johnre
Well-known member
One by one, the makers of stationary wood shop equipment have left their US manufacturing operations behind and moved them offshore to Taiwan or China. Delta, Powermatic, Dewalt, Porter-Cable, SawStop, etc. have all succumbed. There is still one that remains, however, doing all of their design and manufacturing in a small town in the middle of Kansas: Bushton / RBI scroll saws.
Their roots go all the way back to 1929, and they have always had a simple, superior design with their long, parallelogram arms, an unprecedented stroke length that clears sawdust very effectively from the workpiece and saves blades, their rock-solid stability, and their good balance. They have continued to refine their design, and nothing seems to operate quite as well.
I have a vintage 2005 model RBI 226 VS Ultra that has been factory rebuilt on the blade holders to take the newest jaw design, and the work you see in my intro post had the scrolled edges on the dino's head, body, arms, and legs done with this saw. Using a #5 skip tooth blade, the scrolled surfaces came out just as you see them, unsanded, ready for buffing and wax - that's how solid this saw is.
Website is here: https://www.bushtonmanufacturing.com/scroll-saws
It's anything but a large, heavily marketed operation; when I had the arms on my unit factory rebuilt for the new jaw design, it was the co-owner who did the work, and you'll also see him doing all the demonstration videos on youtube.
They sell these scrollsaws both at woodworker shows and also direct from the factory.
Their roots go all the way back to 1929, and they have always had a simple, superior design with their long, parallelogram arms, an unprecedented stroke length that clears sawdust very effectively from the workpiece and saves blades, their rock-solid stability, and their good balance. They have continued to refine their design, and nothing seems to operate quite as well.
I have a vintage 2005 model RBI 226 VS Ultra that has been factory rebuilt on the blade holders to take the newest jaw design, and the work you see in my intro post had the scrolled edges on the dino's head, body, arms, and legs done with this saw. Using a #5 skip tooth blade, the scrolled surfaces came out just as you see them, unsanded, ready for buffing and wax - that's how solid this saw is.
Website is here: https://www.bushtonmanufacturing.com/scroll-saws
It's anything but a large, heavily marketed operation; when I had the arms on my unit factory rebuilt for the new jaw design, it was the co-owner who did the work, and you'll also see him doing all the demonstration videos on youtube.
They sell these scrollsaws both at woodworker shows and also direct from the factory.
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