Scroll saw spiral blade?

Does anyone have experience with spiral blades on scroll saws? It appears they can cut in any direction, with a kerf that’s pretty narrow relative to what’s feasible with a long endmill.

How bad would it be if a workpiece were mounted on the tool mount and fed very slowly into a running scroll saw?

I’m considering a relatively specialized scenario of thru-cutting a workpiece that’s about 1.5" thick, with tight corners that would require a thin endmill, cut as a single contour and not lots of separate islands.

Is this reasonable or is there something that will kill it that I’m not thinking of?

1.5" is pretty significant for a scroll saw. I haven’t done a lot of scroll sawing, but the stuff I’ve done and seen is all pretty thin (smaller than 1/2" more often 1/8". 1.5" is a chore for my table saw. Or a band saw.

The smaller kerf would definitely help.

Do you already have a scroll saw? You should try doing it by hand before trying it with the machine.

Do you have a way to keep it held firmly down to the scroll saw plate?

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I don’t have a scroll saw, which is why I’m asking. (I don’t have a water-jet cutter either, and scroll saws are cheaper. :laughing:)

Another assumption that is perhaps better as a question, is to what degree can I just decrease the feed rate and wait longer? I am assuming they run cool enough that slow cuts are okay.

On my band saw I can cut thicker material if I go slower, but (if the throat were wider) the relationship might break down at some point. Plus, hand cuts tend to be more controlled by feeding force and not feed rate, so the relationship between thickness and feed rate may get complicated with other factors.

I am also figuring there could be some deflection opposite the feed direction. Maybe I would do a roughing pass with a small offset and then a finishing pass for precision. I don’t mind the time if the robot is doing it.

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I have a scroll saw, and I wouldn’t try it. I don’t have the spiral blade, but i can’t see that going particularly well.

Then again a spiral blade might just be the magic bullet that I need in order to make my scroll saw more useful.

I’ve never managed an acceptable cut on the scrollsaw of material more than 1/4" thick. That might also just be my saw though.

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Yeah my scroll saw would be very unhappy as a CNC. When I use the normal saw blades on 3/4 inch pine it bends the blade and doesn’t cut straight. It will not cut a straight line. It tries to curve to one side. I have to vary my blade speed and manual feedrate depending on wood rings and how it feels. The wood jumps up and it is hard to keep down. I cut a pine wood derby on it once and won’t try that again. I usually break a blade or two per project with that saw. But now I want to try it with a spiral cut blade.

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Ok, thanks guys for the advice. It looks like I need another way to cut thick and detailed segments.

I’ve cut Christmas ornaments that were 1.75" thick. I used spiral blades to cut them. These were made out of cedar.

I had to cut pretty slow. I wouldn’t try it on a cheap scroll saw.

Mine’s an older version of this one:

https://www.searshometownstores.com/product/Craftsman-21602-16-Variable-Speed-Scroll-Saw

I don’t think I’d try to CNC it.

I’ve also cut thick material with a very thin 1/8" blade on my bandsaw. This limits the tightness of the curve you can cut.

This site has a cut breakdown of minimum cutting radius for the different blade thicknesses:

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