A BRILLIANT +++ Workshop Tool - That Avoids (mostly) the Need for Getting a BAND SAW...

I have WANTED - as in seriously wanted to get a BAND SORE, to cut really intricate shapes from brass and copper sheet, but I could neither justify the expense, the space used for it, and the LONG trip to go get one...... and the fact that It would be getting pretty limited useage, combined with thier cost for a GOOD one, and they are kind of heavy and not really portable.

I had a Jiggle Sore, but the design of the machine made the viewing of the cutting line, hard to do, on very fine and detailed work.

The reason why I wanted a Band Sore, was because I believed that this was the ONLY option to the really fine and intricate cutting, I needed to do with copper sheet - for some knife switches/

Soooooo one day when I was scouring the web to show the ex, all about different jig saw blades - for cutting different material, the depth of cut and the teeth per mm (the pitch)... I came across an image of a cleverly mounted jiggle sore....

And I went "Ah Haa - this is it!". (Dohhhhh - it's so simple - why didn't I think of this? Perhaps our minds are too highly trained Majikthias)

So the other knight when I wanted to cut some really fine wooden reinforcements for a musical instrument, under the pressure of making the impossible with nothing (tiny parts with no mounting tools and no special cutting tools to make them), I applied A solution.

It not only works really brilliantly, it's SO simple, cheap and very small, and LIGHT and portable.

And it's REALLY effective. This really works on small and thin materials.

It's about 95% as brilliant as a proper scroll saw for intricate work, and it's kind of limited in terms of the material thickness that one can cut, and it's not as fast as a either a band saw or a circular saw...

But it is small, light, very portable and it's brilliant and it does really really excellent work on thinner timber - where one is limited by cutting speed, pressure, blade length and blade flexure.

It also works really well on thin and lubricated sheet metals - especially brass, copper and aluminum....


One of the most outstanding things about this set up, is that it gives absolutely EXCELLENT, unrestricted and close up viewing of the detailed cutting - and with a BRIGHT light and magnifying glass, and a FINE blade - one can easily work to individual 1/10's of a mm.

I mean - Even I am seriously impressed with the result...... Yes it is that good.

The whole thing is brilliant.


The Safety:

USE good quality CLEAR safety glasses and ear muffs or ear plugs.

This uses a power tool.

It's designed to CUT.

It has sharp teetch.

Things with sharp teeth eat meat.

People are made from meat.

If your going to do this device, then think things through before you do it or use it.

Step 1: This Is Fairly Self Explainatory.... So I'll Let the Pictures Tell the Tale.

Get a Jiggle Sore - with wholes in it's soul.

I used to layers of 7mm pine plywood..... glued together to make the "easy to clamp on to anything" work bench..

Cut hole for blade clearance - with jiggle sore.

Position saw in hole, mark out mounting holes, drill holes through, countersink the upper face of the boards, to recess the screw / bolt heads into.

Mount jiggle sore with small bolts - the biggest ones that fit.. and fasten to board, using both NUTS and LOCK nuts....

If your doing what I did, with the materials that I used, don't do the nuts up really hard, cause you will crush the timber.

Rounding the edges of the timber off with a plane will smooth the transitions a little.

My fast and easy "knock together" unit, being made of soft pine ply, has only one real issue - durability.

What happens especially when cutting metal, is that the chips and slightly jagged edge of the metal, will slowly hollow out the surface of the wood... making a depression in it.

This is tolerable up to a point.

But ideally, accounting for some blade flexure etc., the plate really needs to be supporting the material being cut, as close to the blade as possible.

So if you wanted to make a full time unit, I'd be using some 6mm low carbon steel plate... or for a more durable cheap wooden unit, one could put in a HARD plastic or metal insert around the blade area....

You could use a router or chisels to make a groove each side of the blade to insert two steel strips...... ahem.

Step 2: A Side View

Pretty Easy to do.

Step 3: A Top View

Far Away

Step 4: A Top View

Closera up.

Step 5: My First Crack at This...

I needed to make some thin little wedges... first crack at it..

Just holding the timber at an angle and slowly feeding it into the blade....

Too Easy.

Step 6: Anuvver Foto.

A nuver photo

.

Step 7: Amazing!

Uber Kool - look at the workmanship - first pass.

I am just so good!

: )

Step 8: This Is Just Soooooo Cool

Whaaaaa even I am impressed.

Step 9: This Is AMAZINGLY Amazing.

The edge is soooooooo thin, just like an annorexic adolescent.

How wonderful.

That is how it turned out.... first and only cut.

Step 10: Accuracy..... Whoaaaaaa This Is Soooooo Good for Detail Work.

It's really easy to work down to 10ths of a mm... just by eye.

The "knack" for doing this, is to figure out the amount of skew (offset or twist) you need to feed the material in by, to cut to an exact and straight line, at a speed the saw likes to cut at....

This is because the FRONT of the blade, with it's TEETH being pushed a little bit from side to side, is WIDER than the rear of the blade - Combined with the "looseness" of the blade driving mechanisim.....

It means I have had to feed the metal in at an angle of about 3 or degrees, from a straight line into the blade, to get an absolutely straight cut

Once you have this "sussed out" (worked out) cutting to within 0.1mm of the exact line, is easy.

Do all the zoom into the "big image"... to see the detail of the cutting.

Click on the "i" in the photo, and the image resolution specifications
2032 x 1354 .jpg - and you can see the image close up.