Thread: Advice: band saw, scroll saw, jig ?

Hi,

I'd love some advice from the experts on this forum.

I'm planning to make a toy train set (in the style of the "Brio" company's toys see http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ad.php?t=12843)

How do I cut out the track (which will be straight and curved solid pieces with grooves routed for the trains)?

Possible power tools I own are:

• jigsaw
• router

I'm testing out various alternatives with 19mm pine to hone my technique (the final timber I choose may be different) and am having great difficulty making vertical cuts.

Here is what I've tried...

1. Jigsaw

Using the circle cutting attachment that came with the jigsaw, the blade wanders off the vertical (up to about 3mm) which is not good enough. I've tried both a thin scroll blade and a wider standard blade - same effect. I've tried pendulum action (worse) or normal action (slightly better, but takes for ever)

2. Router

I made a circle-cutting jig by bolting my router to a piece of MDF and it sort of works, but the problem is that the rails are relatively small so it becomes awkward holding the stock in place. Also the pine has got chatter marks along part of the curve - maybe this is due to my technique?

I've thought of using router+template but it will suffer the same problem as [2] of holding everything in place.

I've looked at buying either a scroll saw or band saw: before I take this any further, would either of these suffer from the same blade-leaning problem of my jigsaw? The advantage with these tools over the router seems to be you can feed stock in relatively safely freehand without the danger of kickback. However, reading a bit about band saws, I found a description of how blades can "lead" or wander when following the direction of the grain - is this serious enough to worry about?

I'm not keen on spending $500+ that seems to be required for a band saw, and the scrollers forum seems to indicate that the pinned blades and vibration of the cheapest scroll saws (around $150) may make such a purchase questionable. Scroll saws also seem to come with only circular base plates which would make clamping a jig to them more difficult?

Most of my power tools cost around $100, so I don't want to spend a disproportionate amount on a new tool that may only get occasional use.

So what do you recommend I do?

Tony