Bosch professional jigsaw blades for scaffolding boards

[Wimbledon]

Hi there

I have just bought a Bosch 18v 155 jigsaw with a view to using it to making garden furniture and cutting shapes. I understood from the you tube videos it cuts through even thicker wood than this but when I try on 38mm scaffolding board planks I am getting massive resistance. This is making me nervous to the point I’m worrying the blade might snap off which is why I am not pushing the jigsaw so hard.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for a Bosch compatible blade that will easily cope with 38 mm wood and which will allow me to do curves. Thanks in advance

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It should cut 38mm with ease.

Hi there

I have just bought a Bosch 18v 155 jigsaw with a view to using it to making garden furniture and cutting shapes. I understood from the you tube videos it cuts through even thicker wood than this but when I try on 38mm scaffolding board planks I am getting massive resistance. This is making me nervous to the point I’m worrying the blade might snap off which is why I am not pushing the jigsaw so hard.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for a Bosch compatible blade that will easily cope with 38 mm wood and which will allow me to do curves. Thanks in advance

https://www.saxtonblades.co.uk/jigsaw-blades/wood-blades
I use 144D's, 101B's and 345XF's for general firewood and rubbish. I tend to ruin them before I blunt them so there's little advantage in paying the premiun except when doing really tidy work. They are not quite as sharp as Festool etc. but are much cheaper.

 

[Wimbledon]

It should cut 38mm with ease.


https://www.saxtonblades.co.uk/jigsaw-blades/wood-blades
I use 144D's, 101B's and 345XF's for general firewood and rubbish. I tend to ruin them before I blunt them so there's little advantage in paying the premiun except when doing really tidy work. They are not quite as sharp as Festool etc. but are much cheaper.

Thanks for that. To be honest I wouldn’t care too much about the wear and tear to the blade if I could get a Bosch jigsaw blade that can effectively cut 38mm scaffolding board in the first place. I’ve tried the TD344DP for softwood precision and the shorter one that’s meant for speed but that can go up to 40mm and I feel they both require more pushing and effort than is safe. Not sure if it’s me. I am inexperienced and that doesn’t help. If anyone can advise which blade would be effective I’d be grateful because I not only want to cut in a straight line, I’d like to also be able to do curves in 38mm wood. TiA

 

[Wimbledon]

It should cut 38mm with ease.


https://www.saxtonblades.co.uk/jigsaw-blades/wood-blades
I use 144D's, 101B's and 345XF's for general firewood and rubbish. I tend to ruin them before I blunt them so there's little advantage in paying the premiun except when doing really tidy work. They are not quite as sharp as Festool etc. but are much cheaper.

I will look at the ones you use then. Thanks

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If you use a 144D of virtually any make you shouldn't need to to push the saw in 38mm softwood. The 101Bs will cut gentler curves but more slowly.

 

[Sideways]

Please excuse if you already know this, but if new to this jigsaw, have you checked that the pendulum action is turned on to full ?
I expect there's a small lever somewhere to the sideof / above the guide roller behind the blade.

Cuts tend to be really hard work when the pendulum action is turned off.

 

[Wimbledon]

Please excuse if you already know this, but if new to this jigsaw, have you checked that the pendulum action is turned on to full ?
I expect there's a small lever somewhere to the sideof / above the guide roller behind the blade.

Cuts tend to be really hard work when the pendulum action is turned off.

Thank you so much I will check that out

 

[Lefley]

Thank you so much I will check that out

Does your jigsaw have an angle adjuster for the blade. My Bosch will tilt the balde forward or back in 3 positions. In one position the blade hardely cuts, then when adjusted to the angle the blade likes it cutS like hot knife through butter.

 

[Amclaussen]

SORRY, but a good reading of the jigsaw instructions booklet would be the starting point... See, Orbital action with multiple settings is definitely not a new thing. Another possibility, is a damaged blade attachment, that allows the blade to get pushed backwards, causing a lack of cutting action, but that happens much more on "U" type of mounting geometry, and never on "T" type mounting of the blade.

 

[baldkev]

Does your jigsaw have an angle adjuster for the blade. My Bosch will tilt the balde forward or back in 3 positions. In one position the blade hardely cuts, then when adjusted to the angle the blade likes it cutS like hot knife through butter.

Hi lefley, not wanting to teach you to suck eggs, but that 3 position lever is a pendulum swing. If it is set to 0 , then the blades just goes up and down. This is the setting for downwards cutting blades and can be used for slow cutting curves, although it is much slower. As you progress through to the other end of the settings, the blade starts to swing, with the bottom of the blade moving forward. This makes cutting quicker but the bottom of the blade is cutting a couple of mm in front of the top, which may not be so great if you need a dead square cut through the workpiece thickness as you go round curves..... but is much quicker
Edit to add, using pendulum swing with downward cutting blades will make it bounce around all over the place so they only get used on zero swing

 

[mwinfrance]

I think the problem with pendulum swing on jigsaws, is that the diagrams in the manuals invariably always show the blade angling backwards ( pivoting backwards from the top ) and the designs that are sometimes molded onto the saws also show this.When in fact,it is as Kev says, the opposite which is happening. even the pendulum action setting levers on the saw tend to be vertical ( pointing downwards ) when the blade is at 90° to the base plate, and then as the pendulum action is increased, the levers are turned point towards the back of the saws ( as if they were angling the bottom of the blade away from the material, rather than turned to point slightly forward, and thus show what they are doing, that they are setting the blade bottom to contact the material before the top on the cut stroke.

Really don't like electric jigsaws, noisy and inaccurate way to cut*, even the most expensive ones, much prefer compressed air ones, or the machines which look like jigsaws for cutting "mattresses" of laid up textile or foam sheets and block, more knife like.

*except when using blades meant for metal ( and carefully ground to be able to cut tight curves ) when cutting wood, very slow, but can cut "square" and leave a good clean cut.

 

[Lefley]

Hi lefley, not wanting to teach you to suck eggs, but that 3 position lever is a pendulum swing. If it is set to 0 , then the blades just goes up and down. This is the setting for downwards cutting blades and can be used for slow cutting curves, although it is much slower. As you progress through to the other end of the settings, the blade starts to swing, with the bottom of the blade moving forward. This makes cutting quicker but the bottom of the blade is cutting a couple of mm in front of the top, which may not be so great if you need a dead square cut through the workpiece thickness as you go round curves..... but is much quicker
Edit to add, using pendulum swing with downward cutting blades will make it bounce around all over the place so they only get used on zero swing

Well I see you put it into scientific terms there Jacob. if you reread my post that is exactly what I was saying. It changes the cutting angle of the blade by allowing the bottom to advance and cut the piece differently than a straight up and down motion . Which is the zero setting. If you have a crappy blade and you are stuck on a job site using this feature makeS the blade more aggressive and sometimes can get the job done. I would have never called it a pendulum as that's ticks back and forth. Orbital is the word.
here is a utube on the feature. My post was typed at 5:30 am on the way out the door to my carpentry job. So did not have time to give a detailed long winded post.

 

[mwinfrance]

Well I see you put it into scientific terms there Jacob. if you reread my post that is exactly what I was saying. It changes the cutting angle of the blade by allowing the bottom to advance and cut the piece differently than a straight up and down motion . Which is the zero setting. If you have a crappy blade and you are stuck on a job site using this feature makeS the blade more aggressive and sometimes can get the job done. I would have never called it a pendulum as that's ticks back and forth. Orbital is the word.
here is a utube on the feature. My post was typed at 5:30 am on the way out the door to my carpentry job. So did not have time to give a detailed long winded post.

Is Jacob posting ? Maybe the blade needs sharpening..or not.
But.."orbital" means to move in a circular path around a point or an object. such as the moon orbits the earth, or the earth orbits the sun, in both cases the movement is "orbital" How is the movement of the jigsaw blade circular ? When adjusted so that the bottom of the blade contacts first, on the cut stroke and then moves back to vertical on the non cut stroke. It moves backwards and forwards through an arc, which is what a pendulum does.Thus it is a pendular ( or pendulum ) motion. pendulums don't "tick back and forth"...They (and jigsaw blades when set to cut with the blade bottom further forward than the top ) are lower at the mid point of their motion between points, describing an arc ( part of a circle's circumference ) , but not an orbit ( an entire circle around a point ).Orbits ( and orbital objects ) also tend not to reverse direction each time they reach their start point, if they did, the inertia would have every thing on earth flying off into space each december 31st.if we accept the convention ( in "the west" ) that each year ( orbit of our planet around the sun ) starts at midnight Dec 31st.

 

[mwinfrance]

Actually, posting late and when my pain killers had begun kicking in fuzzied my thinking there.Thinking about it now, due to the "up and down" element of the blades motion, it isn't really strictly pendular either.I don't know what you'ld call the track made by the point of the blade? I think pendulum is closer than orbital, but there may well be a specific word for the figure it makes.Probably too long to fit on a saw though.

 

[Limey Lurker]

The pendulum action should be OFF when cutting curves. Blades, and blade holders, will break easily.

 

[Doug71]

Had my Jigsaw out this afternoon (Festool Trion) to have a quick look at the blade on the different settings (was feeling a bit bored).

When pendulum action is off the blade sits at it's furthest point forward and obviously just goes up and down.

When Pendulum action is turned on the blade moves back, the higher the setting the further back it goes. When in pendulum mode the blade never gets as far forward as when pendulum is turned off. In operation I couldn't see the angle of the blade change, it went forward and backwards as it went up and down but didn't seem to "swing" at all unless it was a miniscule amount, or maybe it needs the pressure of actually cutting for this to happen?

Maybe orbital and pendulum action are different things?

Anyway it passed 5 mins of my day, I was repairing rotten box window sashes which really isn't very exciting.

 

[Spectric]

Maybe just the wrong tool for the job, I have never had much luck with jig saws cutting anything much thicker than 12mm and as for a square to the face cuts this just jets worse as you go over 18mm. I think in the world of jigsaws the only one that stands out seems to be that very expensive Maefell and the thicker blades it uses again expensive, so you would be better of with just a circular saw.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Not much good for curves, though.

 

[Jameshow]

Need a Bosch mains one dosen't he Phil!

Great saw!

 

[baldkev]

Well I see you put it into scientific terms there Jacob. if you reread my post that is exactly what I was saying. It changes the cutting angle of the blade by allowing the bottom to advance and cut the piece differently than a straight up and down motion . Which is the zero setting. If you have a crappy blade and you are stuck on a job site using this feature makeS the blade more aggressive and sometimes can get the job done. I would have never called it a pendulum as that's ticks back and forth. Orbital is the word.
here is a utube on the feature. My post was typed at 5:30 am on the way out the door to my carpentry job. So did not have time to give a detailed long winded post.

Im not jacob.... im a carpenter too..... and i said i wasn't looking to teach you to suck eggs..... and lastly, the manufacturers call it pendulum swing..... so

Edit to add:
After a 5 minute google, it seems we call it pendulum and in the states they say orbital. Tools here are advertised as 'pendulum' including makita, festool and bosch etc. It seems that the supporting bearing behind the blade is the bit that pushes the blade forward and back during cutting.
https://www.toolstop.co.uk/blog/kno...ology built,also moves backward and forwards.Home depot for instance, calls them orbital
@Lefley it wasnt my intention to annoy you