Rare occurance hard wood

[preprius]

I had a rare coincidence. Starting a project with "Wenge" 3/4" thick very hard wood, I never used before.

So glued pattern down and started cutting with my favorite blade.  Boy this is hard wood. it took me 1.5hr when normally takes me 45 min. I really questioned why I chose Wenge and if I should continue this project with this wood.

I had to change blades 6 times. My pack of blades was down to 6 when i started. So i grabbed my 2nd pack of same blades.  For the next line on the pattern. This pack just cut faster.  I cut my pattern in 40 minutes.  Only 2 blades were needed. 

Coincidence starting with very hard wood got me not to pay attention to possibly weak pack of mfg blades. 

I only experienced a weak mfg blade twice in 5yrs. 2 different mfg of blades. 

So a rare event so just be aware. 

 

 

[Hawk]

I have actually experienced this too. The first few times I just passed it off as "I'm new and don't know what's normal".  Now that I have many, many years under my belt when I put in a new blade and it doesn't cut like I think it should,  it comes out and another goes in. Fortunately the frequency with which this happens is few and very far between. 

[preprius]

The sad part is I had 36 blades in the pack.  I had to go thru the whole pack to figure it out.   But it was not all in the same project.   probably 7 months between projects. 

Like you mentioned things that might give me a heads up is the angle of the cut just to go straight. That pack of blades was always different. 

Sad it took me so long to figure it out.

Hope this post helps newbies.

[BluedMoon]

Preprius,

  So you know, your post is of help to newbies. In just my short time scroll sawing I have observed occasional blades that are just ‘different’ from bulk package purchases.

  I have found that sometimes it’s just that I did a not so great job of inserting the blade into the clamps. But some of them do various things like cutting nearly sideways (exaggerating) or dulling rapidly.

  Thanks for the info! I’ve learned to be like Hawk on those blades and quickly swap them out before they cause more damage than they’re worth.