Tell me about scroll saws

I’d like to be able to make some shapes in mild steel – custom dropouts and things like that. Is a scrollsaw up to that kind of thing? Probably 5-6mm thick plate, not cutting huge amounts of it, just the occasional job where getting a batch of things laser-cut isn’t worth the bother.

Is this do-able with a scroll saw with metal cutting blades?

Thanks 😉

got a wood cutting one manages 1 inch thick birch ply no problem,but cutting metal i think heat build up would be a problem on such thin blades, tin plate would be ok or copper sheet.Not mild steel.

Hmm, I do have a cold air gun, that could be used for cooling. I wonder if that’d be enough.

Have a look on the Axminster tools site or give them a quick ring.

Looks possible – link to blades

Excellent, cheers – pushing from 3mm to 5-6mm, but with cooling that might still be okay.

Would you not want to be able to liquid cool rather than air?

Perhaps, though that’s messy – I already use the cold air gun on the milling machine where I can’t use flood coolant.

5-6mm is possibly to thick for a modern scroll saw – find a meddings scroll saw or better a die filer.
A bandsaw with the right blade and suitably slower speed for metal would probably do the job – email Tuffsaws – blade sellers – they would know.

Our scrollsaw eats blades just cutting 18mm Ply, right PITA.

could ask on ukworkshop scroll saw forum – they will know

Get one of these. 😉

Or one of these, pretty sure there’s room in the shop.

Most of these suggestions are bigger than my entire shop 😀

The die filer idea looks interesting, but they seem rare as hen’s teeth, and I’d be a bit worried about needing special files which will wear out.

Talked to Axminsters, they think 5-6mm mild steel would be pushing it. Hmm, I’m going to have to rethink this idea.

Yeah – I have a bog standard scroll saw and I would be quite confident that it would be absolutely useless on mild steel of any thickness above ‘foil’. My bonny Makita jigsaw with proper metal blades was useless on 5 mm mild steel and it is significantly more manly than the scroll saw.

I think there is a water jet cutting service in glasgow that do very quick turnaround on small batches. Might be http://www.jetcutit.com/offices.php but I am checking.

Yes, this is really so I can tweak and bodge stuff quickly in the workshop – there’s a really good laser cutting company I use for batches of things, very quick.

What about a spindle sander? You can get pretty small bobbins. Rough cut with a jig saw or bandsaw, spindle sander the detail then needle file if you need a sharp corner. Useful tool for other stuff, too.

As others have alluded to – I think a fretsaw/scroll saw would be pretty crap on mild steel 3-6mm thick.

I had a Meddings, which was a beast however the weak point will always be the blades – they’ll just get hot and break.

Bandsaw might be a better option.

Yes, I think I’m overthinking this – I like the spindle sander idea, for most of the things I need to do, I can rough it out with an angle grinder, then finish off with a sander to tidy up and get smooth curves.

I fancied the idea of being able to cut steel like wood in a scroll saw, but that’s not sounding possible.

You could always get a hand held plasma cutter? That would be the business. Would probably be a lot less rough than grinder and with practice might be pretty close to the finished job:

https://www.millerwelds.com/resources/article-library/how-to-select-and-operate-a-hand-held-plasma-cutter