What a horrible thought! An electromechanical device in such an ancient and honorable art as woodcut printmaking. Well...yeah! I guess you won't like my upcoming Work Note on dremmel tool use either. Pah!
The scroll saw can save some time and effort as well as help in achieving some effects that would otherwise be p'ty near impossible. Okay, wouldn't be impossible but would take a darned long time and I've got 1,000 Woodcuts to make before I die.

• A scroll saw is very affordable, around $100 will get you a decent one.
• Scroll saws have to be bolted down to the bench, so you will have to make room in the studio for a permanent installation.
• Use of a thick pad under the saw is highly recommended to reduce vibration and noise and for sanity's sake (and to avoid having to scrape the cat off the ceiling after every use).
• Use safety goggles, I prefer my racquetball goggles but you can use whatever you want.
• If you don't push, the thing don't cut! The blade basically just goes up and down, cutting on the downstroke. Wood has to be pushed through the blade in order to cut. This is very handy in tight cuts: you stop, the thing stops, no slips, no runs, no errors.
• The saw dust can be gathered to make filler for your woodcutting mistakes. Really.
• PLEASE PRACTICE first on a scrap piece of wood (if there were such a thing!) before putting a $30 block of cherry wood to the blade.

1. Clean and Effortless Backgrounds

For my vessel series, I like to have the pristine surface of the paper contrast with the black images of the vessels themselves. Cutting the background out of the printing image gives the print a perfectly clean background without having to wipe roller marks clean every time.
An additional feature: larger prints such as The Outsider (block pictured just above 12" x 24") are printed with a press. Despite perfect carving and even planing, when printing with a press some features of the background will emboss the paper. Cutting out the background also avoids this problem.
The Outsider was printed with a registration board. For more information on registration, see the Studio Work Notes on Registration.

Wait! What about blocks with kento marks? Well, lookie below and see the block for Dale Vuelta. Some fancy scroll work, the kento marks are preserved but the background is gone. Notice that to preserve the integrity of the block I had to leave the background between the front vessels intact. Too much scroll sawing and your block won't retain square anymore, giving you registration problems.

    
Puzzled? Puzzle prints are prints that have clear divisions among the color areas.
The above print, Woodpeople, was first printed in a bright red on black paper. The sections, indicated by the pencils were then separated and inked separately in pink, light brown, and umber. I then assembled the block at the printing board (I printed this by hand), then printed the three colors of the second state together. You can click on the thumbnail above to get the enlargement.

Here are the "seams" highlighted. It is IMPORTANT to saw your block BEFORE printing the first state, even if you ink the whole thing the same color. Otherwise, you run the risk of not being able to register your second state. As thin as the scroll saw blade is, it will still take out a milimiter or two of the wood where you cut it.

Yeah, I like the block better than the print too! One of my first efforts...

Trick #1
Let's say that you are working on a reduction block (what! don't know what that is? CLICK HERE), and let's further say that you take out a moon or a mountain before you really meant to. Now you are two stages too late and you want to reprint that moon. What to do?
Get a piece of wood, trace your original drawing on to the block. You can easily do this by placing tracing paper on the current state and then reversing the paper onto the block. Now cut out your little moon with the handy scroll saw, cut out the missing moon space on your working block, stick the new moon on the ol' block, level the whole thing, and presto! You now have a trick up your sleeve to reprint areas of a reduction block that have been...reduced.

NOTE: THAT NEVER HAPPENED TO ME! EVER!

Trick #2 (which also never happened to me)
Now let's say that you are petting the cat and carving at the same time. The phone RINGS!, da cat jumps, da knife slips... Happened to be a 12 mm clearing chisel and there goes half da head of the poor woman.
Never fear, scroll-saw-mama is here! You can easily use the scroll saw to repair a block.

• First, find another block of the same wood and thickness.
• Second, place your working block on top of the other and masking tape in place. An even better method is to rice paste the blocks together, one on top of the other.
• Drill a tiny hole big enough for your scroll saw blade, which ain't very big, on an area close to the mishap.
• Place the two blocks together on the saw, threading the saw blade through your hole, and saw around the offending (or offended) area to be replaced.
• Now release the cut blocks, discard the boo-booed piece, replace with the matching new piece. Fill the gap with sawdust or woodfiller. Kick the cat out of the studio and PAY ATTENTION! Proceed with re-drawing and re-cutting the area.