Hello, Just Introducing Myself

[Jesse St Louis]

Hello, My name is Jesse and I live in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA.

I have been doing woodworking as a hobby for 20+ years. But, just never seemed to get interested in scroll sawing. I had an old Delta two speed unit, but did not like it.

I just bought a DeWalt 788 saw. I hope to get more use out of it.

--Jesse

[Steviegwood]

Welcome to the family Jesse. Scrolling can be very addictive. Have fun with it. Again Welcome. Steve

[Greenfield_Bob]

Hi Jesse

Bob

[Tor]

Welcome Jesse. This is a great place to come when you have just gotten a new saw (or any other time too, of course). It everyone else here has a say, you certainly will get a lot more use out of your new saw than your old one.

Tor

[knothead]

Welcome to the group Jesse.
Tom

[GrayBeard Phil]

Jesse:

Welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy your visits.

As you are an experienced woodworker, allow me to point out some differences between scroll sawing and traditional hobby woodworking. You may already know most of this. It has been over a year since I last posted this list.

--In Scroll sawing, there are seldom any jigs, rigs, or templates to spend your money on in the catalogs. The wood is free handed past the cutting blade. That means it takes a bit of practice, an eye-hand type of thing. Easy to learn, don't take long either. But you must develop the eye-hand skill.

--Blades dull faster, and the blades are changed much more often. (smaller amount of metal in the blade to absorb the heat.) Beginner scrollers find they break blades a lot. The noise that occurs when a blade breaks makes everyone jump.

--Scroll sawing is WAY safer than a band saw, table saw, or router.

--The rule on a band saw is NEVER back the wood out of a cut with the blade moving. Done all the time with a scroll saw. Don't allow yourself to forget which rule is for which tool.

--Many times the finishing applied to the wood is left dull, or matte finish. 'It ain't the wood, it is where the wood ain't' is the rule in many cases. Except for segmentation and Intarsia, wood is removed so the viewer's eye can put together an image between the wood cut away, and what is left. Shinny, glossy, wood detracts. Oil based finishes (Danish, BLO, etc.) are commonly applied to projects by just dipping in bath, and hung up to dry. Spray finishes are also common.

--Scroll sawing fretwork is too complex to sand or file smooth. Waste too much time. Sand surface smooth before you cut; after you cut just lightly sand top and bottom to remove any fuzzes. Too much sanding after cutting risks the project breaking. Skill and blade selection will prevent the need to sand or file the kerf walls of an interior cut.

--You don't need ear protection when the saw is running!!!

And one finial note, if you do your own resawing, and then use a home version of a thickness planer... then you most likely know about that 'snipe' at the ends of the boards. With a scroll saw, you can make a Xmas tree stuff from those sniped ends. Save the snipe (or some such T-shirt slogan.)

Phil