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When I was at school in the 90's we had a vibrosaw in our School workshop, which was essentially a small thin blade that was vibrated up and down and was used to cut thin plastic like Plasticard or plastic. I am working on a scratbuilt thunderhawk and I have glued my schematics to the plasticard, but the best way to cut it will be with a nice neat edge using a Vibrosaw/ Hobby Fret saw.

I have struggled to find any on the Internet, I was outbid on one on Ebay. I am looking to pay about £40 and I will be using it on other projects miniatures and tanks.... Does anyone have any advice or experience or make any recommendations?

Edit found one.....http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Spiralux-Hobby-Fret-Saw-GWO-/180590532183?pt=UK_Crafts_Other_Crafts_EH&hash=item2a0c08d657#ht_500wt_1156
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=180590532183
anyone had any experience with one of these?

in the woodworking profession its known as a scroll saw.fairly easy to work with just let the blade do the cutting and buy extra blades

I have tried to buy one of these off ebay and each time i have been unsuccessful. Anyone know where I can get one because I am struggling to find a supplier online, I am aiming not spend more than £50.

To be honest i prefer to cut plastic card with a good knife and steel rule.

Have you looked into jewelry tool suppliers? They frequently carry specialty tools and detailed sawing of thin materials is within the scope of the craft. MicroMark might be another place to look. Honestly, I can't recall ever coming across a spring-arm reciprocating saw, only beefier and pricier woodworking scroll saws.

I only ever used a bandsaw to cut plasticard when it was 3-5mm thick stuff (back in the days of the FX workshop).

These days, I use a scribing tool, score and snap. Then copious sanding.

A mate has a scroll saw he got from the local hardware chain store. He uses it for jewellery making.

Not trying to be funny, but you say you're willing to spend £50 and that one finished last night for £21...

No it didn't because i bid £25 pounds and it leapt to £24 with me as highest bidder. After I finished my 4 hour train journey it had gone for a lot more. I am willing to pay more for one as they are rare, this is the third one I have been beaten on and to be Honest I am starting to smell a Rat as the same person seems to be the same item on week after week after sucessfully selling it? It could be that the sales have fallen through.......

If you are brave and have a compressor try one of these for about £20 (shear metal cutter).

http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2erdgtools%2eco%2euk%2facatalog%2fWOOD_WORKING_TOOLS%2ehtml&WD=scroll&PN=AIR_SHEARS_AND_CUTTING_TOOLS%2ehtml%23a355845#a355845

However I think this is what you want (curently out of stock, but they usually get tools in pretty sharpish when requested). Erbauer are a company that make budget specialist power tools and scfrewfix do them especially cheap. I have a biscuit cutter from them and am very pleased with it. I found that it had Limited instructions with it but it sounds like you know what to do. You can search google shopping for scroll saws and not find anything cheaper. This was listed at £90 but is now £49.99. They have a slightly more expensive option as well.

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/21062/Power-Tools/Benchtop-Woodworking/Erbauer-ERB110SSW-90W-405mm-Scroll-Saw-230V

mwnciboo wrote:No it didn't because i bid £25 pounds and it leapt to £24 with me as highest bidder.

Weird, I just checked again and it definitely shows 21 quid as the winning bid. Oh well.

Anyway, I know Dremel make one that is considered pretty good by woodworkers. It goes for $135 NEW here in the US, so I'm sure it would be a lot cheaper used.

Obviously that's a heavy item to be shipping around the world, but maybe you could search for one over there?

This is probably a good place to start looking. Prolly find a used one from one of the site members.

http://www.scrollsawer.com/

Not to be a jerk, but this is literally the first hit that pops up when you type "scroll saw" into google.


As an avid model converter, I can see this kind of tool being useful for making large vehicles and buildings, or even better iconography. Dunno if I'd say its needed for individual muhreen sized models though.

YES....Finally I have got one!! Someone has contacted me privately and I have one exactly the same spec as above winging its way to me... God bless you dakka.

glad to hear youve met with success

I will post up a link to my THUNDERHAWK project once the scrollsaw arrives. Plus I will be writing an Article on this subject so others can follow, oh and my A4 templates so others can print them out and use the templates (I am working on a v2 of them improving them slightly and adding in extra detail)

The v1's are available here

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-22413-11413_Thunderhawk%20Plans.html


EDIT : Oh here it is...Many thanks you know who you are..