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Best Scroll Saw Blades, page 2
As suggested earlier, choosing a scroll saw blade seems to be the real challenge for the new scroller. There are just way too many choices. So first I thought maybe giving you a list of the items that might affect your choice would be helpful.
I'll try and arrange them in order of importance.
- Experience: ( less experience = greater size & higher tpi )
The amount of experience you have will determine how fast you want or CAN cut. The best place for a beginner to start in becoming a master scroll sawer is to just to play with a piece of wood. The problem is that most of us pick a project that would be more suited to one with a few more hours of experience under our belt. Then we get frustrated. The cuts aren't on the lines, thin strips have broken and what was suppose to look like a ferocious scroll saw dragon is now starting to look like an easter bunny. So what's the answer.
Buying a blade with MORE teeth, rather than less will cut slower and reduce your chances of falling off the lines. Buying a "R" reverse tooth blade will also slow down the cutting action. Avoid the more aggressive "Skip" tooth blades and large teeth.
Play with 3/4" thick pine with a #5R reverse blade for starters.
- Wood or Material Thickness ( TPI & Size of Blade Considerations)
Typically if you are cutting thick material you want a wider blade (say #12) that is less likely to snap if it gets twisted in 2" of wood and less teeth per inch. The space between the teeth helps move the shavings away from the cut line and with it the heat that has built up in the cutting process. If you have too many teeth the sawdust has no where to go and takes too much time to migrate to the surface, heating up the wood and the blade. With heat the blade loses its tempering and ability to stay sharp.
As well, higher numbered blades have a greater 'set' on the blade. The teeth are bent to a larger extent to the left and right cutting a path slightly larger than the blade body might suggest. Again this is a strategy to allow for sawdust removal and less friction thus heat reduction.
If you are cutting very oil woods or ones with a lot of sap, like air dried white pine, less teeth or skip teeth help address the sawdust issue as well.
With very thin wood you need teeth quite close together so that at all times you have as a general rule at lest 3 teeth in the wood at all times, less than this and you will lose control and have difficulty in tracking the cut lines accurately.
- Sharp Turns = low numbered blade (smaller turning arc needed)
As you increase the number of the blade from #1 to #12 the width of the blade increases. The wider the blade the larger radius it needs to turn. Thus if you have a design with many very tiny round curves you must match the turning capacity of the blade with the needs of the pattern. #12 blades are great for long sloping lines but pretty useless if you need a 1/4" diameter teardrop shape.
- Amount of Cutting Detail = high Teeth Per Inch (less stress on fragile edges)
The general rule of thumb is that the tighter the spacing between adjoining cutouts the smaller the blade must be and the more teeth you want per inch. You have less margin for error. Since smaller blades and higher tpi's cut less aggressively and exert less pressure onto the wood they are ideal for creating thin slivers of wood without sliding into the cut above or below.
- Quality of Cut Line = High Teeth Per Inch (more teeth doing the cutting)
This is probable the easiest to understand. Like any other tool from chain saws to bread knives the more teeth you have the finer the cut and the better quality the cut line, the less teeth you have doing the work, the more load each tooth must assume and the worse the quality of the cut becomes. so the basic question is what quality do you need?
If your scroll saw passion is segmentation or intarsia as I do then a burn on the edge is not really a big deal because most of the edges don't show... but if you are into scroll saw portraiture where all the inside edges of your work DO show, the quality of the cut line is critical.
By now you probably realize that choosing a scroll saw blade is always a conversation of tradeoffs. Smaller blades offer greater control and tight cutting circles but can snap quite easily. Higher tpi gives a better quality cut line, but they clog up in thick wood and cut pretty slowly. Its all about understanding these tradeoffs.
In the 3rd article in this series, I'll introduce you to some unique "tooth" designs that manufacturers have created to optimize the cutting power of their blades.
More Information:
Learn more, read our other scroll saw reviews and articles on just about anything related to scrolling and woodworking in general.
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