Can I Do This w/ a Scroll Saw??

[MuNcHiEzz]

I will be buying my first scroll saw in the next month or so and I decided on the DeWalt. Of course everyone knows it's good for wood and that is my plan to try out some intarsia and fretwork but...

Will this scroll saw also be able to cut metal? Like stainless steel or aluminum at a width of say 16th of an inch or something thin like that? I have a lot of really cool and off the wall ideas so I just want to make sure it will work for that type of material. Thank you very much

 

Also I wanted to ask what is the best wood to use for fretwork and stuff like that? And for different color wood would you use a different strain of wood or would you stain it?

Edited October 15, 2018 by MuNcHiEzz
Added a question

[fredfret]

Metal that thick can be cut but you have to use blades made for cutting metal. Stainless steel I doubt you can cut that in an efficient way. Fretwork can be cut using any wood you like. Some woods are very brittle and fine detail breaks easily. 

[Bill WIlson]

1/16" sounds thin, but in reality is pretty thick for metal.  I would expect that to be a challenge for any scroll saw.  I know a fellow who once scrolled in 1/4" aluminum.  He went through a ton of blades, but was able to finish his project.  The tiny metal shavings get everywhere and the saw should be cleaned thoroughly after each cutting, to prevent excess wear of moving parts.  It's not something I would want to do with my saw, but then again, it doesn't really interest me.  That said, I do have some thin copper sheet that I've toyed with the idea of cutting on the scroll sawl sometime.

Bottom line is, metal cutting on the scroll saw should be confined to soft metals like aluminum, brass, copper, etc.  Steel or stainless steel probably won't work very well.  Cutting steel, usually requires some sort of coolant.  That is difficult to incorporate into a standard wood cutting scroll saw.  There are blades made for jewelers that are designed for cutting metal, but they are very thin, so they are intended for cutting very thin, soft stock

Your question about wood is much more open ended.  You can use almost any wood to cut fretwork.  Some may be better than others, but it depends on your criteria and personal preferences.  Common North American hardwoods like maple, cherry, white & red oak, walnut, poplar, etc are fine for fretwork.  Pine can be used, but it is soft and inherently weaker than the hardwoods.  This comes into play in fretwork, where you have narrow, cross grained pieces that are delicate and prone to breakage.  Hardwoods will hold up better, even in thinner stock, than pine for such applications.  There are other applications where pine will work just fine.  Plywood is another option, which has it's own pros and cons.  Each wood has it's own strengths and weaknesses and what is best can vary with each project.  It pays to educate yourself on the qualities and properties of some of the woods that are available to you or that you wish to try. 

Coloration is strictly a matter of personal tastes and preference.  Many like to use the natural color and grain of the wood to visually enhance their project.  However, there is no set rule.  Staining, painting and dyeing are all perfectly acceptable, if you need/want a color that is unavailable naturally.  Brightly colored, natural wood is expensive, often very dense and hard to work with.   Often the color is affected by finishes, UV light and oxidation and may be difficult to preserve, long term.  It's totally up to you, what is most important.

[CharleyL]

I agree. You should not expect to have any success trying to cut steel and stainless. Softer non-ferrous metals can be cut well with a scroll saw, even the mirrored plastics and coins,  can be cut, if you choose the metal cutting scroll saw blades that are designed for it, but blade life will be quite short. 

Charley

[ike]

I do a lot of fretwork like shelves and hard wood is hard to find for a 10" X 14 "  shelf so I use a lot of ply wood ( the best grade you can find) Then stain it. Then stack cut 3 pieces Then sell or give the other 2 away. When I started back in 1963 I used a cheaper plywood to get my abilities up and to see if fretwork was what I wanted to do . I made a lot of fret fire wood but I did get to where I was ready to sell my work.

IKE

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

As mentioned already soft nonferrous metals can be cut using a scrollsaw. Many people cut coins with a scrollsaw. Metals like stainless would be very hard to do I cut brass and aluminum with no problem. I use Jewelers blades for I find them to be the best for this. Some dealers sell metal cutting blades and I have not tried them all so can not comment on them. I have included a project I cut the brass for from some brass door guard material and it was about 3/32" thick. cutting is slower than wood. It is also a dust that needs to be cleaned regularly Do not want metal filings contaminating other wood projects. I also highly suggest that you use a wood backer of some sort to prevent scratching and wearing grooves in your table top because just like wood and fuzzies on the back you will get metal fuzzies  Good luck

[MrsN]

I have cut a few projects with metal. I have cut 1/4" aluminum, but nothing fancy. It was pretty thick and took a few blades to make a small cut.

I made a couple of projects out of galvanized flashing sheets. They came in pieces 5x7, were really thin, and cut decently. I found a link 

When cutting thin metal I always sandwich between two pieces of thin plywood. The thin metal likes to catch and bend making it hard to cut on its own. I made a stack by just taping the edges like I would do with any other stack. 

I would really recommend that you start by getting used to what the saw can do in wood. When you are comfortable in wood, jump to metal. 

I don't know much about your off the wall ideas (love to hear about them) it might be possible to get the look you are going for with a painted finish.

[Rockytime]

14 hours ago, MuNcHiEzz said:

<SNIP>  Will this scroll saw also be able to cut metal? Like stainless steel or aluminum at a width of say 16th of an inch or something thin like that? <SNIP>

 

Yes you can if you limit yourself to non-ferrous materials as mentioned before or very, very thin ferrous metals within a sandwich as also mentioned before. I have stack cut 360 brass 3/16" thick which totals 3/8". However, it was cut on a Grizzly pinned scroll saw. That was about 20 years ago. I remember it took forever to do so. The acted like a jumping bean. The saw was so bad I gave it away. But, it did finally do the job. It was rough and had to be smoothed out with a die filer. Business got in the way and I never did finish the clock. These days I would like to finish the clock but I have sold my two die filers as well as all of my larger machinery. The plates will someday grace a landfill.

[MuNcHiEzz]

I think it would be cool to do something like this although that's not my original idea. I wanted to do something like a silhouette of Lambeau Field with quarter inch spacers on that and then put in a Green Bay Packer helmet on the space or so it stands up a little bit and then put neon behind it so it has a little glow. But at the same time I don't want to mess up equipment.

[CharleyL]

For something to hang on the wall, some of the mirror coated plastic sheets might be a good choice for this and would cut well easily on a scroll saw.. Then cut the Helmet from green plastic to put behind it and add a few LED lights behind the green plastic to make the helmet glow. It wouldn't shine through the metal coating but you would see the helmet around and through the holes in the emblem. A nice wood backer behind it all and a small spot light shining down on the face of it would achieve the result seen in your photo, and you wouldn't need to use stainless steel at all to make it.

Charley

[amazingkevin]

On 10/15/2018 at 7:54 AM, Bill WIlson said:

1/16" sounds thin, but in reality is pretty thick for metal.  I would expect that to be a challenge for any scroll saw.  I know a fellow who once scrolled in 1/4" aluminum.  He went through a ton of blades, but was able to finish his project.  The tiny metal shavings get everywhere and the saw should be cleaned thoroughly after each cutting, to prevent excess wear of moving parts.  It's not something I would want to do with my saw, but then again, it doesn't really interest me.  That said, I do have some thin copper sheet that I've toyed with the idea of cutting on the scroll sawl sometime.

Bottom line is, metal cutting on the scroll saw should be confined to soft metals like aluminum, brass, copper, etc.  Steel or stainless steel probably won't work very well.  Cutting steel, usually requires some sort of coolant.  That is difficult to incorporate into a standard wood cutting scroll saw.  There are blades made for jewelers that are designed for cutting metal, but they are very thin, so they are intended for cutting very thin, soft stock

Your question about wood is much more open ended.  You can use almost any wood to cut fretwork.  Some may be better than others, but it depends on your criteria and personal preferences.  Common North American hardwoods like maple, cherry, white & red oak, walnut, poplar, etc are fine for fretwork.  Pine can be used, but it is soft and inherently weaker than the hardwoods.  This comes into play in fretwork, where you have narrow, cross grained pieces that are delicate and prone to breakage.  Hardwoods will hold up better, even in thinner stock, than pine for such applications.  There are other applications where pine will work just fine.  Plywood is another option, which has it's own pros and cons.  Each wood has it's own strengths and weaknesses and what is best can vary with each project.  It pays to educate yourself on the qualities and properties of some of the woods that are available to you or that you wish to try. 

Coloration is strictly a matter of personal tastes and preference.  Many like to use the natural color and grain of the wood to visually enhance their project.  However, there is no set rule.  Staining, painting and dyeing are all perfectly acceptable, if you need/want a color that is unavailable naturally.  Brightly colored, natural wood is expensive, often very dense and hard to work with.   Often the color is affected by finishes, UV light and oxidation and may be difficult to preserve, long term.  It's totally up to you, what is most important.

I cut 1/4" 1/2" stars in aluminum