Scroll saws are versatile tools that are known for their ability to make precise and intricate cuts and curves in metals, woods, and other materials.
Because they are accurate and delicate, they can be very useful for a variety of projects that require close attention to detail, especially when the user is skilled and well-versed in the practice.
If you become proficient in using a scroll saw, there are many applications that can be profitable for you. These are the major ways you can make money with a scroll saw:
- Home Décor
- Furniture
- Toys
- Kitchen Wear
- Contracted Work
- Teaching Scroll Sawing
This article will show you some of the more detailed ways that you can use a scroll saw to make money.
An investment in a saw and some creativity can give you lots of possibilities in creating lots of fun and unique designs and projects.
6 Ways to Make Money Using a Scroll Saw
We’ve come up with some fun ways you can use your scroll saw skills to make yourself money and be creative at the same time.
One of the most effective ways to sell your goods is at arts and crafts fairs where people are looking for intricate items.
While there are six major categories for making money with a scroll saw, each section has many ideas for you to choose from depending on your interests and skills with the saw!
Home Décor
Because you can make intricate cuts with the scroll saw, cool home decorations can be made with the saw.
These create unique curves and angles in both wood and metal that people will want to display in their homes.
Some cool home décor ideas to make include:
Wooden Crosses
Ornately designed crosses are beautiful home accents in any room throughout a home.
Name Plaques
Carved into larger pieces of wood or made individually with smaller pieces, these can be easily painted or stand-alone for personalized art.
Monogrammed Signs:
Similar techniques can be applied for monogrammed work.
Clocks
Placing a clock in a larger piece of wood that has been carved or decorated can make a clock stand out.
Decorative Boxes
Small boxes for coffee tables or simple storage with unique engravings and designs are easily managed with a scroll saw.
Topography Art
Varying in depth to show mountains and other geographical features, topography art is a great way to highlight an area while showing off precise woodwork.
Wooden Baskets
These can be used as a centerpiece on any table or to hold plants around the home with creative designs.
Holiday Ornaments
Depicting whatever design you like or those that would appeal to others, holiday ornaments can be a top seller as people are often looking for unique additions to their tree each year.
This would see profits in a more seasonal manner than other scroll saw applications.
Home décor is one of the most common applications for a scroll saw.
Applied to larger pieces of wood, they can make great additions to a wall or be highlighted throughout the home.
These are also one of the easier projects to work on because they are not typically oversized and allow you to be the most creative oftentimes.
Furniture
While home décor is related more towards accessories for the home, you can also use scroll saws on larger pieces of furniture to make them more detailed and unique.
Some creative ways to apply a scroll saw are to the backing on chairs, decorative additions to legs for tables, and a variety of chests and other smaller pieces throughout the home.
There are many patterns you can download or purchase to make these scroll saw applications easier and give you more ideas when applying to furniture.
There is a market for those who want ornate furniture with lots of embellishments, and this can be accomplished applying the scroll saw.
If you are looking for some projects to start out with to sell, try these:
End Tables
This is a smaller project as far as furniture goes and can be carved with real detail on the legs, drawers, and trim of the top itself.
Coffee Tables
If you are looking for a bit bigger of a project but with similar principles to an end table, a larger coffee table with ornate designs is a great option.
Shelving
Shelves are smaller, easier to work with and make for a great decorative furniture piece around the home.
It’s less of a commitment for you to make and the client to purchase (compared to much larger furniture).
Wood-Backed Chairs
Scroll saw work can be particularly popular on wooden chairs.
With many possibilities as far as design goes, this is a fairly simple and beautiful piece of furniture you can create.
Children’s Furniture
Small chairs, benches, cribs, and other smaller furniture can be easily designed and made with a scroll saw.
Baby and children’s furniture is a niche that can be profitable if your designs and execution are strong.
Beyond furniture, corbels are often added to different accents in the home for design and weight-bearing purposes, making them a great addition to kitchen islands, shelving, or more heavy-duty designs for exterior and interior walls and ceilings.
This is another avenue you can take in creating pieces with your scroll saw for the money.
Toys
Wooden toys will always have special value because they are well-made and pleasing to the eye.
They can often be played with by both children and adults or used as a focal point in the home.
Because many of these items are versatile, they appeal to a larger audience for selling!
Here are some fun ideas to use your scroll saw for:
Wood Puzzles
Because a scroll saw is great for creating detailed curves, it is an awesome tool for creating puzzles.
These can be focal points on a table for any age or a great way for children to be introduced with larger and heavier pieces to play with.
Toy Cars and Trains
Any small wooden toys can be made with a scroll saw, but wooden cars, trains, and even planes are very popular toys that last a long time.
The durable material is safer for children as they won’t fall apart and can be passed down multiple times from generation to generation.
Doll Furniture
For very precise and small projects, doll furniture has its own market with plenty of buyers.
You can put your detailed skills to the test by creating beds, dressers, chairs, cribs, and many other tiny pieces of furniture for dolls.
Toy Houses
Cabins and dollhouses that are either premade or buildable are popular among children and can be made with a scroll saw.
Figurines
Turn any piece of wood into animals, people, and other designs for children to play with.
These are the most common scroll saw applications for wooden toys on the market.
They are often sold online by major manufacturers as well as artists, but can also be found at fairs and different craft marketplaces for individual sellers.
Kitchen Wear
Wood kitchen items are not only practical and usable, but they can also be beautiful additions to your kitchen.
If you prefer working with smaller items on the scroll saw, look into decorative kitchen items that will not only be enjoyable to make but will also be a decorative addition to many kitchens.
Trivets
Used to hold hot items, decorative trivets can have endless decorative applications, and they are fairly easy to make.
Cutting Boards
With the popularity of charcuterie boards for entertaining as well as your everyday cutting, a beautifully designed cutting board is becoming highly sought after.
Napkin Holders
Unique designs on a wood napkin holder can act as a centerpiece or focal point in an eating area.
Wooden Utensils
Salad forks and large spoons with cool handles are great pieces for serving and entertaining.
Baskets
Holding bread or other kitchen items in decorative baskets can raise the aesthetic level in the kitchen area.
If you are interested in working on more detailed and small projects, look into the many projects you can apply toward the kitchen!
If you do decide to work on items that will touch food, you will want to make sure it is a durable wood and that it is properly sanded down.
Paint should also not be used on these items as they will come in contact with food.
Contracted Work
If you are able to showcase your skills effectively and have the capacity to work on larger projects, you may be able to get yourself contracted woodwork.
Fretwork is typically done with a fret saw, but it is ornate woodwork that can be done with a scroll saw.
This work could be used both for interior as well as exterior woodwork on the home or in the yard.
Paneling, garden trellises, ornate fences, and decorative wood accents are some of the many ways you can use a scroll saw on someone’s home.
The benefit of this type of work is it can often keep you employed for many weeks to months at a time, depending on the size of the project.
Many of these applications can be used for landscape design.
If you are highly skilled, this can lead to more long-term work with the client on other projects around the home or to referrals for acquiring new clients.
This is the best-case scenario for any contracted work. You should also be aware of the fact that waiting for new jobs and work could be equally as likely with large gaps in between jobs.
Teach Scroll Sawing
Teaching can be a fruitful alternative to making scroll saw projects yourself.
You will need multiple scroll saws in order to teach classes, and finding enough students in your area will require some additional work and effort as it is used for more unique and niche projects.
You may be able to recruit students at craft fairs or get in contact with your local community center.
This strategy will require you to plan a curriculum and accumulate tools and supplies to allow for students to practice the different techniques on multiple materials.
By the end of the course, students should walk away with their own projects and master the skills of the scroll saw.
Scroll sawing can also be taught in a woodworking shop at a school or in a community-sponsored class.
Below is a short video of the basics of scroll sawing which you could actually do to begin teaching:
If you can also do other types of woodcutting, teaching a more comprehensive class on woodworking and using woodworking tools can be a lucrative activity.
Types of Wood for Scroll Sawing
Wood is the most common material used in scroll sawing because it can be easily manipulated.
When you are working with a scroll saw and making items, there are types of wood that will be more successful than others.
This is both for the quality and the aesthetic of your cuts.
Check out these types of wood for your scroll saw projects:
Maple
This is one of the least expensive hardwoods, making it an attractive option for your projects. It is light in color and is one of the most commonly found hardwoods on the continent.
Walnut
This is another hardwood that people like to use because of its unique coloring and grain patterns.
Cherry
While it is not as strong as other hardwoods, it is rich in color (reddish) and has a consistent grain, which makes it easy to cut and work with.
Ash
Known for its strength but also light qualities, it can be a bit busy of a grain pattern.
Birch
This type of wood behaves and looks quite similar to maple.
Hickory
Hickory is one of the strongest hardwoods, especially compared to its weight.
This is one of the hardest woods to cut and make wear out your blades on the saw.
Choosing a block of wood will be dependent on the look you are hoping to achieve, how durable you need it to be, and the ease of working with the material.
All of the above can be great choices with your harder woods being more durable but also more difficult to work with.
Working with a medium-hard hardwood is often the best for most projects for ease.
Best Places to Sell Your Scroll Saw Work
It’s one thing to make a product with a scroll saw, and it’s another thing to successfully sell it.
You will want to find the avenue that puts the most eyeballs in front of your work so you can easily sell it.
This can be both in brick and mortar stores as well as online marketplaces. Online selling will also be largely dependent on your ability to ship the goods you create.
Some of the best places for an individual to sell their scroll saw art includes:
Arts and Crafts Fairs
This is a great avenue because those that attend are looking for goods and items that are similar to yours.
Your traffic is unpredictable though, with some days being very lucrative and others very slow.
This is one of the most time-intensive ways to sell your work.
Online marketplaces
Some of the most popular websites to sell your goods include Etsy, Handmade by Amazon, Artfire, eBay, Zibbet, and Bonanza.
You can make these in order to showcase a variety of the work you have already created.
Local Shops
Some boutiques and stores may be willing to carry your goods if they know they can sell them.
This gives you great exposure but will also cut into your profits.
Social Media
This can be linked to your online marketplace/shop, but using social media to highlight your work can drive sales.
Especially with more intricate designs, you can build a bit of a following and attract new customers from different social media platforms.
Being able to sell your work is just as important as making it and knowing where to do that is crucial for your scroll saw business!
Based on your local economy, one method may work better than others. Sometimes multiple streams can also be lucrative.
Making Money with a Scroll Saw Summary
Using a scroll saw is not only a fun activity for hobbyists, but it can also be a lucrative pastime when you find certain projects you not only enjoy but are good at doing!
People enjoy putting handmade items in their homes because it makes the space more personal and often more unique.
Scroll sawing, in particular, is very detailed and ornate, drawing many people’s attention.
With the different applications for using a scroll saw to make money, the tool gives you a lot of freedom to be artistic and creative.
Most people get into scrolls sawing because they enjoy working with the wood and making items that are unique.
Sharing these items with others and making money at the same time is a great way to enjoy while getting paid to do it!