I will probably take the rest of weekend off. I know many of you will be traveling this Easter weekend. Please be safe and enjoy the day with family and friends.
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Information: Jet Scroll Saws and Reverse Tooth Blades.
I came across some information I was not aware of until recently. In the picture below I am showing a reverse tooth blade. Notice that the bottom few teeth point and cut in the opposite direction. This allows the blade to cut on the upstroke. This reverse cutting greatly reduces the amount of tear out on the bottom of the wood. Many scrollers use reverse teeth blades as their default blade.
The center image shows the Excalibur with a reverse tooth blade installed. The arm is in it's max up position. It's a little hard to see in the picture but the reverse teeth are above the surface of the table. Obviously they have to come this high to be able to cut on the upstroke.
The third image is the Jet scroll saw with the same blade installed and also at it's highest position. Notice that the reverse teeth do not come above the table surface. This makes regular reverse tooth blades useless on this saw.
I don't think this is a huge problem because there are blades that will give the same or better results than regular reverse tooth blades. As Jet scroll saw owners we just need to know which blades will work.
I am only starting to get my head wrapped around this problem. I need to spend more time trying to understand what the options are to get around the issue. I do know that the Flying Dutchman Ultra reverse blade will not be affected because of the way it is designed. What I want to try to figure out is which blades we can use with the same results as a reverse tooth blade that will work on the Jet machine.
I do not know this for a fact but I have been told that Jet is aware of the problem and has said it is not something they plan to address. At this point I'm not sure there is anything they can do about it anyway.
If anyone has any thoughts or information on this issue please pass it along to me. I will be giving this more attention next week.
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I met Henry Wang:
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GRR-RIPPER 3D Pushblock for Table Saws, Router Tables, Band Saws, and Jointers by MICROJIG
I had the privilege to meet Henry Wang recently. He is the inventor
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