range of about 400 to 1200 strokes per minute, and is a mechanical design, so there is no loss in power at slow speeds.

On the side of the unit, you can see the quick blade release, and the arm that supports the blower unit, that keeps the work area dust-free. There is a working light in the head of the unit as well. From this angle, you can see the size of this thing. that is my router table under there, and this scrollsaw takes up the full width, and then some.

At this stage, the machine can only take a 5″ pinned scrollsaw blade, but there is an adapter available from GMC that will allow it to take pinless blades. Hopefully, I can track one of these down so I can show you how they work, and particularly with this unit.

***Update(2)*** There is an adapter, but it doesn’t fit this scrollsaw. However, I have just been informed that one will become available for this model soon***

The blades are quick-change – there is a level shown here that releases tension on the blade for rapid removal and replacement. No more winding the tension bar for me.

One thing I found a bit strange – the blade lock has an unlocked padlock symbol, and the locked padlock symbol is used on the blade release. Guess something got lost in translation. ***Update*** – this has been pointed out to Triton, and will be corrected on future production runs ***

Another strange thing, was the inability (or so it seems so far) to be able to dial in different blade tensions – unless scrollsaws are pretty much one tension (my inexperience coming through), I would have thought just like a bandsaw, that you’d use different tensions for different blades, and different jobs. ***Apparently this isn’t as necessary for scrollsaws, and the combination of the cam and spring loading provides sufficient blade tension***

Update 2: To date, I still cannot get a good performance out of the tool, and I’m becoming convinced that it is a lack of blade tension at fault, which is not operator adaptable.

There is a shield that can be placed out of the way, of bought down to cover the blade and vibrating mechanism. Or if you prefer, it can be tucked out of the way as is shown here. Not sure how flimsy these shields are normally, but this one has a cracked upright (you might just be able to see it in the photo in the middle of the thin section).

Inside the table, on one side, there is a covered cavity. This is the blade storage, and with its unusual hinge mechanism, seems quite a good onboard blade storage. Should have taken the blades out of the plastic bag before the photo, but you get the idea. Have another look at the second photo above, and you can see where this is on the top of the platen.

So onto the operation. Well not, in this case. I’m not sure if it is just this machine, but I couldn’t fit a blade. It didn’t have enough range in the tightening to take the standard 5″ blade. I did a bit of investigating (none of which is in the manual), and found the following. (It’s probably not expected that you would ever need to go into the saw like this, so why it probably hasn’t been documented).

This is the mechanism below all the covers (rear view). The top arm is canterlevered, and has an adjustable rod on it. More on that in a sec. At the back you will see a belt driven mechanism.

This is how the machine oscillates. The right-hand pulley is driven my the motor, which in turn drives the left hand gear, which is part of the mechanism that causes the blade to vibrate up and down. The benefit of this is it allows the tilting arm for angled scrollsawing, rather than having to tilt the workpiece. To the right of the photo you can see the curved track that allows the arm to tilt.

On top of the arm, you can see a very long bolt. This is the blade tensioning bar. On the model I have here however, I don’t seem to have sufficient range in the adjuster to be able to get enough distance between the upper and lower clamps to be able to hold the blade. ***Update*** I have since found out that there are 2 hooks on the lower arm, and the higher of the two, despite looking like the hook on the top arm, is not the correct one for the blade. Hope to bring you some photos documenting this shortly. However, the distance between the two lower hooks will explain the issue I was experiencing getting the blade mounted***

On top of the top bar is this rod, and at one end (buried under springs) is a bolt that runs the length of the arm, and controls the tension in the blade. The metal plate behind the bolt is the quick blade release mechanism.

Here’s another view of the rod on the support arm.

So that’s all I have time for you at the moment. A lot more will come out in the video which I’ll start on in the next week or two.