Use of Scroll Saw for Carving Rough Out's...

[Old Codger]

Hi Everyone! Just wanted to know if anyone else uses their scrollsaws for cutting out 'rough outs' for their wood caving projects... I love my Delta 788 for scrolling, but have found it's perfect for cutting out many of the rough outs I use for smaller carvings...plenty of power and cuts the detail sooo easy that it saves me soooo much time in carving and wear and tear on my carving hands.
I use a #9 Olson blade which is perfect for rough outs in most woods that I carve. Any other ideas out there for what they use their scroll saws for? Such an idea tool to assist in any/all projects... I'd be lost now without one!
Save scrolling and carving to all!
Kenn

[NHokpic]

Old Codger - I'm more of a furniture builder then anything else - 2nd classification would be a scoller - then a carver (have only done a little of it with moderate success). The little I've read about carving has suggested I cut out as much waste as possible before using the knives, so I have used my Delta 788 for that task. It's a great saw and I love to incorporate it in as many projects as I can. I have posted a few examples in my profile. As soon as I am finished with a few projects not requiring the use of my scroll saw, I will seek out a project featuring my scroll saw. It's a great tool to enhance my woodworking projects. Thanks for the post... I'm excited to making use of my scroll saw.

[JimSawyer]

Honestly, I bought my first scroll saw to help in carving, then slowly became more of a scroller than carver, (though I'm still a mixture of both).

[WoodCarverOH]

I'm the same as Jim Sawyer in my progression with carving to scroll sawing.

[brianrickman]

I use my scroll saw to cut the outline of small carvings quite often. Any time the wood is less then 2" thick I'll use the scroll saw to cut out the blank. Most recently I've been cutting out angel Christmas ornaments that are about 3 inches tall from 1/2" basswood. The scroll saw makes the 2D outline easy to achieve. I use a knife to make it 3D.

[JimSawyer]

There have been plenty of times that I have cut my profile twice out of 5/4 basswood, and then glued and clamped the two together to get a 2 1/2" blank to carve.