3-legged scrollsaw table
I was talking with Pat Roberson about scrollsaws and the topic of vibration came up. I told her about reading, somewhere on the Internet, that a 3-legged table was superior to even a heavy workbench as a support for a scrollsaw. This discussion suggested an experiment. You run your scrollsaw on your bench and then put it on a concrete floor and run it there. You note the difference in vibration.
At the time I was dubious but being mostly an idiot when it comes to understanding harmonic dampening, I did the experiment. Shazaam, said me, there is a big difference. This motivated me to spend an hour building a 3-legged bench to see if that was also something more than a myth. Shazaam some more, said I. My 3-legged table mostly eliminated any notion of vibration from my Dremel scrollstation.
Anyways, I suggested to Pat that she build one. She asked for a photo of mine. Here it is:
You’re right…it’s not much. Afterall, I didn’t even think it would work when I built it. But it works so well that I don’t see any reason to redo it. A couple things to note. First, the entire frame is created by hunks of 2×4 and everything is screwed together with deck screws. I’d guess it’s about $3 worth of the stuff.
The top is 3/4″ plywood and I took one of the rubber floor tiles you see on the floor, cut it to size, and put it between the saw and the table. The saw is bolted to the table using 10-24 bolts (3 of them). Note also that I screwed a power bar to the back leg of the table. I plug the saw an an airbrush compressor into it and normally this table is shoved into a space between two benches. I have a footswitch to turn it on/off.
Because Pat is a buddy, I spent a few minutes and drew up the table in SketchUp to provide plans for her. You can grab the plans here if you want. Here’s a graphic from that drawing. Nothing fancy but the main dimensions are there so you can cut up your 2×4 and have a bench ‘real soon.’ The 24″ height was determined by my size and height of my shop butt-holder.
Cheers — Larry
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Thanks for the plans, Larry! This is my next project! I appreciate the work you did, a lot!
Hope you liked the presentation of our discussion. Hope also that you downloaded the SketchUp plan
Cheers — Larry
Three-legged scrollsaw table iis finished, according to your great plans! I downloaded the SketchUp plan and proceeded accordingly, and it’s just great. Of course, owing to inflation, the table cost me $4, but I can live with that. Thanks again, very much – can’t wait to try it out.
Gee Pat, there’s no moss growing on you. That didn’t take long. Sorry to hear how expensive your bench was. Guess I under-estimated but I bet you have some 2×4 left over
I found the biggest benefit of this is that you free up bench space and it’s more space than just the footprint of the saw. There’s something about large tools sitting on a table that seems to suck up a lot of space. Maybe that only happens in my shop.
Cheers — Larry
[...] than a 4-legged table. If you’d like to build one, I discussed this one and provided a plan here. Notice also that I have a rubber mat between the saw and table, further dampening the [...]