newbie questions

[justdraftn]

If you bend a blade.....is it good/bad to continue to use it.
I bent a blade and it seems to be fine once it is tensioned.

Are ss sanding strips any good?

Got a little project going using 3/4" plywood.  Finish/sanded on one side.
Any way to prevent chip out on really close cuts.
I'm using a 9/6 double reverse tooth blade.

 

Edited March 24, 2018 by justdraftn
spelling

[dgman]

First of all, if you are going to use plywood, use a high quality plywood like Baltic birch. As far as scrollsaw sanders, I have never used them. If I need to correct something, I go back and clean it up with the blade.

if I bend a blade, it's trash. It gets tossed!

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Hey a newbie. Lets welcome him but I am not buying your first name is Just. We are friendly here so tell us your real name

Anyway welcome to the site and as mentioned it is a good idea to use good quality plywood if you are going to use plywood at all. Many people use Baltic or Finnish Birch and this is because the layers are thinner and the core is not junk wood. You get very little if any blowout if using the proper blade. Also though when scrolling plywood you will go through more blades because they dull faster because of the glue used in plywoods. As far as bending a blade and using it again, depends how bad you bent it and where. if you bent in cutting area of the blade then I say just toss it and move on. No sense ruining a project for a few cent blade. 

Sanding strip is something I never used and do not believe in them. Practice your cuts and you will get smooth with the actions of cutting and that will eliminate the need for sanding strips. If I have to knock off a bit in a cut I just use the blade as a planer and if the blade is sharp it will plane it very easily. I do not know what a 9/6 blade is. Never heard it referred to as that. If it is a #9 reverse tooth blade that seems rather large. But doable with 3/4" stock depending on the fret work needed. little tougher turning that large a blade. 

Anyway love to see the project your working on and again welcome to the world of scrolling.  

[WayneMahler]

The plywood you get from the big box stores is not a good choice for scrolling. They are made with inferior fillers and glues. I always use birch ply which is really good stuff. Using sharp blades and if they bend, they go into the trash and another blade is installed. Never used the sanding strips, a good quality blade leaves little sanding to be had. 

At any rate welcome to the village, hope you visit often and there are no "stupid" questions. You'll find most folks here are happy to help or supply with their opinion.

[Sycamore67]

The only good plywood that I get from a big box store is Aruaco Ply.  I buy mine at Menards.  I do not use it for scrolling but it has good faces and solid ply inside.

[new2woodwrk]

First off welcome to the Village...

I'm very new at this as well and I have the same saw as you AND I bent a blade yesterday during a set up AND I have sanding strips AND I have used the box store plywood.

So here are my discoveries from a newbie scroller...

1. The bent blade - caused me more headaches to install and fret than was worth the cost so I threw it in the trash, got a new blade and no more headaches - worth the cost of the blade
2. The sanding strips - I have used them installed on my Wen, IMO they work great if you have no other means of sanding or getting inside a cut to sand. So IMO they work fine if you want to use them.  However, they are not the most efficient means of working a project. I use home made strips from Popsicle sticks and I use needle files as well for touching up - I am new after all and I make lots of mistakes that I so far have been able to "clean" up with the files
3. Plywood - During the first few days of getting my Wen saw, I used the plywood I had on hand which was what I had purchased for other wood working projects -box store special. and I as well got so much blow out it was very frustrating! After being advised here about the quality of box store ply (which I had no idea before I came here there even was a quality issue, I thought the only difference was sanded or not), I opted to buy some BB from ebay (1/4 inch BB , 1/8 inch BB ) - once I got my plywood and glued up a pattern and cut it - it was night and day
4. Blades - You didn't ask about this, but the box store blades also are not the best quality - I've tried Dewalt, Olsen, Flying Dutchman (FD) and Pegas blades and I am a Pegas fan forever - or at least until something better is available.

Hope that helps somewhat

[justdraftn]

Thanks! for all the replies.  Good info.
I knew what the answers were going to be....just curious.
When I get my project farther along I'll post some pics.
You will understand the questions about the plywood.
The blades I am using are Olson.  Package labels them as 9/6.
....so, I'm still learning the nomenclature.  How do you reference these blades?

 

What is a good source for blades?

[scrollerpete]

The top blades I would say is the Pegas and Flying Dutchman, best place for Pegas ishttp://www.dndsawbladesonline.com/

now for Flying Dutchman either the Wooden teddy bear or Mikesworkshop

[meflick]

To add a note about getting better baltic birch plywood - if you are in an area that has some of the larger crafts stores (Michael's, AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's, etc.) you can check and see if they carry some and what sizes.  Some in my area carry some pretty good sizes and you can get and use their coupons on it.  Usually almost all of them have a 40% off coupon every week, sometimes its a good week and they have a 50% off coupon.  

[justdraftn]

How many different blade sizes/kinds do you?

Don't really want to buy a gross of one kind of blade and 

find I don't like it.

If you only had 6 different blades...what would they be?

 

 

[kmmcrafts]

40 minutes ago, justdraftn said:

How many different blade sizes/kinds do you?

Don't really want to buy a gross of one kind of blade and 

find I don't like it.

If you only had 6 different blades...what would they be?

 

 

Most blade manufactures offer sample packs where they will have 6 blades of each size in that particular style..

As for what blade works best is very dependent on what type of scroll sawing and material you'll be using.. 

My go to blades are.. Pegas MG #3 and #5 or I also like flying Dutchman blades.. and that would be Ultra reverse #3 and #5. but I also like the Scroll reverse and the spiral blades.. with spirals I've never used anything more than a #1 usually use a 0/1

[ike]

I would be useing a #7 r blade.

IKE

[new2woodwrk]

Like Kevin suggests - get the sample packs - at least that's what I did

I got a sample pack of FD, Olsen and Pegas - then I bought a gross of the pegas 3 UR and 5 UR which I use the most

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

3 hours ago, justdraftn said:

Thanks! for all the replies.  Good info.
I knew what the answers were going to be....just curious.
When I get my project farther along I'll post some pics.
You will understand the questions about the plywood.
The blades I am using are Olson.  Package labels them as 9/6.
....so, I'm still learning the nomenclature.  How do you reference these blades?

 

What is a good source for blades?

From the photo you see on the top of each package of blades there is alot of info, you see a universal number. That is the number size of the blade and being universal all companies use that to size their blades so that you talk apples to apples. No. 5RG means #5 reverse grind(ground) This means there are teeth facing both up and down. On these blades they are double reverse so that means there is 2 teeth close to each other (can be up or down) and then a space is skipped (this is done to help clear saw dust from the blade)  The reverse teeth are to help with fuzzies on the bottom side of your project. Without them the saw teeth saw in one direction, down and not up too. You do not need many because all you are trying to do is cut away the fuzzies and not cut wood. The numbers you gave and are written on the side of the package are the number of teeth per inch. In your example 9 teeth per inch facing down and 6 teeth per inch facing up. They are also a precision grind blade which means they are sharpened differently than a stamped blade which most blades are. These blades should be sharper than standard blades because the way they are sharpened.  They should also last longer than stamped blades. They usually cost more as well. You will also notice with these type blades if you look close the drift on the blade is very very slight if at all. When a blade is stamped from steel rolls it will have teeth that are facing a certain way (usually to the right when looking at the blade) This will cause drift and thus when you cut using those blade you are never able to cut with the piece of wood 90 degrees to the blade. It is always slanted away from the blade somewhat. This is why people use that edge to either cut to the right or to the left. They use the drift to their advantage. Many people may not realize that is what they are doing but it is true. Also people will use the sharp edges of the stamped blades as a plane if they need to knock off a sliver or so. Tough to do from both sides of the blade but one side is always better to use. With Precision ground blades it does not matter because there is no one side better than the other. Probably is somewhat confusing but the more you scroll the more tips you will pick up

 

As Far as best blades. That is a subjective answer. I prefer Flying Dutchman. There there is all sorts of styles and sizes. And then someone threw a monkey wrench in things and made spiral blades and that is a story for another time. But again even with those there are styles and sizes to choose from. There are plenty of charts and videos on the net that can guide you some. But all they are is guides. You need to first hand do the cutting and the more you cut the more your eye and hands start working together and the mind is learning what works well for YOU. Welcome to the world of scrolling and ask all the questions you want. I hope in some small way I cleared up the blade thing but there is alot of info there so it may not sink in all at once. Good luck and look forward to seeing what you got. 

[Rockytime]

Thanks for the information John. You told me things I did not know.

[justdraftn]

8 hours ago, JTTHECLOCKMAN said:

 But all they are is guides. You need to first hand do the cutting and the more you cut the more your eye and hands start working together and the mind is learning what works well for YOU. Welcome to the world of scrolling and ask all the questions you want. I hope in some small way I cleared up the blade thing but there is alot of info there so it may not sink in all at once. Good luck and look forward to seeing what you got. 

Clockman, thank you!  Just what I needed.  Yes I need to study.  I downloaded the blade chart from Olson. 

That alone will need some study.  Yes I am buying small packs of blades to try time before

I start buying a gross of one kind of blade.  I am going to read and re read, study your post.

Thanks! again.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

1 hour ago, justdraftn said:

Clockman, thank you!  Just what I needed.  Yes I need to study.  I downloaded the blade chart from Olson. 

That alone will need some study.  Yes I am buying small packs of blades to try time before

I start buying a gross of one kind of blade.  I am going to read and re read, study your post.

Thanks! again.

There is alot of info on that one package for sure but it does spell out exactly what those blades are One other thing I did not mention is Olson's code # the third number in is the size of the blade. You will find the materials you cut many times will dictate what blade you use. Everyone falls in love with a particular blade. Mine is FD Silver reverse #5 I cut mostly oak and use that for all thicknesses. Just what you get use to. Good luck.

[RabidAlien]

17 hours ago, new2woodwrk said:

First off welcome to the Village...

I'm very new at this as well and I have the same saw as you AND I bent a blade yesterday during a set up AND I have sanding strips AND I have used the box store plywood.

So here are my discoveries from a newbie scroller...

1. The bent blade - caused me more headaches to install and fret than was worth the cost so I threw it in the trash, got a new blade and no more headaches - worth the cost of the blade
2. The sanding strips - I have used them installed on my Wen, IMO they work great if you have no other means of sanding or getting inside a cut to sand. So IMO they work fine if you want to use them.  However, they are not the most efficient means of working a project. I use home made strips from Popsicle sticks and I use needle files as well for touching up - I am new after all and I make lots of mistakes that I so far have been able to "clean" up with the files
3. Plywood - During the first few days of getting my Wen saw, I used the plywood I had on hand which was what I had purchased for other wood working projects -box store special. and I as well got so much blow out it was very frustrating! After being advised here about the quality of box store ply (which I had no idea before I came here there even was a quality issue, I thought the only difference was sanded or not), I opted to buy some BB from ebay (1/4 inch BB , 1/8 inch BB ) - once I got my plywood and glued up a pattern and cut it - it was night and day
4. Blades - You didn't ask about this, but the box store blades also are not the best quality - I've tried Dewalt, Olsen, Flying Dutchman (FD) and Pegas blades and I am a Pegas fan forever - or at least until something better is available.

Hope that helps somewhat

New, I found an easier alternative to home-made strips with Popsicle sticks.  Next time you're in Walmart or Target, swing by the makeup section.  I picked up a bag of 15-20 nail files for $2.  They have two different grits, one on each side of each board.  The boards are cardboard-ish, so they're not going to stand up to a lot of pressure, but they're good enough to take the fuzz off the bottom of a project.  And at $2-for-20, if one breaks, they're cheap enough that my frugal butt isn't worried about tossing them.

[new2woodwrk]

5 hours ago, RabidAlien said:

New, I found an easier alternative to home-made strips with Popsicle sticks.  Next time you're in Walmart or Target, swing by the makeup section.  I picked up a bag of 15-20 nail files for $2.  They have two different grits, one on each side of each board.  The boards are cardboard-ish, so they're not going to stand up to a lot of pressure, but they're good enough to take the fuzz off the bottom of a project.  And at $2-for-20, if one breaks, they're cheap enough that my frugal butt isn't worried about tossing them.

Cool - I'll  have the wife take a look since she uses nail files all the time

Thanks for the heads up!

[Rockytime]

This is rather hard on Exacto blade but I split the nail files down the middle. They are smaller and get into tight places.

[RabidAlien]

13 hours ago, new2woodwrk said:

Cool - I'll  have the wife take a look since she uses nail files all the time

Thanks for the heads up!

No problem!  I don't have a lot of spare cash lying around right now just screaming for me to go out and buy all the files and chisels and new hardware I'd like to have, so I have to come up with innovative ideas...although I did find that one on the Interwebs somewhere, so I can't really take credit for it.  But hey, it works!

1 hour ago, Rockytime said:

This is rather hard on Exacto blade but I split the nail files down the middle. They are smaller and get into tight places.

Hadn't thought of that!  I did pick up a guillotine-style paper-cutter a while back, wonder if I could use that to split them?