Knew Concepts Saw Help

Hi, I purchased the 5" Knew Concepts saw with the cam release and the swivel. I am having a terrible time getting it to work properly. I cannot get 4 aught blades to ping the right pitch without breaking them as soon as I pull the cam lever over. With 3 aught blades, I can get a fairly high ping, but I can literally cut a straight line with the saw at a 30 degree angle to the line with the swivel set to straight. I can’t believe that my cheap german frame works better, but I am ready to give on my Knew Concepts. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Thanks

Yes – email Brian Meek brian@knewconcepts.com. He was amazingly helpful when I was having trouble aligning my saw blades after not having used the saw in a while, and even sent me new parts, gratis.
HTH,
–Makena

I use a Knew Concept for some times now. It took some time to figure out the fit that works for me and here what I learned during the process:
1- the lenght of the blades must be acc
2- must be careful to fix the blade with the right angle
3- I fix the nearest part first, then the other one very loosely. Only then, I go very delicately with the ajusting vise until the right ping.
For the first time I can saw many pieces without one saw break… don’t give up!

I have to be honest. My experience with this saw was less than great. I bought two several years ago. Much more frustrating than my old frame. But I am not a good sawyer…. Some people love them. Some don’t….

Take care,
Andy

I love mine. We solved the problem of blades being to long by drilling into one end… I can now use all blades

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Greetings,

You don’t have to email me, I try to keep an eye on the Orchid list, so I happened to catch your question tonight.
From what you said, I think there are two problems.
A) Shredding of 4/0 blades, and
B) Sawing cockeyed to the frame.
Is this correct?
The reason this matters, is that it’s probably two more-or-less unrelated issues.

Breaking the blades is easier. The first thing to remember is that all of our frames are much stiffer than traditional designs. They can easily tear blades apart, especially smaller ones like 4/0s. I think what’s going on there is just a case of having the tension knob set too tight. 4/0’s are thinner than 3/0’s, so a tension that will almost break a 3/0 will break a 4/0. You need to adjust the tension knob when you change sizes of blade.
Probably the easiest way to do it is to really loosen the tension knob, (2-3 turns) and then put a blade in. Flip the lever to tight, and tighten the knob until you get a ‘plonk’ that’s starting to sound like it might want to be a ‘ping’. Flip the lever open, and add on another half turn of tension, and flip the lever closed again. Listen to the tone. It’ll probably be too ‘plonk-ish’. So flip the lever open, add on another 1/4-1/2 turn, and try again. Keep adjusting until you’re happy with the tone. The trick here is to sneak up on it without overshooting, because overshooting will break the blade.
Once you get used to the saw, you don’t need to fuss with it like this, but you do need to adjust the tension when changing blade size.

As far as sawing off at a 30 degree angle, I have no idea what’s causing that except maybe your blade is waay too loose. Let’s get the tension issue dealt with, and see that doesn’t cure it. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to get out my Sherlock Holmes hat and take another crack at deduction.

You can also email me directly at brian@knewconcepts.com. That way you can send pictures and things. Worst comes-to-worst, I’ve discovered facetime video conferences are sometimes very useful for solving issues quickly, especially when it relates to the right ‘ping’ for a sawblade.

Don’t worry, we always stand behind our gear. One way or another, we’ll get you taken care of.
Regards,
Brian Meek
Knew Concepts.

3 Likes

I read somewhere that OVER tightening your saw blade tension causes it to drift when trying to saw straight. I was guilty of over tightening, as this advice helped me. It could be both problems are related to the tension.

Thank you so much for responding. I will pay extra attention to the tension next time and see if I can get it to cut straight. And, I will try 3 aught again but by starting with the tension loose. I will let you know if I am still having troubles. I appreciate your help. I picked the Knew Concepts saw because I did a lot of research and thought it would be the best tool for the job.

Hi Berni, a question and answer for Brian.
With the thirty degrees twisting you may well find that you have a piece of broken blade stuck down into the bottom hole where the blade fits in. First put a piece of whjite cloth pillow case size into your bench tray and after that turn the saw upside down and give it a tap on your bench peg.

one time I found myself sawing in a spiral almost… most exasperating when trying to go straight! After examining all the parts carefully it turned out that I had somehow twisted the 0/4 blade in the middle a full turn as I installed it. I had to laugh! All was well again once I put things right.

Aurora

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It is matter of adjusting the tension properly and not pushing the lever back to far.
Most of the time my lever is straight up, I do not push it all the way back like in the video.
Push it only until it resists you pressure.
I have use mine for several years now and love it! Don’t give up, it just requires a bit of finesse.

KC blade tensioning video

I don’t use the KC saws; mine are older ones that lee Marshall made. I’ve run into a few
things over the years …

I can’t say for sure that extra tight blades cause steering problems. I do not like using blades that are loose at all. Seems like looser blades would be more likely to succumb to sideways forces and saw crooked, but that’s just a “feeling”, not an educated opinion based on understood physics.

Blades simply do whatever the heck they want to, to some degree, and varying degrees within a dozen, or a gross, or even a single blade. I can start with a blade sawing left of center, and by the time it’s almost dead, it’s sawing right of center.

I had a die saw that I built right after I got the original RT saw, that was sort of modeled after the RT. It had the same kind of crewing frame tensioner, and I had built it strong enough to pop size 1 blades . Again, I think that most of my steering issues are mostly about the funny way blades behave, no matter what. I have a band saw that doesn’t saw straight, either, and veers off from side to side in seemingly unpredictable ways.

I just resigned myself to the reality a long time ago. You can get as good as a person can get, and still not be able to saw perfectly. Also, it can take a long time to get used to
a new saw, even if you’re already a good or great sawer. Keep after it.

Dar