Help for newbie

[shedhead]

I am new to scroll sawing. I have a Scheppach Deco Flex saw. I have two problems already. 1. When i cut the piece of wood jumps up and down with the blade. Although the saw has a Y shaped hold at the front i still get enough movement to waste the look of the cut. 2. I find it imposable to keep the cut onto the line of pattern. I have not stuck on a pattern yet but i have drawn simple shapes to cut around onto the wood. The saw drifts of the line even though i am cutting slow. When i try to correct this i drift to the other side and so on. I end up with anything but a straight line. The wood i have just now is about 20mm thick, is this too thick to learn with. And i am using Sheppach blades are they okay or should i get the German ones i read about. I watched a demonstration on a blog mentioned on fourm. The man makes it look so easy. When i try its always back to frustration.

 

[Gill]

Hi Dermot

Fear not - you'd be surprised how common these sorts of problems are when people start scrolling .

Before you check anything else, make sure the blade is fitted into the saw with the teeth facing downwards. I know, I know... but you'd be surprised how many newbies slip up here.

Assuming your blade is properly fitted, check the blade tension. There should be no more than about a couple of mm lateral movement if it's correctly set up; if you 'ping' the blade with a finger you should get a note like a high C. Not that I could tell you what a high C sounds like . Next, make sure your table is square to the blade. You should be able to do this accurately enough by eye, aligning the blade with an engineers square resting on the table. A bit of inaccuracy won't be a problem but it's harder to feed the wood into the blade if the table is at an angle.

Finally, make sure you are applying forward pressure to your wood as you cut it. This is especially important when making a turn otherwise the blade and wood will bind and your workpiece will lift. You'll soon get the feel for making very tight turns but it takes a bit of practice at first.

You should now be cutting much more successfully than before. Most beginners tend to work with fairly thin materials such as 6mm plywood which don't have much grain. You might find that easier to control than 20mm wood.

You mentioned the Y shaped hold-down arm at the front of the saw. Many scroll saws come with these fitted as standard but they usually just get in the way. Feel free to remove it if possible.

Blades are a bit of a thorny problem because different scrollers have different preferences. I'd suggest you try out a selection of different brands and discover which suit you. It's always handy to have a range in the workshop because different blades seem to perform better for different tasks. It's not really possible to be much more specific than this; for instance, I like to use #9 Pebeo blades for inlay (!) whereas another scroller I know hates using anything larger than a #3 FD Polar blade. As a general rule, reverse tooth blades tend to be good when cutting plywood and skip tooth blades work well with dense materials. However, reverse tooth blades do have a slight tendency to lift the workpiece as it's being cut, so it would probably be better if you avoided these blades for the time being.

Gill

 

[shedhead]

Thanks Gill. I will try out your suggestions today hope i get a result as i so want to get on top of these problems.

 

[Lin]

Excellent instructions Gill...About the only thing I can add would be that most blades are stamped out and there for have a burr on them. So they tend to not feed totally straight. Try feeding the wood at a slight angle....about 11:30 on a clock and if you do veer off the line...slowly feed it back to the line keeping the saw running. It won't be long till you get the hang of it. I've been scrolling for 5 years and still occasionally get the blade in backwards or upside down...I think this has something to do with the gray hairs showing up on my head...lol
Lin

 

[shedhead]

Well Gill you can add me to the list of newbies that put blade in the wrong way This has helped big time. Lin i have tried out what you told me and this has helped me too. Many thanks to both for your help, it has given me room to practice. I will need to get thinner wood and i fell i will be able to get results. Expect me back when i hit my next problem.

 

[chrispuzzle]

Well Gill you can add me to the list of newbies that put blade in the wrong way

shed -

Yay! Putting the blade in upside down is an important rite of passage. We have all done it at some stage or other.

Cutting a straight line on a scrollsaw is not quite as easy as you'd think, as lin points out, the blade has a bias and the bias may vary from blade to blade so often it is useful to make a couple of cuts on scrap wood first to get a feel for a new blade. The other thing to watch out for is over-steering when you get off line. It is just like with a car, you have to ease back to the line you want. Careful sanding afterwards can often cover up the error.

Chris

 

[chef]

have you tryed spiral blades that is all that i use when doing portraits,
and i just love them.
------------------chef (brian)----------------