A Fancy Welcome Sign

[Wichman]

I'm starting another fancy welcome sign and thought I'd post the procedure  at least how I do it and why.

The start, most of the pilot holes drilled. Wood sanded to 220, shelf liner applied, pattern applied, pilot holes drill (most of them):

 

 

First couple of cuts. Started to make a mistake, I needed to cut the small holes inside the leaf before cutting the leaf itself, no support for cutting:

Another couple of holes cut. If you zoom in on the picture you'll see a red circle, that's where I backed the blade out of the cut and spun the blade around went backwards towards the sharp point, then sawed outward to maintain a sharp point.

I'm having issues with the new phone, thought I had more pictures but can't find them right now 

 

 

[Peter N White]

A lot of cutting but will be worth it.

[Scrappile]

Going to be well worth the effort!

[barb.j.enders]

Looking good.

[rjweb]

Waiting to see the finish, RJ

[Wichman]

Let me back up a moment. Here is one I finished before:

One issue I had with the first one is the letters were too bland so I had to stain them a bit darker than the rest of the pattern. I found that if I scored the wood very lightly with an Exacto knife, the stain would stop at the score line (light coat of stain) knowing this going in I have marked in red where I will be scoring the wood:

and I have selected and tested a stain for contrast to make the letters stand out:

[Wichman]

In this picture I am trying to show my method of cutting sharp inside angles .

I start on a side and cut down to the sharp angle (1). I then back out a bit and spin the blade 180, cutting to the waste area. Next I back the blade down the kerf to the bottom of the angle, then cut the other side of the angle (2). On this cutout I had to do this twice for the tight angles (3)

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Wichman

[Wichman]

This should be the last update for a while

These are closeups of the letter before and after the pattern (mask) is removed.

    oops 

[Wichman]

This pattern is from the Book Classic Fretwork Scroll Saw Patterns by Patrick Spielman & James Reidle. At this point the piece is 13 1/2" long. I used a #3 blade to cut around the pattern and make it easier to rotate past my belly  

In this picture, I've cut out all the small holes while I still have support. I only drilled the holes I want to cut at this point, so I can find them from the back

 

 

I had already drilled the pilot holes on this side before I realized, not to drill the holes until I wanted to cut them.

 

 

And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is 5 hrs of cutting:

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Wichman

[Wichman]

Six hours of cutting and I'm closing in on the interior cuts.

Once all the interior cuts are done, I'll laminate this to a 1/4" piece of Elm, Once the glue is cured, I can cut the outside and then finish.  

[Wichman]

Just under 7 hrs of cutting and all the interior cuts are done. Polyurethane glue applied and weighted down with three cinder blocks. Tomorrow morning I'll cut the outside, should take 30 to 40 minutes.

[Wichman]

About halfway through the outside cut.

[Wichman]

Outside all cut. 7 3/4 hrs of cutting total.

 

Masks removed, stain applied:

[Loskoppie]

Beautiful and lots of work.  It was worth the many hours.

[Wichman]

Every thing cut out, letters stained a contrasting color. I used the bead reamer in my dremel to gently sand away the stain where I did'nt want it ( one bridge on the vines and a little overflow on the outside of the "W". It's ready for the final coat of shellac. 

[Wichman]

And I'm calling it done. Three coats spray shellac. I'd normally use BLO then Shellac, but I was worried about the stain bleeding past the lines:

[Uhanalainen]

Excellent work and I agree with the choice to stain the text, the other one you posted earlier in the thread, the letters were really hard to make out due to the busy background.

[Hawk]

Very nice, your method for sharp corners are the same as mine. Where did you find the pattern?

Chris

[Wichman]

On 12/16/2023 at 2:31 AM, Wichman said:

This pattern is from the Book Classic Fretwork Scroll Saw Patterns by Patrick Spielman & James Reidle.