See? A very simple pattern. Straight lines with slightly rounded ends. Easy-peasy! Nothing to it. Don't know why I've been so intimidated. All I have to do is open the package, install the blade and saw. I even looked up the recommended blade size for my 24 gauge copper-- 5, 6 or 7. No thing, man. Piece of pie, easy as cake. Only. . .
. . .this is how the blades came. They are bundled in smaller bunches with hair-thin wire-- to make them that much harder to get to-- but I do not believe they are bundled into different sizes. And even if they were, how would I know which size is which as the only significant number on the entire packaging is there on the lower left: 72 pieces. I'm gonna need every single one of them because. . .
. . .this is how far I got before I snapped my first blade. It only got worse. A lot of times the blade would snag on the copper and would only move in one direction, the non-cutting direction. Luckily I have a few blocks of paraffin wax (doesn't everyone? I mean, who hasn't made a candle or two in their lifetimes?) and running the blade once through it stopped that-- mostly.
I also read that you must hold the saw at 90 degrees, move the saw without putting pressure on it and turn the metal and not the blade around curves. What I found worked was putting the saw at a slight angle prevented it from sticking and sawed through the copper like butter without hardly any pressure at all. And no matter what I did around curves, the blade snapped and I didn't get any curve at all.
Six blades and one very frustrating hour later, this is what I achieved. I could have done it in 10 minutes with straight (although jagged) lines and rounded curves with my tin snips. I must say that even though the straight lines look pretty jagged in this pic, they are not jagged to the touch. Tin snips leave ends that will make you bleed. The saw will leave a much straighter and smoother line, once I learn how to control it.
Oh wait! It's Sunday and we need a silly:
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