Hello all.
A while ago, I got myself a scroll saw, one of those "bounces up and down" sort of fellas. Variable speed etc, but top speed is no actually very fast, and while I would rate it "quite good" the blades are a bit fragile, and the low top speed can make cutting a pain. On the up side, you can get those "cut in any direction" blades, which would seem quite useful, and you can un-attach the blade, push it through a hole in the wood, and then do internal cuts, which is most useful.
A read of this months Model Boats - I think in the "Tiffy's Workshop" section, extols the use of a small bandsaw instead. Benefits that I can see are that you can get decent L-N blades to make your chums jelous, and will last forever, the blade moves faster, and so is better at cutting and generally a bit neater, and the actual footprint of the machine will, I think, be smaller, as the scrollsaw does take up a lot of bench space.
Down side would seem to be that you can't use one for cutting internal holes, such as chopping out the middle of frames.
I don't have the bench space for both in my i'll-definately-finish-building-the-dratted-thing-soon workshop, and before I drill big holes in the bench to mount the scroll saw, I thought I would see what the community thinks. If there is a strong backing for a bandsaw, it seems a good time to swap them.
Any thoughts on either side, I would be most interested. Especially interested in people who have used both and have settled on a favourite.
Thanks
Steve