The tension on my Knew Concepts Fret Saw was low. This is how I fixed it.
If I tensioned the blade to “sing” when plucked, the forward head deflected downward, like this:
A friend brought the titanium version of this saw to a woodworking club meeting. His blade had much more tension than mine. I finally emailed Lee Marshall and ask for help. Lee responded quickly and said I was setting the blade tension wrong!
The tension on the saw is adjusted with two mechanisms, the brass nut and the length of blade inserted into the head. To fix this problem, I released the tension and adjusted the brass nut so the end of the bolt is recessed into the nut 1/16" to 1/8". Look carefully at the picture above and you will see the bolt is protruding from the nut. The nut should shroud the end of the bolt.
After loosing the nut, I removed the blade from the front head and reinserted it, making sure the brass nut was pressed all the way against the frame of the saw. The nut has a tendency to slide back, causing the blade to not be inserted far enough. Remember: the amount of blade inserted into the head impacts the tension. Once the blade was reinserted, I tried the tension lever again, released the tension, adjusted the brass nut a little, swung the lever again, and was able to make the blade sing without deflecting the head. My saw now had about the same tension as the titanium saw.
Correcting the tension also fixed the head deflection. I used channel lock plies and gentle pressure to bend the frame back into shape. The result:
After making this change, the tension lever moves into the tight position very easily.
I believe this is a very common problem.
Easy fix for a terrific saw.
