Scroll saws & blades

[woundedbear]

I have been experimenting with my newly acquired scroll saw, it's just like the one sold on the Micro-Mark web site, just has the Proxxon name on the box. The one you can see on Micro-Mark"s is made for them by the Proxxon company. The video shows a dude cutting all kinds of curves in everything from foam, thin plastics, even tissue, and, "what looks to be very thin balsa wood". The instructions that came with my saw, are printed in 12 languages. It basically tells you not to stick your fingers into the blade when cutting with your new saw,"well nach!" The Instructions, and the video doesn't tell you a thing about which blade is being used for the different materials being cut. They just edit changing the blades out of the video. Well so far I have only experimented with one blade, It's one that the Flying Dutchman company sent me for free. Of all of the scroll saw videos on the net, and I think I have watched them all. The guys who make these videos swear by the Flying Dutchman brand blades. So I gave the folks at Flying Dutchman a call and told them what I was planing to cut. They really believe in their product and sent me three blades for free. The one I have been using is a 2-way cut, #5, it's 0.036"x 0.015", and has 13 teeth per inch with every third tooth being reversed, (they sent two of those) I have been practicing on scrip stock from three Guillow's laser cut kits that I am working on, so the densities are all the same. Now the results have been, that my saw will cut 3/32 inch stock just fine, no tearing on ether side of the cut, but with 1/16 inch stock the results are not so good. I haven't tried the other blade I have yet, but there are so many blades to chose from. The other type of blade that Flying Dutchman sent is called "Polar", what ever that means, it looks much courser than the 2-way cut blades as described above. It is also a #5- 0.041" x 0.015". Then there the five blades that came with the saw, three of them look mush like the Polar blade, Very course. The other two are much finer with teeth too small for me to count, and Proxxon failed to label any of them, "yeah" didn't see that coming. It looks like Proxxon likes to save money on printing. Now my question for the members of the form, does anyone know how to chose the right blade for cutting very thin,( 1/16"and 1/32") balsa ? Now I know there are different types of balsa as well, there's A grain, B grain, and C grain, then there the different weights, light weight, medium, and heavy, there is also very hard, and of course contest the lightest. I have one sheet of medium weight, C grain that's got a faint reddish color to it, and when in the right light seems to be tiger striped like a fine maple cabinet wood. Well there you have it which blades to cut which weight and grain of balsa. There some many variables, and I don't know where to start... HELP ! HELP ! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME ! "Hay !", that's kind of catchy isn't it somebody should set that to music...I think I getting too sleep to wright...As always a preemptive thank you to anyone who can help...Goodnight dudes

[Billy Mc]

Generally the thinner the material, the more teeth per inch you will need.

[Walt]

The general rule for saw blades is there should be at a minimum 2 teeth engaged in the work at all times. Billy Mc is correct in that the thinner the work the finer the blade pitch.

[woundedbear]

Thanks for your responses Billy and Walt. I found two sellers that have fine jeweler's blades numbers 2/0 all the way down to # 8/0, and the prices aren't bad ether. I called one supplier and said I wanted to cut 1/16" and 1/32" balsa stock. She told me that a blade to cut balsa that thin needed to have twice as many teeth as the thickness of the stock I was cutting. A good rule of thumb, and that was pretty much what you guys told me. So I'll be buying a dozen #3/0 & #4/0 blades with 32 and 64 teeth per inch, and use a slow stroke with the saw, and that should do it. Of course I'll be using medium weight,( 9 to 12 lbs.) balsa and will be cutting my contest weight stock with a sharp #11 knife blade. If anyone has any more suggestions please don't hesitate to add your reply it will be most appreciated.


woundedbear

[NcGunny]

Have you ever tried scalpel blades? I buy them in a bulk lot of 100 for around 10.00 shipped. I will give a look and see if i can find the product..but it was a cutting blade that was more like a string that was coated with something and the guy cuts all kinds of items with it,looks almost like a razor cut it out.

[woundedbear]

Thanks for the info NcGunny, sounds like something I read about in Chuck Yeager's book. He had this thing in his survival vest, when he had to eject from a crippled aircraft. When they made that movie the Right Stuff, they portrayed this at the end of the film. Well what they didn't show was what happened after they got Chuck to the hospital. The doctors couldn't get his pressure suite off, they were having trouble with the ring that formed a seal between his helmet and the suit. Old Chuck was burned pretty bad, and got impatience. He took this thing out, it had two rings, one at ether end and a flexible wire in between. He used it like a saw and cut off the ring himself. It looks to me like if you took a length of flexible wire, flattened each end, and then coated it with an epoxy. Rolled it in a fine abrasive, like diamond dust. You could cut about anything, you could use different size wire for different things including balsa wood...That just might work, of course when cutting you would have to get rid of the heat that the friction would cause.

[NcGunny]

Thats what the tool looks like except it is on a handle with the a "C" shaped thing the wire attaches to. (I am not a carpenter..lol) But the wire is coated with something. Its a hand tool but the wire can be hooked up to a electrical thingie that is basically whatever u call the hand tool...lol.I almost think it is coated in diamond dust maybe. They offer 3 size wires and the smallest being like a smallest guitar wire..