Bill - I've also thought about using my small benchtop bandsaw for cutting the lumber, but the problem I forsee is the blade thickness. Bandsaw blades are much thicker than scroll saw blades and would waste more material. But I'll certainly give it a try and see if the results are at least comparable to what I got with the scroll saw.
But scale lumber isn't that expensive.
Maybe I haven't looked around as much and haven't found the cheap stuff yet. The stuff I have bought I felt was
very expensive. Most of it is $2.00 for 10-12 sticks, 12" long. At those prices, it would be a very expensive trestle.
On the other hand, the non-scale basswood strips from places like Midwest Lumber are reasonable at the same shop I get the expensive "to-scale" strips. Most of it is around .21-.23 for a 24" srtrip. Also, if I wanted to buy a minimum of $150 of the stuff, I can get it direct, at wholesale prices of about .09 a strip. The problem being is that I don't know if I'd ever use that much. Another problem with buying non-scale wood is that the smallest size is usually 1/16" x 1/16".
I would love to find basswood sheets of 1/64" thickness, or smaller.