LindaB

I'm totally new at this... I bought my saw (Delta) less than a month ago. My first cutting, oh my what a mess, not going to show that anywhere. From it I learned many things, notably: 1) photo-reducing a pattern makes it really hard to cut, 2) oak with its wild grain is not a good thing with a spiral blade in the hands of a beginner, and 3) "scrap" oak with a huge warped cup to the stock is seriously hard to control! I think I redefined the words "wobbly cuts" on that mess. The next thing I cut was this little trivet, out of half inch cherry, and using a skip tooth blade. I learned that cherry is really hard wood! Linseed oil finish. I can't wait to start something new, now...

Hi Rockytime - thanks for the welcome. I'm a total complete absolute beginner newbie to scrolling - I have only had my saw about a week. I'm really having fun but still learning a lot about selection of blades, woods, tensions, speeds, etc etc. I've done a fair bit of woodworking in other things; notably boat repairs and building, some cabinetry, general home stuff. I've also worked in metal shops off and on for many years. Anyhow, I'm no where near ready to post any work (unless you want to see a lot of crooked cuts and mangled fretwork!), but maybe soon. It is such fun. I shouldn't have jumped right into this thread, but steam bending is something I've done quite a bit of. Scrolling, not at all.

I've never steamed wood for fine woodworking jobs but I've steamed a fair bit of large, heavy wood for marine uses (sailboat repairs). The last job I did was to steam a 6" bow into a 14" wide by 7' long piece of sapele - which is notorious for not steaming well. It's not hard. You need steam, an insulated boxand patience. Build a steam box out of home insulation board - the stuff available 1" thick with foil coating in sheets from the big box stores - scraps or busted ends would be plenty for a small project. Gorilla glue. The steam box doesn't have to be pretty. For the big boards I did recently, though, the thing looked a lot like a very well insulated coffin! I use a wallpaper steamer to input steam, and a good thermometer in a vent hole to monitor. You have to get the whole mess up over 205 F for a fairly long time (4-5 hours for that huge piece of sapele, a half hour for more sensible size pieces of wood). White oak steams very very well - green cut oak, even better. All bent wood rocking chairs - as well as traditional sailboat ribs - are made from white oak for a reason. When it comes out of the steam box be prepared to work FAST to clamp it to the shape you need - better have a form ready and clamps at hand immediately. As soon as the wood cools off it won't bend anymore so you need to be very organized and prepared on this step. You may need to "overbend" it a bit since it may spring back a bit after it cools.... experiment some. For little bitty pieces you might try just wrapping them in a very wet terry rag and applying a steam iron to the sides, adding water and heat for a good 15 minutes or more til the wood gets hot. This works fine for little pieces of oak ... for big long thick sapele, not so much. Try steaming, it's fun. Somewhere in the basement I have a piece of 1" x 1" oak tied into a nice figure 8 knot. Its an odd looking thing once it's cooled and set!