Scroll saw question

[Paul Johnstone]

My teenager desparately needed a hobby, so I thought I'd try him on scrollsawing. I don't have much experience in this area, so maybe I'm doing something wrong.

We got a pattern book. The pattern was 1 inch thick, 3.5 long, 1.5 inches wide.

For our first attempt, I used red oak, and it was unbelievably slow cutting.
Then I tried a chunk of 2 x 4, just to see if a softer wood would cut faster. It still took forever.

Is it just the nature of a scroll saw that it takes over 15 minutes to do a rip cut on a 3" long 1" thick piece of wood? I have a pretty good saw, it's a used Excalibar. I tried both #7 and #9 blades. Is there a more aggressive blade to use.

These cuts take so long that my teen lost interest.

I was going to try to buy some Basswood, just in case that cut faster, but I'm going to loose him if it takes 1.5 hours to cut out a little Christmas ornament..

I'm hoping I'm doing something wrong.

[Gary Keedwell]

LOML was into it a long time ago and if I remember correctly she was using stock alot thinner.:confused:
Gary K.

[David Duke]

Paul, I'm not really into scrolling but as Gary said in most instances scroll work is done on a lot thinner material 1/8 - 3/8 dependent upon what your making.

[Chuck Lenz]

You didn't have the teeth of the blade pointing up did you ? They should be pointing down.

[Jeff DeVore]

I have several Hegner scroll saws and have made my living with them for the last 10 years.A scroll saw is going to cut much quicker using 3/4" pine - maybe 1/2" per second. It should cut 3/4" oak at about half that speed. On hardwoods I found it helps alot to put cheap packaging tape where you are going to cut - probably speeds it up 20%. A scroll saw is just not as effective on 1" and thicker wood because of the shorteness of the stroke. When I was cutting alot of 1" oak I drilled a hole out farther on the concentric wheel to increase the stroke and it greatly helped however it vibrated much more. The Excalibur is supposed to be a great saw and you should be able to make alot of sawdust with it. Hope this helps.

[Bill Wilson]

Thick stock is definitely tougher to cut, but you still shouldn't have had that much of a problem. You just have to remember that no scrollsaw will cut thick material anywhere close to the same speed as other power saws that you are used to using. For wood that thick a #12 skip tooth may have been a better choice, but still won't be considered fast in normal woodworking context.

For Christmas ornaments, I typically use 1/8" - 1/4" thick material and stack cut several layers, usually less than 3/4" total thickness. Yes, it's slow, but that's the nature of the scroll saw. I will use anywhere from a #2 to a #5 reverse tooth blade, as a general rule. A marginally complex, fretwork ornament, with several inside cuts, might take me up to 1/2 hour to cut a stack. I cut some compound cut ornaments out of 1 1/4" poplar and maple last Christmas and each one took me about 15 - 20 minutes to cut. I realized later that I should have used a plain skip tooth blade, instead of a reverse tooth blade. It clears dust from the kerf much better and allows for a cooler, faster cut.

I'm not sure why your simple cuts took so long. Presuming the blade was sharp, the only other factors at play are blade tension and feed rate. If you push the blade too hard, it could have burned and dulled very quickly. Try some thinner stock and see if you don't have better results.

Good luck, scrolling is a great hobby. It would be a shame for someone to give it up out of frustration.

[Bill Wilson]

Thick stock is definitely tougher to cut, but you still shouldn't have had that much of a problem. You just have to remember that no scrollsaw will cut thick material anywhere close to the same speed as other power saws that you are used to using. For wood that thick a #12 skip tooth may have been a better choice, but still won't be considered fast in normal woodworking context.

For Christmas ornaments, I typically use 1/8" - 1/4" thick material and stack cut several layers, usually less than 3/4" total thickness. Yes, it's slow, but that's the nature of the scroll saw. I will use anywhere from a #2 to a #5 reverse tooth blade, as a general rule. A marginally complex, fretwork ornament, with several inside cuts, might take me up to 1/2 hour to cut a stack. I cut some compound cut ornaments out of 1 1/4" poplar and maple last Christmas and each one took me about 15 - 20 minutes to cut. I realized later that I should have used a plain skip tooth blade, instead of a reverse tooth blade. It clears dust from the kerf much better and allows for a cooler, faster cut.

I'm not sure why your simple cuts took so long. Presuming the blade was sharp, the only other factors at play are blade tension and feed rate. If you push the blade too hard, it could have burned and dulled very quickly. Try some thinner stock and see if you don't have better results.

Good luck, scrolling is a great hobby. It would be a shame for someone to give it up out of frustration.

[Jon Lanier]

Paul,

I do between 8-10 hours scrolling a week and do some pattern designing. One of things you need to understand is that a scroll saw is not really meant for run of the mill cutting. It is designed for intricate cutting. You can of course cut thick stock but you need to have the correct blades... Usually a low TPI (teeth per inch). Even then, the brand of blade could be a problem. I always use Flying Dutchman but there are many good brands out there, and then there are some duds!

Here is an article on how to choose a blade for a particular project: http://www.mikesworkshop.com/whatblad.htm

I don't know Hegner saws, I have an RBI and can increase the angle of the blade for a more aggressive cut. You may want to check if your saw can do that. Something else you may want to do is look into some other sites that deal specifically with scrolling with top of the line artist. Rick Hutchison has an excellent site and tutorial concerning the scroll saw. Rick's site is: http://www.scrollsaws.com/

Good Luck.

[John Terefenko]

Paul

As the others have said, the scrollsaw is not a production tool built for speed. It is a tool built for intricate work and making sharp turns. As others also said any christmas ornament should not be made out of heavy wood that thick. Of course the harder woods such as oak will cut slower than softer woods like bass wood and pines. Now using good blades is a must. Yes there are more agressive blades out there but that is not the answer because with them you may loose accuracy especially for someone just starting out. As mentioned Mike at mikesworkshop.com has great blades and alot of valuable info listed on his site. If your son has little patience than I hate to say this is probably not the hobby for him. You may want to look into turning. A midi lathe and a few tools and he can be turning out many small projects that can be finished right on the lathe. Guess what no patterns needed. Just some thoughts.

[Dave Lehnert]

That’s way too long for the cut to be made. . My guess is you have your blade in upside down.

[Paul Johnstone]

Thanks for everyone's help.. I didn't have the blade upside down.. I rechecked that.

I ordered some skip tooth blades.

The reason the ornaments are so thick is because they are compound cuts.. which make a pretty cool 3-D shapes (at least in the book).

I might back off on that book though and try to get my son to make some simple flat ornaments to build our skills.

In any event, I'm going to spend some time alone with the machine and learn it well enough so hopefully I can be a better teacher next time.

I was also coming to the realization that this might not be the ideal hobby for him either.. He's at that tough age where he's "bored" all the time but really doesn't want to do anything. :)

[joe greiner]

That's way too thick for an introduction. I'm not surprised he got discouraged. For best results, the wood should be thin enough to allow the gullets to clear easily. In other words, thickness less than the stroke. Later on, he can move up to the more difficult thicknesses, with light pressure and back off occasionally to flush the kerf.

Joe

[Michael McCoy]

There are many good books out but while you're on the site ordering blades :) Mike's Workshop also sells a good intro book that goes through all the basics at a reasonable price.

No affiliation but I used that book several years ago when I needed a crash course in scroll saw basics for a grandson's upcoming visit.