Scroll saw with miter slot?

[randyrls]

Does anyone know of a scroll saw with a miter slot?

I want to try to use a scroll saw to make Celtic Knot pens...

I've thought about just clamping a base and jig to one, but that seems iffy on the thickness of the stock.

3/4" + 1/2" + 7/8" = 2.125"
Base Jig Blank

Can a scroll saw have this much material under the blade head?

 

[Wolfcoast]

A miter slot on a scrollsaw would be rather useless. The blade tends to twist itself while cutting, forcing you to rotate the piece to compensate. This is mostly due to the blade being stamped during production. The grain in the wood can also cause the blade to deflect.

With that being said, here is a video of how to use the scrollsaw to resaw 2" thick wood so nothing is impossible.

http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

Just scroll down the page and you will find the video.

I think that if you are extremely careful and slow you may be able to succeed, but a tablesaw setup would be far more easier to use.

 

[alphageek]

Or a tabletop bandsaw... I got a 9" one at HD. Works wonder with a decent blade to do what your asking for.

 

[PaulDoug]

I'm missing something here. I've only made one knot in my life, but when I did, I cut all the way through the blank at the appropriate angle. Than glued back together with the contrasting wood sandwiched in. The thickness of the blade had nothing to do with it. The thickness of the "lines" was a product of the thickness of the contrasting wood used. What I made was 4 sided knot, maybe a 6 sided is different

 

[Robert Taylor]

"This is mostly due to the blade being stamped during production"

the cheaper blades are indeed stamped. however if you wish to improve the quality of the cut and/or your finished work buy blades that have "PGT" included in their decription. "PGT"= precision ground teeth.

 

[leehljp]

I'm missing something here. I've only made one knot in my life, but when I did, I cut all the way through the blank at the appropriate angle. Than glued back together with the contrasting wood sandwiched in. The thickness of the blade had nothing to do with it. The thickness of the "lines" was a product of the thickness of the contrasting wood used. What I made was 4 sided knot, maybe a 6 sided is different

Evidently you got plum lucky if your "one" time came out right. The thickness of the blade has EVERYTHING to do with it - or at least 50% of the success. The thickness of the contrasting wood (the other 50%) MUST be the same as the thickness of the blade kerf or the knot will not come out even.

I know that this is something that is difficult to see in the minds eye for some people, and I have seen people go "huh" when explaining it. But the fact is, the thickness of the kerf and the thickness of the contrasting wood must be the same.

Thinner blades/kerfs allow for thinner bands - and everything still coming out even/balanced.

For a simple experiment - take a square piece of scrap wood, square it like a blank, make the first cut and fill it with a band 1/4 inch thick and then try and make the second cut come out even. Won't work. If your TS has a 1/8 inch blade it will be off considerably; if you are using a band saw, try using a 1/8 in band. It won't come out equal on each side. Explaining this is difficult, seeing this experiment shows more that a 1000 words can say.

 

[leehljp]

Does anyone know of a scroll saw with a miter slot?

I want to try to use a scroll saw to make Celtic Knot pens...

I've thought about just clamping a base and jig to one, but that seems iffy on the thickness of the stock.

3/4" + 1/2" + 7/8" = 2.125"
Base Jig Blank

Can a scroll saw have this much material under the blade head?

One of the problems with the scroll saw and 9" / 10" bandsaws is that they are not strong enough to allow enough tension on the blade to keep the blade from wandering for most setups.

It seems to me that you are looking for the thinnest cut you can get. A bandsaw with a specialty blade will be the best bet. I made my own small hobby saw table that uses a circular saw mounted upside down. It uses 1mm kerfed carbide tipped blades. Thinner blades can be had but they become very expensive. I can get .9mm (point 9) thick blades but it is hard to find material that thickness and it is difficult for me to cut band material that thin - consistently! So, I stay with 1mm - .039 inch.

I think Freud makes a 7 inch carbide tipped saw blade (Diablo) with 1/16 inch kerf (.0625 inch) that will run on a table saw with no problems.

 

[bad]

Randy, I was looking into doing something similar with my scrollsaw. The major problem you're going to run into is that you're trying to use the wrong tool for the job. A scroll saw was designed to cut curved lines. It was never designed to cut straight lines.

 

[Wolfcoast]

Here's what is going on when the blade thickness and the insert thickness don't match.

Start with 1/8 blade and 1/16 insert as an example.

First cut, no issues, 1/8 material removed, insert glued in, everything looks great.

2nd cut, 1/8 material removed. The key here is that 1/8 thickness of the insert is removed as well since you have to cut through it.

Put 1/16 insert in and glue up. Since you removed 1/8 thick of the original insert, the two halves of the original insert will be slightly offset when you glue the material back together with the new insert.

Every cut after this will run into the same problem and will affect all inserts that are cut through.

NOTE: If you are using straight inserts and cutting 90 degress across the blank, then the blade/insert thickness really won't matter. It's cutting at an angle where this comes into play.

The larger the differences in sizes between blade and insert, the more obvious the error is. With the small sizes we use in pen making, even a small difference can be extremely obvious.

And I fully agree with Bad. Straight lines on a scrollsaw are actually more difficult than the curved lines. A bandsaw or tablesaw will give you a lot more accuracy.

Btw my first name is Randy too so I started to get confused by who was talking to who at first.

 

[PaulDoug]

Hank, I know what your are talking about, I had to compensate for the difference in the width of the filler wood and the kerf width to come out even. What I made was a lot larger than a pen blank, so maybe it was easier.

 

[mywoodshopca]

Dont think you will ever be happy with the results.. Scrollsaws are great to make curved lines, but hard as heck to make straight ones. I have done some intarsia before and the hardest lines were straight lol.