More scrollsawing tips and tricks

Scrollsawing a pattern line sometimes causes a perception problem. The black line and black blade visually merge, and you can't tell exactly where your blade is positioned along the line.Place a lamp so that your blade casts a right-angle shadow on the workpiece as shown. Now, you can use the point of the 90° angle formed by the blade and its shadow as a visual reference rather than trying to distinguish between the blade and the line.
—John Harris, Sun City, Calif.