Question for scroll sawers....

[Michael Costa]

What's the best way to thread the blade thru the cut outside in the middle? Particularly the tiny cuts. Thanks

407190

[johnny means]

I always liked to drill multiple holes to give me multiple ways to access a particular cut. Also, some cuts were best made with a non directional blade.

[Matt Day]

I’m not sure exactly the cut you’re talking about, but one tip I’d give is to use a backer when drilling the holes. There looks to be a lot of blowout where you’ve drilled.

[Larry Frank]

So much depends on the saw brand and blade. You might also try asking on the Scroll Saw Village forum. Someone there will have your saw and offer help.

[Charles Lent]

If you have any chipping on the bottom of the drill holes, you need to sand the piece to clean these up. Using a scrap board as a backer when drilling the holes will reduce this chipping problem. If I'm trying to feed a blade up from the bottom, laying a small mirror on the saw table helps significantly. I can then look into the mirror to see the holes from a better angle.

One of those little convex mirrors that are sold for attaching to your outside car mirrors to help in seeing cars in your mirror blind spots will enlarge the view of the holes, if one of these is used on the saw table.

I like to keep the hole diameter of the starter holes as small as possible when cutting very small projects. To help thread the blades through these tiny holes I sometimes grind a point on the top ends of my blades.

A small LED flashlight held against the top side of the board over the holes will shine down through the holes making it much easier to see them too.

For removing very small and unusually shaped areas in the middle of a pattern I frequently switch to a spiral blade. This lets me then kind-of power file out the area rather than cut it out.

You may find any or all of these tips helpful.

I'm a member of the www.scrollsawvillage.com forum (CharleyL). There is a lot of scroll saw talent over there. Come on over and join us. We love to answer questions like this.

Charley