Scroll saw walnut box part 2

Hi All,
Carrying on from last week regarding the walnut box here is the next step. I took the image of the single fuchsia and copied it.

Then I pasted it several times into a new image and moved each one about until I came up with something that I liked.

I then printed off the image and made some more alteration by hand. For instance, the three fuchsia an the left would be left dangling once the wood had been cut away, so I joined them to the bottom of the wood via the stamens.

I find that when doing a pattern for cutting that it becomes a lot clearer if I colour the wood that is to be removed with the scroll saw. Please see the picture below; the areas in blue are the ones that will be cut out.

 

 The design is now stuck onto the wood with temporary spray adhesive and I have drilled the entry holes for the scroll saw blades. You can also see, on both edges, the markings for the box joints which I will cut out first.

I have also made some notes on the drawing regarding blade sizes and before we go any further this would be a good point to give you some information on scroll saw blades, especially if you are thinking of investing in a scroll saw.

Firstly, there are two types of scroll saw blade; plain end and pin end. Whatever you do, please make sure your saw takes plain end blades. Do not, I repeat, do not buy a saw which takes pin end blades only. The reason for this is when you are making inside cuts you will have to thread your saw blade through the wood via drilled holes. If you look at the drilled holes between the stamens, you will see that they are very small and a pin end blade won't go through small holes or even reasonably big holes.

The second thing you need to take into account when purchasing a saw is, how easy is it going to be to unclamp the blade and re-thread it through the wood for every section in the design you are working on. If you take the design above, the blade needs to be threaded through the holes 17 times and that is just for one side of the box. So, quick release clamps are almost a must if you are going to take scroll sawing seriously. Just imagine messing about with screwdrivers or other tools every time you want to cut a new section. By the time I have finished this box I will have clamped and unclamped the blade at least 80 times and that is without changing the blades to do the box joints.

Now you may be wondering at this point why it would be necessary to change the blade when doing the box joints because it looks like a straight forward outside cut. Well it is, but bigger blades cut straighter lines. Here is a picture of blades at both ends of the spectrum. A number 1, which is the thinnest and a number 12 which is the biggest.

So, when I make the horizontal cuts on the edges of the design I use a number 12 blade to give me the straightest possible line. And, to save me changing blades too often, I do the horizontal cuts on all four sides of the box while I have the number 12 blade in the saw.

Now here is the clever bit. When it comes to making the vertical cut I can get out of trying to saw around the sharp corner by using a number 1 blade. This blade is so thin that it will actually slide sideways down the space made by the number 12 blade. The result is that I can quickly make the vertical cuts without the need to cut any corners. Care does need to be taken to get the cut as straight as possible, but it is only a small distance so is pretty easy.

I hope all that makes sense. Please let me know if you need any clarification. In my next post I will tell you about the type of blade I prefer and will show you how I got on after cutting the wood. There should also be a bit of pyrography in there too.