Need help with puzzles

[Artemisblossom]

I am starting to make some puzzles and I am having a lot of difficulty getting everything set up properly so the pieces will slide in and out from both the front and back. I have watched several you tube videos and tried the little test where you cut a piece of wood and then see if the blade can slide in from the back. Mine does this but still my puzzle pieces will only slide in from the front. I dont know what else to adjust. I have noticed when I made the test cut in the wood to see if the blade is perpendicular that the cut is always a lot deeper on the top. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong and how to fix it please?

[Dennis123]

Is there a chance that your saw has a setting to tilt the blade forward as well as the setting that tilts the table?  My RBI Hawk saw has two positions to adjust the forward tilt of the blade.  One position is straight up and down and the other tilts the blade slightly forward for a more aggressive cut.  If tilted forward, rather than straight up and down, it would certainly affect how puzzle pieces fit.

Dennis

[Artemisblossom]

I dont know if it has a setting for that but interestingly enough when I make a cut to test if the table is level I have noticed that the top of the cut is much deeper than at the bottom. I have a king Canada scroll saw and can find nothing in the owners manual that refers to this.  When the blades are inserted there seems to be a fair bit of space to put the blade in . What I mean is that I can put the blade in more to the front or farther back in the clamps. I am not really sure where in the clamps it's supposed to go so I suppose it's possible I have the blade inserted farther into the clamp at the bottom than the top or vice versa.

[tbolt]

I have that saw and I always use the straight up and down position you can’t be aggressive cutting puzzles  if your cutting 3/4 wood I would use a #5ur good luck

[Artemisblossom]

Tbolt how do you ensure its straight up and down? Do you push the blades in as far as they will go in both the top and bottom clamps. Sorry if this is a rather obvious question I am very new to woodworking of any kind.

[Norm Fengstad]

I do lots of puzzles and have found if the blade gets slightly loose or stretches the cut may become bowed ands cause this problem of pieces not sliding through both directions. Also when I get heavy handed and start to push into the cut especially when blade gets dull, some blades function better then others, I use mostly pegas, modified geometry #3 and #5 on 3/4 plus thickness. After trying many different blades the pegas modified geometry, # 2/0 for photo puzzles in 1/4 Baltic birch is the only one I use. . I have also learned to be conscious of side pressure into the cut, this causes bowing as well.

[Artemisblossom]

thank you everyone for your help. I adjusted the blade holder on the top part of the saw and got the blade so that it cut the same depth at the top as at the bottom of a test piece of wood. This seems to have helped a lot. I think I was also using dull blades as I got a much better cut when I inserted new blades. They certainly seem to go dull fast but that again is likely something I am doing wrong.

[Norm Fengstad]

first blades I bought back years ago dulled very fast as well, I get Pegas blades from Bear woods they seem to last the longest even in hardwoods like beech and hickory.

[Berta]

Blades dull, they just do. That’s why we buy them by the dozen(s) :-)