Bob Cleek

Tung oil is just another vegetable oil, like linseed oil. It's use was primarily the result of marketing by the Homer Formby paint company and its use is something of a recurring fad. It dries very slowly, so I don't really see the point of  using tung oil instead of "boiled" linseed oil (which is raw linseed oil with driers added to speed its polymerization.) Tung oil is used in some varnishes, being thinned with turpentine or mineral spirits and with some Japan drier added. Tung, like any oil, will tend to produce a glossy finish if coats are built up. "Teak oil" is nothing more than any oil that some manufacturer puts the name "teak" on and sells for a higher price to uninformed consumers.
 
Any oil will bring out the figuring of a piece of wood if that is the desired result. It very rarely is in modeling because the grain of the wood, unless it is very, very tight, or practically invisible, will be so wildly out of scale that it detracts from the appearance of the model. This is particularly true of open grained woods like the walnuts and mahoganies that kit manufacturers provide to suggest their kit is "high quality." These woods are acceptable for models if their grain is filled and they are painted over, although there are many other species which are far more suitable, and at a much lower price. Walnut and mahogany are great for furniture and such. Not so much for ship models. The one exception would be half models, which portray the shape of a hull alone without significant detail and aren't intended to portray a detailed model of the entire prototype.
 
So, to answer your question, yes. Finishing walnut on a model hull bright destroys the reality of the model and does indeed make it look like a piece of furniture, cheap furniture at that. That said, people build kits for lots of reasons and if you like the look, nobody's stopping you. There are lots of decorative models with oiled and varnished hulls of all sorts of different woods which give their builders pleasure to look at. If you think it looks good, you can put anything you want on it.
 
For serious modelers who may be building in the style of many of the Admiralty Board models seen in museums, which frequently show a lot of unpainted wood, the species of choice are never walnut or mahogany. They will use woods like pearwood, cherry, boxwood, costello, ebony, Alaskan yellow cedar, maple, birch, blonde walnut sapwood (which is not a walnut at all) and the like. These species are far too expensive for any but the best kit manufacturers to provide and those kits are priced accordingly, but you get what you pay for and a lot more bang for your buck from those brands (e.g. Syren and Vanguard.)

For me the main benefit of a drill press or milling machine is that the bit is held securely on the vertical axis (axis of rotation). If you are drilling by hand into wood that has growth layers (grain), when the bit encounters the interface between soft and hard layers the bit will tend to cut more into the softer layer. This causes it to wander, and there is virtually nothing you can do to stop it. But in a drill press or milling machine the  it will be held in alignment in the vertical axis so it cuts into the harder wood - if the machine has very little runout (wobble).
 
As mentioned above, with very small drill bits you must chuck the bit with the minimum necessary length protruding out of the chuck so the bit doesn't flex.
 
The second benefit of a milling machine (or a drill press with an X-Y table) is that you can drill a series of holes in a straight line. The X-Y table allows you to move the piece by an exact increment in a straight line, allowing you to create a neat precisely spaced series of holes. Again, if you are trying to do this by hand and the wood has grain the bit will wander and the result looks like it was made by a drunken sailor.
 
Another benefit is that holes that are drilled with a drill press or milling machine will be vertical/perpendicular to the surface. When using a pin vise or hand held drill you really can't expect to get perfectly perpendicular holes.
 
And you can always use an angled support (or tilting vise) to hold the piece at a desired angle to get repeatable holes at the same angle to the surface.

The benefit of using any type of power tool to turn any wire sized (<1/16in) bitt is, maybe, time.  Thicknesses of material are usually quite thin and an Archimedes Drill works quite well.  For fractional sized drills larger than 1/16 in. a full sized drill press is useful and often necessary.  I see no reason to own a micro or “hobby sized” drill press for either scratch or kit building.
 
Roger

It sounds like you feel that you have reached a plateau building plastic models and now are seeking new challenges.  Why don’t you skip  wooden kits and try building a model from scratch?  By doing so you can select both subject and level of difficulty.  In addition, when you finish you will have something unique.
 
Roger

It took me nearly a year to figure out how to make realistic scale railings.  I tried both standard soldering techniques and well as resistance soldering.  Neither yielded results that satisfied me (maybe my technique was poor...).  Finally, I tried this method:  I cut scale brass wire into the length needed for the stanchions.  About ten stanchions were aligned (flat) on aluminum tape.  Using my Jim Bynes table saw, I cut 2 or 3 slots  (depending on position on the rail) in that bunch of stanchions (see photograph).  Jigs were made that modeled the fore-aft and port-starboard camber of the ship and kept the stanchions in their correct positions.  Scale brass for each of the rails was temporarily superglued into the stanchions slots.  I used brass dust - mixed with epoxy - to model the stanchion-rail joints.  Once the epoxy cured the rails were ready.  I used the same jig to accurately drill holes in the plank-sheer and the boat deck beams to install the railings.  A small brass ring was used to model the lower joint of each stanchion.  A similar method was used for all the railings on the model.  Once the bridge deck railings were attached it was time to plank the boat deck.

The rigging on my Constructo Enterprise sags in the winter when there’s high humidity. During the summer it tightens back up. I watch the triatic stay, it sags, it goes taught…
 
I did the bees wax melt on all of my lines when building. Maybe that’s helping a little.

That's not at all surprising.  You've definitely got what Jaager calls "a serious model scroll saw!"  The DeWalt DW788 has consistently been ranked a "best buy" in the annual tool reviews. I'd say it's at "the bottom of the top" in quality and features and "at the top of the bottom" in price. In other words, it's a fairly priced tool that does what it's supposed to do. It's definitely a quality tool. Nobody that I know of makes a less expensive double parallel-link arm scroll saw. I've never read a complaint about it in the reviews. That said, it retails for close to $400, so I wouldn't put it at all in the same class as the $100 to $200 "Big Box Store Specials" from the Bejing Patriotic Peoples' Export Power Tool Collective. 
 

 
DEWALT Scroll Saw, Variable-Speed, 1.3 Amp (DW788), Yellow, 20-Inch - Power Table Saws - Amazon.com
 
 

Excellent point and I think an important one to emphasize. Many of the lower-end scroll saws are lightly built low-powered models designed for the "crafters' market" and aren't intended to hog through thick sections of hardwood. When selecting a scroll saw, I think it's important to spend a lot of time reading the reviews and being aware that there are definitely two distinct ends of the quality spectrum when it comes to scroll saws. If one is choosing a scroll saw model on the basis of price alone, you may well be buying an expensive door-stop.

"Old 'arn?" Are you talking about the early 1950's cast iron King Seeley-built Craftsman "jigsaws" that ran off of a stock Craftsman cast iron capacitor-starting 1/2 or 3/4 HP motor?  (This was in the days when these machines were called "jigsaws" and the hand-held gizmos were called "saber saws.") Definitely built to "take a lickin' and keep on tickin". I inherited one of these beasts from the original owner, my father, and I'd say they are quite workable for relatively heavy work, but are definitely "bucking broncos" that have to be seriously secured or they'll bounce all over the place. I bolt the stand of mine to a heavy solidly secured workbench and now only use it for detail work on a scale somewhere between my 14" Delta bandsaw clone and my 14" Sakura which had a list price of around $600 and I was able to purchase barely used from a fellow for $100.
 
Note that ~75 year old cast iron Craftsman has a mechanism unseen in today's scroll saws. The blades' vertical movement is driven by a transmission below while the top of the blade is tensioned by an air piston spring-dampening mechanism to which the top of the blade is attached. The upper arm can be easily removed by unscrewing the crown nut at the rear of the upper arm. This then permits a single ended saber saw blade to be attached to the lower drive mechanism and the saw to be operated as a stationary saber saw.
 

 

While curves can be cut on a bandsaw, of course, I do think a good scroll saw is a much more versatile sawing tool for fine work such as is encountered in modeling. A scroll saw will permit you to stop the forward progress of a cut, rotate the workpiece without limitation, and start off in another direction without ever having to turn the saw off.  Similarly, a scroll saw can cut a circle or any other shape inside the perimeter of a workpiece which is simply not possible with a bandsaw. The scroll saw will also accept a far wider variety of cutting blades including omnidirectional ones which, again, are simply not possible with a bandsaw. If you do decide on a bandsaw, and you have the room in your shop, you'd do well to get a standard Delta 14" bandsaw or one of the many Asian clones (I'm sure any patents expired ages ago.) (Jet and Grizzly are reliable retailers of these and there are many available on the used market.) 
 
Buyers have to be careful buying scroll saws. There is a very wide range of price and corresponding quality in scroll saws and you definitely get what you pay for. One should do a fair amount of online research before "pulling the pin" to avoid disappointment and a waste of money. (Small "mini scroll saws" sold in most of the ship modeling catalogs, e.g. Dremel, Proxxon, and MicroMark, are generally underpowered and overpriced in my opinion.) Scroll saws are a "gateway" power tool with a wide market base of hobbyists. A lot of them are bought by entry level hobbyists who later find themselves no longer interested in their hobby and little-used scroll saws can be found on the used market quite easily. This is great if you find one of the $750 to $2,000 top of the line scroll saws for $100, and not so great if you pay $100 for a scroll saw that was junk the day it rolled off the assembly line. At the bottom of the heap in the "big box" stores, Wen and DeWalt "swing arm" models in the $150 to $300 range often get reasonably good reviews but they are not even in the same zip code with the "parallel arm" models made by Hegner, Sakura, Excalibur, and King Industrial. The major price difference is between "swing arm" and "parallel link arm" scroll saws. The latter move the blade in an up and down motion perpendicular to the table (if the table is set flat) while the former "swing" the blade in an arc when sawing. The primary quality distinctions in scroll saws are 1. Type of arm, swing or parallel link, 2. motor power, and perhaps most importantly, 3. lack of vibration, all of which are directly related to the accuracy the saw is capable of delivering. At the inexpensive end of the scale are tools which vibrate so much, even when bolted down to a solid surface, that they are near useless for doing fine work. 
 
This isn't to say that one has to spend $750 and up to acquire a decent scroll saw. Even if one "pays retail" for a new saw, good work can be done with DeWalt's parallel link arm 20" scroll saw. DEWALT Scroll Saw, Variable-Speed, 1.3 Amp (DW788), Yellow, 20-Inch - Power Table Saws - Amazon.com
 
It really isn't an "either or" question. If you want to cut pieces for built-up hull framing, a good scroll saw is the tool for the job. If you want to resaw billets for model work, a bandsaw is the tool for the job. You can use a bandsaw with a narrow blade to roughly cut curves within the limits of your blade's width and then "sand to the line," to achieve a sufficiently accurate result, but that's not really what the bandsaw is made for. You can also us a scroll saw to cut thick billets within the limits of its throat opening, but that's not what it's made for, either, and you'll probably break a lot of blades trying. 
 
So, as Mr. Natural says,
 

 

I second Druxey's suggestion. There's never any certainty with any of this, so experiments off the model are recommended, as always. Natural cordage shrinks when it gets wet because the moisture causes the natural fibers to swell which tightens the lay. The line becomes slack after being wet because the moisture causes the rope to tighten and stretch. Afterwards, it stays stretched until re-wetted.
 
You should test a section of your laid up rigging line to see if simply applying the shellac before trying to first soak the line in hot water will alone shrink it sufficiently. The shellac soaking into the twisted line may be tighten the line sufficiently on its own and, if so, when the alcohol evaporates, whether the shellac will have sealed your rigging from further moisture and will have cemented the twisted fibers tightly together and sealed out further moisture being absorbed.
 
If that doesn't cause the line to shrink sufficiently, I'd test it with an application of boiling hot water and see if that shrinks the cordage tighter. If so, I'd put the model somewhere the humidity was low for a day or three and then apply a generous amount of boiling hot water and let it soak into the rigging. Cotton should shrink in hot water, even if the cotton has been "pre-shrunk." Your twisting up the rope should cause it to tighten in any event because as the cotton fibers soak up the water, they will expand and your twist will tighten as the fibers become larger. Let the water dry (a hair dryer should speed things up if you are careful) and then apply thinned clear ("white") shellac (most canned shellac can be applied right out of the can.) The shellac should soak into the rigging and "set" the cordage, also sealing it so it will not absorb moisture in the future. The shellac should not change the color any nor should it be visible when dry. 
 
When attempting to shrink rigging, and particularly standing rigging, work on each side alternately rather than both sides simultaneously. This will permit one side's taking up before the other and should prevent a sudden over-shortening on both sides that could cause the rigging to over-tighten and pull loose or break if too tight.
 
And again, experiment with these techniques before you attack the model's finished work with any of them. We're just making it up as we go and free advice on the internet is often worth less than what you pay for it. Let us know how it works!

I second Druxey's suggestion. There's never any certainty with any of this, so experiments off the model are recommended, as always. Natural cordage shrinks when it gets wet because the moisture causes the natural fibers to swell which tightens the lay. The line becomes slack after being wet because the moisture causes the rope to tighten and stretch. Afterwards, it stays stretched until re-wetted.
 
You should test a section of your laid up rigging line to see if simply applying the shellac before trying to first soak the line in hot water will alone shrink it sufficiently. The shellac soaking into the twisted line may be tighten the line sufficiently on its own and, if so, when the alcohol evaporates, whether the shellac will have sealed your rigging from further moisture and will have cemented the twisted fibers tightly together and sealed out further moisture being absorbed.
 
If that doesn't cause the line to shrink sufficiently, I'd test it with an application of boiling hot water and see if that shrinks the cordage tighter. If so, I'd put the model somewhere the humidity was low for a day or three and then apply a generous amount of boiling hot water and let it soak into the rigging. Cotton should shrink in hot water, even if the cotton has been "pre-shrunk." Your twisting up the rope should cause it to tighten in any event because as the cotton fibers soak up the water, they will expand and your twist will tighten as the fibers become larger. Let the water dry (a hair dryer should speed things up if you are careful) and then apply thinned clear ("white") shellac (most canned shellac can be applied right out of the can.) The shellac should soak into the rigging and "set" the cordage, also sealing it so it will not absorb moisture in the future. The shellac should not change the color any nor should it be visible when dry. 
 
When attempting to shrink rigging, and particularly standing rigging, work on each side alternately rather than both sides simultaneously. This will permit one side's taking up before the other and should prevent a sudden over-shortening on both sides that could cause the rigging to over-tighten and pull loose or break if too tight.
 
And again, experiment with these techniques before you attack the model's finished work with any of them. We're just making it up as we go and free advice on the internet is often worth less than what you pay for it. Let us know how it works!

I second Druxey's suggestion. There's never any certainty with any of this, so experiments off the model are recommended, as always. Natural cordage shrinks when it gets wet because the moisture causes the natural fibers to swell which tightens the lay. The line becomes slack after being wet because the moisture causes the rope to tighten and stretch. Afterwards, it stays stretched until re-wetted.
 
You should test a section of your laid up rigging line to see if simply applying the shellac before trying to first soak the line in hot water will alone shrink it sufficiently. The shellac soaking into the twisted line may be tighten the line sufficiently on its own and, if so, when the alcohol evaporates, whether the shellac will have sealed your rigging from further moisture and will have cemented the twisted fibers tightly together and sealed out further moisture being absorbed.
 
If that doesn't cause the line to shrink sufficiently, I'd test it with an application of boiling hot water and see if that shrinks the cordage tighter. If so, I'd put the model somewhere the humidity was low for a day or three and then apply a generous amount of boiling hot water and let it soak into the rigging. Cotton should shrink in hot water, even if the cotton has been "pre-shrunk." Your twisting up the rope should cause it to tighten in any event because as the cotton fibers soak up the water, they will expand and your twist will tighten as the fibers become larger. Let the water dry (a hair dryer should speed things up if you are careful) and then apply thinned clear ("white") shellac (most canned shellac can be applied right out of the can.) The shellac should soak into the rigging and "set" the cordage, also sealing it so it will not absorb moisture in the future. The shellac should not change the color any nor should it be visible when dry. 
 
When attempting to shrink rigging, and particularly standing rigging, work on each side alternately rather than both sides simultaneously. This will permit one side's taking up before the other and should prevent a sudden over-shortening on both sides that could cause the rigging to over-tighten and pull loose or break if too tight.
 
And again, experiment with these techniques before you attack the model's finished work with any of them. We're just making it up as we go and free advice on the internet is often worth less than what you pay for it. Let us know how it works!

I second Druxey's suggestion. There's never any certainty with any of this, so experiments off the model are recommended, as always. Natural cordage shrinks when it gets wet because the moisture causes the natural fibers to swell which tightens the lay. The line becomes slack after being wet because the moisture causes the rope to tighten and stretch. Afterwards, it stays stretched until re-wetted.
 
You should test a section of your laid up rigging line to see if simply applying the shellac before trying to first soak the line in hot water will alone shrink it sufficiently. The shellac soaking into the twisted line may be tighten the line sufficiently on its own and, if so, when the alcohol evaporates, whether the shellac will have sealed your rigging from further moisture and will have cemented the twisted fibers tightly together and sealed out further moisture being absorbed.
 
If that doesn't cause the line to shrink sufficiently, I'd test it with an application of boiling hot water and see if that shrinks the cordage tighter. If so, I'd put the model somewhere the humidity was low for a day or three and then apply a generous amount of boiling hot water and let it soak into the rigging. Cotton should shrink in hot water, even if the cotton has been "pre-shrunk." Your twisting up the rope should cause it to tighten in any event because as the cotton fibers soak up the water, they will expand and your twist will tighten as the fibers become larger. Let the water dry (a hair dryer should speed things up if you are careful) and then apply thinned clear ("white") shellac (most canned shellac can be applied right out of the can.) The shellac should soak into the rigging and "set" the cordage, also sealing it so it will not absorb moisture in the future. The shellac should not change the color any nor should it be visible when dry. 
 
When attempting to shrink rigging, and particularly standing rigging, work on each side alternately rather than both sides simultaneously. This will permit one side's taking up before the other and should prevent a sudden over-shortening on both sides that could cause the rigging to over-tighten and pull loose or break if too tight.
 
And again, experiment with these techniques before you attack the model's finished work with any of them. We're just making it up as we go and free advice on the internet is often worth less than what you pay for it. Let us know how it works!

Perhaps, when the atmosphere is right and things tighten up, a little shellac. If you use matte medium, the water content will sag the lines. Test one line first before committing!

That's not at all surprising.  You've definitely got what Jaager calls "a serious model scroll saw!"  The DeWalt DW788 has consistently been ranked a "best buy" in the annual tool reviews. I'd say it's at "the bottom of the top" in quality and features and "at the top of the bottom" in price. In other words, it's a fairly priced tool that does what it's supposed to do. It's definitely a quality tool. Nobody that I know of makes a less expensive double parallel-link arm scroll saw. I've never read a complaint about it in the reviews. That said, it retails for close to $400, so I wouldn't put it at all in the same class as the $100 to $200 "Big Box Store Specials" from the Bejing Patriotic Peoples' Export Power Tool Collective. 
 

 
DEWALT Scroll Saw, Variable-Speed, 1.3 Amp (DW788), Yellow, 20-Inch - Power Table Saws - Amazon.com
 
 

That's not at all surprising.  You've definitely got what Jaager calls "a serious model scroll saw!"  The DeWalt DW788 has consistently been ranked a "best buy" in the annual tool reviews. I'd say it's at "the bottom of the top" in quality and features and "at the top of the bottom" in price. In other words, it's a fairly priced tool that does what it's supposed to do. It's definitely a quality tool. Nobody that I know of makes a less expensive double parallel-link arm scroll saw. I've never read a complaint about it in the reviews. That said, it retails for close to $400, so I wouldn't put it at all in the same class as the $100 to $200 "Big Box Store Specials" from the Bejing Patriotic Peoples' Export Power Tool Collective. 
 

 
DEWALT Scroll Saw, Variable-Speed, 1.3 Amp (DW788), Yellow, 20-Inch - Power Table Saws - Amazon.com
 
 

That's not at all surprising.  You've definitely got what Jaager calls "a serious model scroll saw!"  The DeWalt DW788 has consistently been ranked a "best buy" in the annual tool reviews. I'd say it's at "the bottom of the top" in quality and features and "at the top of the bottom" in price. In other words, it's a fairly priced tool that does what it's supposed to do. It's definitely a quality tool. Nobody that I know of makes a less expensive double parallel-link arm scroll saw. I've never read a complaint about it in the reviews. That said, it retails for close to $400, so I wouldn't put it at all in the same class as the $100 to $200 "Big Box Store Specials" from the Bejing Patriotic Peoples' Export Power Tool Collective. 
 

 
DEWALT Scroll Saw, Variable-Speed, 1.3 Amp (DW788), Yellow, 20-Inch - Power Table Saws - Amazon.com
 
 

That's not at all surprising.  You've definitely got what Jaager calls "a serious model scroll saw!"  The DeWalt DW788 has consistently been ranked a "best buy" in the annual tool reviews. I'd say it's at "the bottom of the top" in quality and features and "at the top of the bottom" in price. In other words, it's a fairly priced tool that does what it's supposed to do. It's definitely a quality tool. Nobody that I know of makes a less expensive double parallel-link arm scroll saw. I've never read a complaint about it in the reviews. That said, it retails for close to $400, so I wouldn't put it at all in the same class as the $100 to $200 "Big Box Store Specials" from the Bejing Patriotic Peoples' Export Power Tool Collective. 
 

 
DEWALT Scroll Saw, Variable-Speed, 1.3 Amp (DW788), Yellow, 20-Inch - Power Table Saws - Amazon.com
 
 

Excellent point and I think an important one to emphasize. Many of the lower-end scroll saws are lightly built low-powered models designed for the "crafters' market" and aren't intended to hog through thick sections of hardwood. When selecting a scroll saw, I think it's important to spend a lot of time reading the reviews and being aware that there are definitely two distinct ends of the quality spectrum when it comes to scroll saws. If one is choosing a scroll saw model on the basis of price alone, you may well be buying an expensive door-stop.

"Old 'arn?" Are you talking about the early 1950's cast iron King Seeley-built Craftsman "jigsaws" that ran off of a stock Craftsman cast iron capacitor-starting 1/2 or 3/4 HP motor?  (This was in the days when these machines were called "jigsaws" and the hand-held gizmos were called "saber saws.") Definitely built to "take a lickin' and keep on tickin". I inherited one of these beasts from the original owner, my father, and I'd say they are quite workable for relatively heavy work, but are definitely "bucking broncos" that have to be seriously secured or they'll bounce all over the place. I bolt the stand of mine to a heavy solidly secured workbench and now only use it for detail work on a scale somewhere between my 14" Delta bandsaw clone and my 14" Sakura which had a list price of around $600 and I was able to purchase barely used from a fellow for $100.
 
Note that ~75 year old cast iron Craftsman has a mechanism unseen in today's scroll saws. The blades' vertical movement is driven by a transmission below while the top of the blade is tensioned by an air piston spring-dampening mechanism to which the top of the blade is attached. The upper arm can be easily removed by unscrewing the crown nut at the rear of the upper arm. This then permits a single ended saber saw blade to be attached to the lower drive mechanism and the saw to be operated as a stationary saber saw.
 

 

I cannot speak for others, but this has never been a problem for me.  I have cut two sets of castello frames (about 1000 pieces for the floors, futtocks and top timbers) for a 1:48 and a 1:64 hull with my DW788 saw without any issues whatsoever.  I did break two blades in the process but that is a two minute fix for a couple dollars.
 
For slitting billets, I found that a band saw is the best way to go as it works well and makes for less sawdust than a table saw.  When I find the need I just borrow the one I sold to the guy down the street.  😀
 
Allan  

"Old 'arn?" Are you talking about the early 1950's cast iron King Seeley-built Craftsman "jigsaws" that ran off of a stock Craftsman cast iron capacitor-starting 1/2 or 3/4 HP motor?  (This was in the days when these machines were called "jigsaws" and the hand-held gizmos were called "saber saws.") Definitely built to "take a lickin' and keep on tickin". I inherited one of these beasts from the original owner, my father, and I'd say they are quite workable for relatively heavy work, but are definitely "bucking broncos" that have to be seriously secured or they'll bounce all over the place. I bolt the stand of mine to a heavy solidly secured workbench and now only use it for detail work on a scale somewhere between my 14" Delta bandsaw clone and my 14" Sakura which had a list price of around $600 and I was able to purchase barely used from a fellow for $100.
 
Note that ~75 year old cast iron Craftsman has a mechanism unseen in today's scroll saws. The blades' vertical movement is driven by a transmission below while the top of the blade is tensioned by an air piston spring-dampening mechanism to which the top of the blade is attached. The upper arm can be easily removed by unscrewing the crown nut at the rear of the upper arm. This then permits a single ended saber saw blade to be attached to the lower drive mechanism and the saw to be operated as a stationary saber saw.
 

 

Based on scales smaller than 1/12 I totally agree.  The ideal situation is to have both I suppose if you have the needs.   I have had both and finally sold the band saw to a neighbor that does carpentry work when I realized I rarely used it.   I then replaced my old scroll saw which had the shakes with a new Dewalt and could not be happier.  Some stores in the US s  offer 10% discounts to military vets so don't forget to ask.
 
Allan
 
 

In general, I am of the opinion that with a few notable exceptions (Byrnes and Sherline) when it comes to power tools, “they don’t make ‘‘em like they used to.”  My shop is, therefore,  equipped with old, solidly built, equipment.  
 
On the other hand I would be leery about buying a used scroll saw.  My old power tools all have separate motors with power transmitted to the tool by V belts.  If the motor dies or if the tool is underpowered it is a simple matter to replace it with a new or more powerful one bought from a local electric supply house.  V belts, likewise are stocked by hardware stores.   Scroll saws, however, almost always are powered by “integral motors.”  The motor is built right into the tool.  If the motor on one of these dies, or if the internal transmission system fails repair probably means dealing with the manufacturer- possibly one overseas.
 
Roger