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I am not sure what type of finished quality I should expect after scroll sawing. I sand the faces of the wood prior to attaching the pattern, my problem is in the cuts. I think my technique is pretty bad, I get tons of jagged edges and wavy cuts while I try to get back on the line and inevitably end up off the other side. Then I spend way too much time sanding it all down for my taste and then when I think it looks fine, I stain it and boom, tons of ugly little marks jump out. Can you all help me understand how finished a cut should be or could be if I got better? Are these artifacts normal or is my technique just that bad? Is there an easier way to sand off my mistakes? I have an oscillating drum sander, but it never seems to fit in the areas where I tend to mess up. I attached a picture of a Humming Bird scroll saw puzzle type thing (Big Book Of Scroll Saw Woodworking, Page 30), this is freshly cut with no additional sanding beyond my orbital sander prior to attaching the pattern. I was unable to get good pictures of all the marks I am talking about, and some of the bad ones only show up a little, but I think you get the idea. If I stained it you would clearly see every single one LoL. Honestly sanding all the surface areas of these cuts is killing the fun times, multiplied by 3 different grits. I can knock off the back fuzzies but it's a pain and I risk break stuff, I read that a reverse tooth blade might help with that, thoughts? https://imgur.com/a/WEptl There should be 3 pictures in this album, I'm still learning this internetz stuff. Any help, tips, criticisms or guidance would be very appreciated, I have my eye on some more complicated stuff, but there is no way I can try those until I minimize sanding. I blame Amazing Kevin for making me want to Scroll projects I have no business Scrolling http://www.scrollsawvillage.com/profile/1607-amazingkevin/

I have been scroll sawing a little over 20 years, but much more since 2007 when I retired for the second time. I do a variety of things with scrolling Christmas ornaments, shawl pins and some wall hangin,gs. I also do a little lathe work making pepper grinders and salt grinders. I use a bandsaw to make stock for scroll work using a variety of hardwoods both domestic and imported