Cross cut vs rip

[RegisG]

Never gave it a thought about grain with scroll saw. But, just put in an Olsen #9 crown tooth blade to make long inside straight cuts around a 1/2" poplar base. When going cross grain it was fast cutting like using a band saw. But, cutting with grain was slow goin'.

New at scrolling and learning and thought useful to other new folk as I've never seen this written about.

Regis

[woodsman]

Nice info to pass along Regis, we do get new people all the time.
Hey I was just in Mount Juliet, on Oct, 8th. Nice area outside of Nashville. I was visiting a cousin that lives there.
Keep the sawdust flying.
Jeff

[wood-n-things]

Regis,
With the thousands of posts it never hurts to revisit a topic from time to time. Nice of you to pass on your observation whether it has been addressed before or not. Keep learning and sharing.

[stephenD]

You are absolutely right. Cross cutting is a lot faster than ripping. You will notice that when you are cutting projects from whole wood, not ply. There will be times when you turn a corner and hit a slow part as you cut with the grain. Ya just gota learn to live with that.

[Bill Wilson]

Regardless what kind of saw you are using or what kind of solid wood you are cutting, this same things holds true. I don't know anything about the physics of wood that causes this to be true, but it is why there are specific rip blades designed for ripping operations on many saws. Rip blades for a table saw are much different than a cross cut blade. Handsaws can also be specifically designed to rip or crosscut. Same thing even with chainsaws. You use a different chain for crosscutting a log than you do for ripping a log. It's all in the tooth geometry. Rip saws generally have fewer teeth with more set in them to clear chips better.

I'm not sure that scrollsaw blades need to be specifically designed for ripping vs crosscutting, since most scrolling involves both. I would expect though that certain blades would do better in a ripping cut than others though. It would be an interesting test to see if say a skip tooth blade might rip easier than a reverse tooth blade, for example.