Just a Thought

[pddesertrat]

On my last scroll portrait, I tried something I have been thinking about.  I had three pieces stacked.  On the second piece of wood I applied shellac, to the back of the board before taping the pieces together.  I wanted to see if that reduced the little chip out and some of the fuzzies.  It may have, but sort of inconclusive.  There were less fuzzies on the second piece than on the top piece, which had no shellac.  There was not chip out on either the top or second board.  But, keep in mind I had a third sacrificial piece of plywood on the bottom.  I'm going to try it again on my next cutting.  Shellac the back of two pieces of 1/8" BB, leave off the third piece of plywood and see what happens.   

It would really be nice to not to have all that fuzzy clean up after scrolling. 

[Rapid Roger]

Paul,
I think that your idea is GREAT 
Shellac Is my go to for almost any finish so, you have half of your finishing process done before you even cut anything.
Shellac will seal the pores of the wood and help hold it together (fuzzy's) and it helps with staining as well as any other finish you may top it off with.
I would probably do both the FRONT and BACK of each piece. Stop the fuzzy's and start the front finish at the same time! 
Keep us posted on how your experiment turns out. 
You may have hit on the greatest tip for scrollers so far this year! 

Rog

[spirithorse]

Hi, Paul,
I think if you are using spiral blades, you will always have the fuzzies problem.
Maybe your experiment will help reduce them a little though.
Thanks for giving us food for thought on your process.
God Bless! Spirithorse

[Ray]

What kind of blades do you use? I use ultra reverse or regular scroll reverse an the back is almost as clean as the front. If I stack cut, the middle pieces are usually perfectly clean on the bottom.

Ray

[pddesertrat]

I use 3/0 spiral blades.   Fuzzies are not a big problem, don't get me wrong.  I just know if I cut a piece of varnished or shellaced plywood on the table saw, I get a very nice clean cut.  For the reasons Rog mentioned.  Seems like it would help in this application also.  I'm giving it a few tries.  No harm done and if it helps it is a big plus.  Shellac dried very quickly and even if it didn't I could cut pieces of different sizes and prepare them in advance.  I do that anyway.