Hi Maurice. Almost everyone that is new to scroll sawing will break blades on a regular basis. It's part of the learning curve. There are a few reasons why the blades are breaking. One is over tightening of the blade clamps, another is pushing the wood to hard. When you have the correct blade fitted and using the right speed with a good tension there is very little that can go wrong but blades still break from time to time, even with the old hands. 3/4 pine is quite soft and you should not have encountered any problems as it is such an easy wood to cut on the scroll saw. With regard to the wood bouncing it sounds as if you are turning corners to quickly and not holding the wood correctly. It requires very little pressure to hold it down with the fingers and most of us do not use the hold down arm. It's like all things Maurice, it takes time to master and only prolonged practice will overcome these problems. For cutting pine a number 5 blade should be more than adequate. Pine has a tendency to warp easily and unless it is perfectlt flat you will get bounce as Servo stated in his post. What helps a lot with warped wood is to cut it slower and to hold it down more firmly on the table.
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