Blades

[Claymore]

Hi,
Been experimenting today while cutting some Beech (1" thick) by trying different blades.....basically all number 3's but with different number of teeth to see which lasted the longest and was very surprised but having thought about I shouldn't be.
The longest lasting blades were the normal teeth ie not skip tooth blades and think its down to the bigger the gaps to clear the teeth the weaker the blade is and snaps pretty quickly compared to the non skip tooth blades. I cut a full Intarsia using one normal blade I cut the same pattern using a skip tooth blade and snapped 3 of them. I also didn't notice a difference in the actual cuts and the speed was the same so are we being fooled into buying the more expensive skip tooth blades when a bog standard one will do exactly the same?.
Also had some blades slipping from the blade clamps so removed the clamps and sprayed with with de-greaser put them back on the saw and problem solved.....i guess you guys already knew that but just incase lol.
Right that's my right riveting read for tonight.....have fun Tomorrow nights topic will be Scrolling with Food........yes how to make hand scrolled ginger bread men and Digestive Segmentation. :lol:

 

[Honest John]

Interesting post. In a world controlled by accountants and marketing men whom feel the need to develop new and wonderful products, convince us that we need them, then lever the cash out of our hands ! I am a great fan of the modified geometry blades by Pegas. But to be honest I didn’t have any problems with ordinary reverse skip blades and rarely break blades. Not sure I’ve ever used “ordinary” non skip blades, but it makes some sense in your suggestion that the blades have more metal in them and should therefore be stronger. On occasions when I have broke a blade it has almost always been down to me pushing the cut beyond what the blade wants to cut, and probably because the blade should have been changed five minutes ago.

 

[Claymore]

Aye I have done that many times.....almost finished so decided to cut a couple more and snap! on my EX30 i have no problem if the blade breaks but on my Hegner clone Axminster and it goes BANG! and it still makes me jump out of my seat lol still a great saw. I was cutting some 3mm aluminium today and used normal non skip blade and did a great job until the final 5mm and the sodding thing grabbed and got my finger with the arm ouch! and good job no nuns about lo

 

[whatknot]

For scrollsaw work (fretwork) reverse skip makes a difference as you don't want tear out but on intarsia it shouldn't make so much difference as you are not seeing the reverse side

I tend to use reverse skip most of the time, 3's & 5's mainly

As to blade slip, I always sand across both ends of the new blade (both sides) before fitting and never have a blade slip

As you say you tend to keep on thinking the blade will last that little bit longer than it wants to and yes it still makes me jump on the odd occasion a blade snaps with my AWFS18

It also makes you jump when you forget to flip the tension lever too !!

Only done it a few times but it knackers the blade

 

[AES]

Interesting posts. Thanks for all the inputs.

Personally I have both reverse skip tooth and non, plus the Pegas modified geometry in a couple of numbers (inc No. 12, bought by mistake, but turns out to be really useful!).

When cutting good quality ply (i.e. lots of laminations, so each one is very thin, 1 mm or so) I find reverse skip tooth are very useful, otherwise you get a little "bow wave" of the 1st lamination on the underside of the cut - not a big problem but needs a light sanding off.

For just about everything else I'm now using the modified geometry bladed in sizes 3, and 5 (often), sometimes 7 or even, as above, those no 12s.

Mind you I do use my Ex 21 for a lot of jobs which aren't really scroll saw jobs!

+1 for cleaning off the tops & bottoms of blades before fitting. I normally use Acetone.

My two-penneth

 

[Honest John]

Can’t say I’ve ever cleaned the ends of blades before use, but as it seems popular il start doing it. I’ve got a litre of Gunwash quality Acetone that sits on a shelf within n arms length of my Axi EX21 station. T would be ryde not to.