Blade Width and Cutting Curves

Here's part of your problems, Joel. Age. Any and all adverse events, despite being careful to avoid, will still occur at a certain rate. You know, 1 in 10, 1 in a million, etc. The odds are ultimately stacked against us. The longer and more often that you do something, the greater the chance the unwanted outcome will finally bite you in the ass. And from reading your blog, I'd say that you've been bit.

I suspect you won't like this comment.

My 8 year old woodworking student had to to cut a curve on his project and the curve was made in 2x4 material. The tool he had to use was a jig saw with a wide blade. He had never used a jigsaw before although he did have one previous lesson on a scroll saw. I taught him the method of cutting a short distance then backing the tool up and cutting again. That way the wide blade creates its own wide path. He cut a nearly perfect, very smooth curve. Not bad for an 8 year old who has only two months of one hour lessons on a Saturday.

Won't like??!!!??

Every time I hear someone putting an 8 year in the shop I am thrilled. Congratulations to you on not being scared that your child is too young!!. Too many people are afraid of letting kids into the shop - even with tons of supervision.

Sadly, however - your technique would not have worked in my case as I needed both sides of the cut and did I mention that I had narrow blades around I just didn't think to you them. When I tell you I was being pretty stupid I was not exaggerating.

To squeeze a little bit more turning radius out of a blade, I've had success with bandsaw and jigsaw blades at stoning the back of the blade into a slight curve, maybe thinning it down a little bit.

The smoothest radius cut comes from when you happen to find the perfect sized saw blade and can "ride" the back of the blade in the kerf - helps keep your trajectory smooth if you aren't quite perfect at steering.