pecohen

I also recommend highly the Flying Dutchman blades and I do use the reverse and double reverse blades, but I also like the crown-tooth blades. The crown-tooth blades cut a bit slower and give you time to compensate when you go off the mark a bit. This is especially valuable for thin stock. Which number blade I choose depends on how tight the turns are that I have to make and to some extent on the thickness and hardness of the wood. For harder or thicker stock I also like the Olson PGT blades. The smooth polish on them helps them cut and they seem to last longer for tough applications.

I check regularly at HD's cull-bin, but generally only come up with pine. I'm not complaining - it's cheap and useful. The picture looks like you mostly have pieces of flooring. I've thought of buying some flooring some time to work on but haven't done it yet. I have picked up some laminate samples - the kind with rubber backing. I cut a slit in them and used the result as a tool for holding down my work when I cut it. This is particularly useful for thin materials.

Mine is in a small room with the furnace in our otherwise finished basement. For sanding and other operations I go to the garage or outside, but it sure gets cold out there in the winter.

When I first got my saw, I picked up a blade assortment from Sears and another from Home Depot. Over time I saw rave reviews of Flying Dutchman blades so I picked some up. I also picked up an assortment of Olson blades including their PGT series. My original blades that I first bought fell into disuse as I acquired these new blades, but recently I decided to try the old ones again. My workpiece started jumping around and the wood started burning again just like when I first started cutting with them. It was not long before these old blades went into the trash. Now I use strictly the PGT's and the blades from Flying Dutchman. I don't believe either of these come with pin-ends, though possibly Flying Dutchman makes some. You might want to look into whether your Craftsman saw can be converted to accept straight blades. I seem to recall they had a conversion kit at one time though I also seem to recall reading a negative review of the kit.

I'd actually bought my scroll saw to cut out blanks for carving. It didn't take long before my interest in the scroll saw exceeded my interest in carving, but I have kept on carving, largely to spend time with a group that I work with. For some time I'd been looking for more interesting ways to combine wood-carving with scroll-sawing and I finally found it. This piece is cut out of a half-inch pine. The two scroll-saw cuts were cut at 4 degrees to make the center pop out and the next larger cut fall back. After a little carving and a little staining and glue the piece was done.

Just a thought on this, however. There are motor control units that will electronically adjust the speed of a motor - they're often sold for routers but there is no reason they won't work on other motors. If you bought one of these to use on your antique scroll saw, you could adjust the pulleys for the maximum speed you'll ever used and then slow down the motor electronically to the speed you want.

For projects like making bowls or for segmentation, hiding the entry hole is always an issue. Even for fretwork projects this is sometimes an issue as well. I'm wondering if anyone has some tricks up their sleeve to deal with this problem. I've found some things that help, but it seems that no matter how much care I take the entry hole still leaves a flaw that I see; perhaps no one else does but it still bothers me. Let me add that over the last year I have discovered the very small numbered drill bits and I found that a convenient way to use them is with a so-called woman's drill that I picked up in a crafts store for about $20. It is much like a hand-held plug-in Dremel tool but somewhat lighter in weight and it has a pin-vice suitable for holding the smallest of bits. This morning, I made an entry hole using a #68 bit, then passed a tiny spiral blade through the hold and used a hand-held frame to tension the blade. This allowed me to enlarge the hole enough to fit a small flat blade and enlarge the hole a bit more until I could fit the blade I wanted to use to make the cut. The entry hole was pretty small, but it still is a visible flaw in the final cut. Perhaps I just need more practice, but again, if anyone has some better way to do this I'd certainly be interested.

I just discovered this site but have not had much time to explore it thoroughly. I'm sure I'll be back. A little more than a year ago I started going to a wood-carving class and after a short while I decided I could use a band-saw or a scroll-saw to cut out blanks for carving. I opted for the latter, probably because of the greater safety, but also because the scroll saw had always interested me. I found I really liked the scroll saw. I still go to my carving class and enjoy spending time with the people in it, but really my interests are more with the scroll saw. My latest project was a cabinet to organize and hold my scroll-saw blades - built almost entirely using the scroll saw. Here's a picture of it. If there is interest I can describe it in more detail - the blade drawers may be of some interest.

I found something quite useful in one recently. It was a rubber stamp of a cartoon figure. Actually I looked for and found one that was defective - missing the rubber stamp part; in other words, just the nice comfortable handle. I glued on a circle of good quality sandpaper. I use it all the time now.