Start with Your Project

Before anything else, RipSaw asks one question: what are you building?

Choose Scroll Saw for fretwork, portraits, silhouettes, and decorative cutting — any project where you’re removing wood to create a design. Choose Intarsia for segmented woodworking projects where shaped pieces of different wood species fit together like a puzzle to form a picture or pattern.

Your project type shapes which tools are active and how RipSaw guides your workflow. Both project types share the same core design engine — kerf, island detection, circles, cutout (shape tool), node editing, and PDF export. The difference is in what gets layered on top.

Set Your Blade Kerf

Before you draw anything, RipSaw asks one more foundational question: what’s your blade kerf size?

That number — your blade width — becomes the foundation of every calculation in your project. Entry hole sizes, bridge widths, cut paths. Everything flows from the kerf you enter. Once set, it’s locked for that project. No accidental mid-design changes that would throw off your calculations.

This is what makes RipSaw different from general-purpose design software. A scroll saw pattern maker has to think in blade widths, not pixels. RipSaw does.

Draw Your Board

Set your workspace to match the actual wood you’re cutting. RipSaw shows exact dimensions as you work — no guessing, no measuring after the fact. Your scroll saw pattern fits your board, not the other way around.

For intarsia projects, this board boundary becomes the outer frame your wood pieces will live inside — giving you a true-to-life workspace to plan your design before you ever touch your saw.

Trace Your Reference Image

Import a reference image and trace over it — like digital carbon paper. Adjust the opacity so you can see exactly what you’re drawing. This works for any project type: a wildlife portrait you’re turning into a scroll saw fretwork pattern, or a segmented intarsia design you’re building piece by piece.

The reference stays in the background. You control what ends up in the design.

CutOut Tool — Shapes That Know What They Are

Every shape you create with the CutOut tool is a cutout. Move it, duplicate it, flip it, rotate it. Right-click for options or use keyboard shortcuts. When you need precision, node editing lets you adjust any shape — curves, corners, exact placement — until it’s exactly right. Every decision is yours. The only thing RipSaw does automatically is watch for islands.

For scroll saw patterns, each cutout is a piece of wood you’ll be removing. RipSaw tracks those shapes for island detection and entry hole placement — but where you draw, what you keep, and how you connect it is entirely up to you.

For intarsia patterns, each cutout becomes a wood piece in your puzzle. The same shapes you draw with the CutOut tool become the pieces you’ll assign wood species to, orient grain on, and number for assembly. You’re not working in two different systems — you’re working in one, and RipSaw understands what each shape means for your project type.

Circle Tool

Eyes, wheels, decorative holes — circles appear in nearly every scroll saw and intarsia pattern. Instead of fighting a pen tool to get a smooth curve, click where you want the center and drag outward. The preview shows exactly what you’re getting. Release, and you have a perfect circle with smooth Bezier curves.

In intarsia work, small circles — like eyes or decorative accents — are handled cleanly. Place a number without a grain direction arrow for pieces too small for grain orientation to matter. RipSaw keeps your pattern readable.

Line Tool for Fretwork

Sometimes you don’t need a closed shape — you need a cut line. The Line tool lets you draw strokes and set the thickness. Perfect for scroll saw fretwork, decorative cuts, or any pattern where you’re cutting along a path rather than removing a full piece.

Every click creates a node. Edit those nodes afterward — adjust curves, reposition points, fine-tune your line until it’s exactly where you want it. Fretwork scrollers work here a lot.

Island Detection and Seam Detection — Before You Cut

Nothing worse than cutting a near-perfect scroll saw pattern and watching a piece fall through because it wasn’t connected to anything.

RipSaw spots floating islands automatically. You’ll see them highlighted on your canvas — a clear warning before you ever touch the saw. The highlighting stays visible even after you add bridges, a quiet reminder to check your work before export.

For intarsia projects, this same detection engine works differently but just as critically. When pieces overlap — even slightly — RipSaw highlights the conflict so you can see exactly where seams don’t sit cleanly together. Move or snap the pieces apart until they meet precisely at the seam. No gaps. No overlaps. Pieces that are designed to fit together actually will.

This is one of the features general design software simply can’t replicate. Whether you’re cutting a scroll saw pattern or laying out an intarsia puzzle, knowing how your pieces relate to each other before you cut is the difference between wasted wood and a finished piece.

Bridges You Control

Some tools try to place bridges for you. RipSaw doesn’t. Bridge placement is a craft decision — where you put them affects the finished look of your scroll saw pattern.

RipSaw colors your islands so you know where bridges are needed. You decide where to put them. Draw, move, delete. Your bridges, your call.

Bridge placement tips:

• Bridges must be structurally sound enough to hold the finished piece together
• Keep bridge widths as uniform as possible for a clean, harmonious look — geometric patterns may vary intentionally
• Thicker wood needs wider bridges; thinner material can use more delicate connections
• Bridges that are too thin may break during cutting or handling
• For intricate fretwork or portrait work, consider replacing cut-out wood in large open areas before sanding — it protects fragile bridges during finishing

Entry Holes with Calculated Drill Size

Click inside any cutout to place an entry hole. RipSaw marks it and calculates the drill bit size you’ll need — based on your kerf. No math, no guessing. The PDF export shows exactly where to drill and what size bit to use.

Intarsia Pattern Maker — Wood Palette, Seam Detection, Grain Direction, and Piece Numbering

For intarsia projects, RipSaw adds a layer of tools built specifically for segmented woodworking.

The Wood Palette lets you assign a wood species to each piece of your design. Click a shape, then click a wood sample — Walnut, Maple, Cherry, Oak, Cedar, and more, fifteen species in total. Your canvas immediately shows which piece gets which wood, rendered with real grain texture swatches so you can plan color contrast and visual flow before you ever touch your scroll saw. Seeing your intarsia pattern in wood tones rather than flat colors changes how you design. You catch contrast problems early. You rethink a piece placement before it costs you anything.

Grain Direction Arrows are what set RipSaw apart for intarsia woodworking. Every piece of wood has grain — the natural lines that give it beauty and strength. Getting grain direction right makes a finished intarsia piece look intentional and professional; getting it wrong shows. Click inside any piece to place a grain arrow showing exactly which direction to orient the wood grain, then drag to rotate until it matches your vision. The arrow stays with that piece through every edit, export, and print. When you place a grain arrow, RipSaw automatically assigns a piece number — 1, 2, 3 — labeled right at the arrow tip. For small pieces where grain direction doesn’t matter, hold Shift to place just the number without an arrow. Your pattern stays clean and readable.

When you export your intarsia pattern to PDF, every grain arrow and piece number prints clearly. Each piece tells you: I’m piece 7, orient my grain this direction. No guessing. No wasted wood.

Live Preview

A clean preview panel shows your pattern exactly as it will print — no reference image, no editing handles, no grid. Just the shapes, bridges, and holes. For intarsia projects, it shows grain arrows and piece numbers overlaid on your design.

What you see is what you cut.

Export at Actual Size

When you’re done, export to PDF at 1:1 scale. Large scroll saw and intarsia patterns tile automatically across multiple pages with registration marks so you can align them perfectly when printing. The cover page shows your full pattern specs — board size, kerf, drill bit size, total pages.

For intarsia patterns, the PDF goes further. The cover page shows your total piece count, and the final pages break out every individual piece — each one printed separately so you can cut them out and use them as individual templates directly at the saw. No redrawing. No tracing individual shapes by hand. Each piece is ready to cut.

Print it. Tape it together. Attach it to your board. Cut. No resizing. No scaling guesswork. The pattern your saw follows is the pattern you designed.