How to Use a Scroll Saw for Your Woodworking Projects

Scroll saws, like this one, are a really neat addition to the wood shop. There is so much stuff that you can do with these. One of the things I like is that they're quiet, quiet enough for me to be talking to you over the machine right now. They don't create a lot of dust. There are so many fun things that you can do with a scroll saw. I've got some great examples on the table over here. Delicate little Christmas ornaments, like this. Look at how fine those cuts were. And the surface finish off a scroll saw is so nice you rarely have to go back and do any sanding. Now, we're looking at thin little pieces there. That doesn't mean we can't cut thick stuff. These reindeer were cut out of 3/4 inch poplar. Still have that really nice surface finish on there. Over to the intarsia we've got here. Intarsia is kind of like a big puzzle. All the pieces are cut from different species of wood to come together to make a picture. This is just a small sampling of the kind of stuff that you can do with a scroll saw. Now, a couple of things that are worth talking about. Scroll saws have real small blades, so they let you get into much tighter spots than you could get with something like a bandsaw. The other thing that they can do, and I'm gonna show you this in just a little bit, is you can do what are called pierce cuts. Like on those ornaments, when you want to cut internally, you can take the blade out of the machine, get inside, put the machine back together, and make those internal cuts. Those are called pierce cuts. Another really cool thing about it, what a great way to get kids, like young George here, started in woodworking. Scroll saws are very safe to use. A scroll saw is one of the first tools I had, I was about eight when I used it for the first time. Great way to get your kids started in the hobby that you enjoy so much. George, you like running the scroll saw? Yeah, this is cool. Great. Well, let's have a look at what else a scroll saw can do for you. One of the things that's pretty neat on a scroll saw is having variable speed like this one does. So turning this dial right there I can control the speed, which then in turn, gives me better control over my cuts. So that's pretty cool. Now, let me show you right here at the blade just how intricately a scroll saw can turn. It's amazing the way we can just turn really a 90 degree corner. I'm working on a piece of red oak here. It's about 3/8 of an inch thick. Now, from that position, just a right angle. It's one of the amazing things about using a scroll saw is how tightly we can spin through cuts. And when I exit out of this, you're gonna see just what kind of surface finish it's given me. Now, again, this is red oak. She has a tendency to be kind of porous, hard to get a good cut on, but look, it's a very, very nice surface finish on the outside of that red oak, to the point where it's actually shiny out there. So little or no sanding when you come off of a scroll saw. Now, one of the things we want to be able to do is cut angles. And if you ever do marquetry, in marquetry we take a lot of pieces and we lay them together to create a picture. To do that on this machine, what we're gonna do, actually, is angle the head, like this. The table remains flat. So it's kind of a neat feature because it's a little bit easier then to keep my board here on the table when the table is flat, instead of angled. Angled table, a little bit of a tendency for the board to slide off. So, with the ability to angle the head like this, that gives us the ability to do those angled cuts. Like I said, real important in work like marquetry. Next thing I want to know, remember I talked about pierce cutting, which is something we can do here. Can't do that on a bandsaw. So, next thing I want to do is get another chunk, and I'm gonna show you how easy it is to do pierce cutting on a scroll saw. A pierce cut, remember, is a cut that's internal here. I don't have the benefit of being able to start on the outside and get to it, 'cause that would ruin my, the rest of my project. So I drill a hole. Then I have to thread the blade up through that hole. What I'm doing here is taking the tension off. Now on this machine, I just get everything up out of the way. It gives me access to the blade so I can thread it through a hole, like that, then put everything back together. Re-tension, just like that. Set my foot. Now we can cut inside there. This is a great benefit of scroll saws. Now, a handy accessory to have is a foot switch. On a pierce cut like this, especially, it's nice if I can keep both hands here, on my project, to make sure it doesn't get away from me. So with both hands here, how do I turn the machine on? That's gonna be done by a switch that my foot's gonna operate down on the floor. Now even in this thick stock, to finish this cut I can turn, come back and pick up my line. Then I just do it all in reverse to undo everything. Now, that tiny cut right there, how would you possibly get in there and sand that? It's just about impossible. Again, that's where the cut quality of the scroll saw pays off. So, lots of really cool things you can do with a scroll saw, way beyond jigsaw puzzles. There's so much work you can do with this. It's really a lot of fun. And I just can't get past the fact, a great way to get kids started in woodworking. So those are all the benefits that you can get from adding a scroll saw to your shop.