Pedulum action jigsaw, what does it mean/do?

Moves the blade away from the cut on the down (non-cutting) stroke. The result is less heat and less effort pushing the saw. Without pendulum a lot of your effort goes into pushing the saw forward on it's non-cutting stroke, and you get a lot of unnecessary heat.

I find it particularly useful when cutting 3/4" wbp. You won't notice the difference on soft things linke 1/2" mdf etc.

On mine, it makes it cut faster and with less effort when on a straight line.

Christian.

There should be a vast difference when cutting something like say 3/4" chipboard - it will be much faster but less accurate with the pendulum action on.

Hi Chris, the pendulum action pushes the blade forward on the cutting stroke. You may see a fork carrying a TCT (or monkey metal!) blade guide roller behind the blade when fitted. This guide wheel pushes the blade when pendulum action is on. If you don't notice much difference, maybe it's more of a wobble action than pendulum!

The advantages of pendulum action are:

Cutting speed increased; blade life extended; may get a more accurate cut.

Disadvantages include:

Not good for tight curves; may get a less accurate cut; possible increase in splintering; more stress on tool.

J.B.

I rarely cut anything that heavy with the jigsaw as I have a Skil Classic circular saw that does all that sort of work. I only use the jigsaw for non-straight cuts and/or when opening out blind holes (e.g. putting dry-line boxes in plasterboard). So that's probably why I haven't noticed any difference.

Why call it 'pendulum' action though, it doesn't seem very descriptive.

The blade swings backwards and forwards, like, er, a pendulum....

Andy has one and uses it all day long, for the hell of it.

Are "pendulum" and "orbital" actions the same thing? And what is a "Scrolling" action?