Travis

Mike was the first one I ever bought blades from, so my only other experience is limited to Craftsman and generic blades from the bigbox store. The stuff you buy at the bigbox store are usually garbage. I think you'll find most scrollers are very brand loyal when it comes to their blades. Once they find something that works, they stick to it. But as long as you stick to some quality blades, you'll do well, no matter which brand. The big three brands that stick out in my mind are Flying Dutchman, Olson, and Pegas. I would love to try the other brands just out of curiosity.

Boy, those turned out really nice. I really like the "Jesus Loves You." That made me laugh. Nicely done!

That turned out really sharp. You did a great job on it. The look on your mom's face is perfect, too. Nicely done!

Those turned out great. I really like the bookmarks. How do you color them? Color pencil? How thick is the wood? Nicely done

I wouldn't let that stop you from adding your puzzles for the price you think is correct. I think a lot of people assume you have to compete on price. It becomes a vicious cycle. Before long, nobody's making money. I bet that if you list your puzzles for the price you think is fair, your compeditors will see that and raise their prices too. I'd put some time into each one of your listings. Use all 5 picutres they give you per listing. In your case, I'd have a pic of the front, pic of the back, pics of any "whimsies", pic of it disassembled, and a pic of it in the box/packaging. Be very descriptive and include all of the important keywords. There are entire professions devoted to keyword optimization. Carefully choose your words in the description to use all of the keywords a person might use to search for your product. One thing to remember is that the product title weighs heavier than the description. So choose your title wisely too. "Hand Cut Dragon Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle (204 pc)" is a better title than "Dragon Puzzle" because people could be searching for puzzle, jigsaw puzzle, wood puzzle, dragon, dragon puzzle, etc. Don't forget to tags. These are keywords too that put you into categories. Put as many as you can think of. They have some options to put you in the showcase for a fee. Unless you're already selling a fair amount of product, I wouldn't do this at all. You're just throwing money away. I'd put up several of your puzzles. If you have a bunch, it looks like you're more legit and instills confidence. It only costs 20 cents to list and it lasts for 4 months. If after that time you're not satisfied with your results, you'll be out only a few dollars. Not a bad investment to find out if it will increase your sales or not.

And the winner is...joscrolls with her t-shirt "If I'm not at my saw..." Congratulations! She'll be the envy of all his friends and neighbors with a stylish SSV T-Shirt! I'll be getting the design ready for a t-shirt and let y'all know when it's available (I'd imagine it'll be later this week). That was a lot of fun. We had a lot of very creative entries. Thank all of you who submitted designs and those who participated in the voting. We'll have to do that again.

Welcome to the Village, Kieth. We're glad you found us. Yup, there's certainly enough patterns to keep you busy for quite some time. There are a lot of great designers here who are kind enough to share their patterns. Its hard to decide what to cut next! I've heard that finding exotic woods in the UK are a bit tricky. I'm currently working on a UK version of Wood Deals Online. I'm hoping to launch that in a week or two. So keep an eye out for that. If you know of any good UK suppliers, I would love to know. We get a lot of folks looking for good resources. Anyway, welcome aboard. Jump in and have some fun!

I would like to put together a monster list of material suppliers. People/companies who offer hardwoods, plywoods, corian, plastics metals, etc. This is only for material suppliers. The only two I can think of is Sloans and Wood Deals Online (of course). I know there are a ton of them out there. So list the ones you can think of here, and we'll update the Wiki. If you have some scroll saw magazines laying around, flip through them and list the ones you find. Thanks for the help, y'all.

I have a storefront with all the intentions in the world of actually putting something in there. But I haven't yet. I know a lot of scrollers has had pretty good luck with it. Christmas ornaments and toys seem to work pretty well. I bet your puzzles would do well too. It only costs a few cents per listing to find out if it works or not. I usually suggest Etsy for anybody who's looking to sell their work online. Its about as easy of online selling as you can get. I say go for it.

The pattern was cut exactly as is. It was a bit hairy on certain parts, especially the paper (there's only two bridges on one end, so it was very fragile). I like to use packing tape to tape over the previous cut holes. Since it was stack cut, I didn't put the pieces back except for a few large areas (in the wing area mostly). The packing tape adds support. It is very delicate in parts, but that's what impresses your friends. I don't think I would have the skill to cut it 8x10", but 11x14" worked really nice. I used a #3 spiral for those interested.

Thanks. That was just a fine tipped sharpie I used after I clear coated it. Works pretty well, assuming you have it clear coated first. Otherwise it just bleeds into the wood.

Here's a great design by Sue Walker (aka Shadylady0447). I cut this a few weeks back, but haven't had the opportunity to photograph it yet. It was a lot of fun to cut. 11x14" on 1/8" BB ply with felt backer. I stack cut 3 (2 BB ply and 1 oak ply). I gave one to a friend, one for myself, and probably one for my sister. Very cool Halloween decoration. Reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven." Sue's Pattern:

I use the spray can too. The professional sprayer would be too much work IMO (just the cleanup alone makes me cringe). I use an acrylic spray in a can. I like acrylic because the fumes won't choke you too bad and I know that it will never react with any materials. I use whatever I find that's cheap. Krylon works well, Deft, or whatever knockoff brand I can find. One thing to make sure is that there's not much dust blowing about. I don't get too carried away with making a clean environment. I'll even spray outside if the wind isn't blowing too hard. If you have an air compressor, you can blow off any dust that may be on your project. Or you can use the canned air they use for computers. Anyway, make sure the nozzle is clean on your spraycan. You can test spray and check to make sure it's not sputtering. If it comes out in a nice fine mist, I think you're OK. As far as spraying your picture. I wouldn't buff/sand the first layer. That thin layer is only to seal in the ink. There isn't enough film to handle any sandpaper or steel wool and you'd ruin your picture. Your next layer can be thicker. This layer can be sanded/buffed lightly if you choose. Basically you're only there to knock off the dust nibs and high points. I wouldn't strive for a glass finish. Then I'd spray another coat after the sanding/buffing. Quite honestly, a little texture to the puzzle surface is kinda nice. It feels good in the fingers and when putting the puzzle together.

I don't usually sand between coats. But if I was, maybe a quick once-over with some fine steel wool. You could also use a paper bag or some burlap. I'm guessing 1500 sandpaper would be OK too since its so smooth. I wouldn't get too carried away with it though. You don't want to hurt the image.

Hi Tom. Welcome to the Village. I'm glad you found us. We'd love to see some of your work. You can set up a User Gallery (you can find a [tut]tutorial here[/tut]) and show off a little. We love seeing other people's work. Its very inspiring. I'm glad to hear you're apart of a scrolling club. I think it would be a lot of fun to meet scrollers face to face and share ideas. We actually have a wiki page on your group. You can find it here. We don't have a lot of information yet, so if you know anything we can add, we'd greatly appreciate it. You can either edit the wiki yourself, or post it in this thread and I'll update the page for you. I don't mean to put you to work so quickly...LOL. I was just excited to hear about a Tri-County Scrollers member. Anyway, we're glad to have you on board. Jump in and have some fun!

Uggg....that's harsh. It would make me cry a little if I lost all of my patterns. It takes a long time to build up that collection. Well, we're glad you found us. I think you'll have a good time here. Lots of great patterns here to build up your collection. Plus, lots of friendly and talented folks to chat with. I think you'll fit right in! Welcome to the Village. Jump on in and have some fun!

Wow. You did an amazing job on it. That is certainly something to be proud of. Nicely done!

Hi Jeff. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. Sounds like you're making the most of your retirement. I love to travel too. Looks like you have a lot of great destinations planned. I live in central MT, so it sounds like you'll be in my neck of the woods soon enough. I haven't been to Glacier in years. Very pretty, though. You should consider Yellowstone too, since you'll be around Glacier and Idaho. I really like Yellowstone. Anyway, welcome aboard. I look forward to seeing some of your work. You can set up a User Gallery (you can find a [tut]tutorial here[/tut] to show off a bit. We love to see other's work. Jump on in and have some fun!

Time is running out on our voting. The polls will be closing on Monday morning, so cast your vote for your favorite t-shirt design now. Your vote may decide this years hottest new style.

I don't use spirals a whole lot. I only use them when I'm doing portraits that has a lot of curvy lines. I never use them for solid woods, and certainly nothing larger than 1/2" (stacked). I usually use the #3 flat ended spiral when I do use them. I don't stack cut too much, but when I do I usually do 3 sheets of 1/8" Baltic Birch. I don't really time out how long a blade lasts since I cut a few holes here and a few there over a weekend. My projects don't tend to be complicated with a lot of piercing cuts, but I usually use only 1 or 2 blades per project. One thing I'll throw out there for consideration, though. The thinner the blade, the quicker it will dull. With that said, your 2/0 should last a lot longer than 2 minutes. I found that spiral blades require a lot tighter tension than straight blades. I've never noticed a "blind spot" on the spirals, but I'll have to keep an eye out for it. But like I said, I don't use spirals that much to be an expert. Maybe 30% of the time I use spiral, 70% for flat. I look forward to hearing what Mike has to say.

I don't think inkjet will cause too many problems. You'll definitely have to seal it after mounting to the board, though. I would stay away from excess moisture when mounting and sealing too. I would steer away from decoupage paste (Mod Podge) and PVA glue. I'm guessing the water in the glues will make the ink run a bit. So use spray adhesive to mount and spray acrylic to seal instead. Maybe your first coat of sealer should be a very think just to stick the ink together. Then the following coats can be thicker. I use a heavy cardstock (110lbs) I got from the big office supply store. I use it to make games & accessories (I'm a board game geek). I bought it awhile ago, but I think it was pretty cheap. It prints pretty well and is nice and heavy. This is the first time I'm using it with puzzles, but so far it seems to work nice. I think photo paper for the inkjet tends to seal in the colors much better, though. You'll also get better color representation if you're working with photos. It tends to be more expensive, but if you're doing photo puzzles, I think that might be the way to go. Simple graphics or pictures where exact color isn't necessary, the cardstock works good enough. This is purely academic. I don't have any real experience with using inkjet printouts for puzzles. If you try it out, I'd love to hear how it works out for you.

So I decided I'd try my hand at a tray puzzle for my son. I was looking around for images to use and found a great resource for puzzle makers. When looking for images, look for computer wallpaper. Often these images are fairly large with decent resolution. They also have a really cool design with a collage of images. A lot of licensed products have their own wallpaper for their fans/customers. Things like movies, popular video games, books, cartoons, celebrities, cars, motorcycles, etc. Granted you won't be able to sell these puzzles because of copyright issues, but you can certainly print them out for yourself and make a puzzle. I found a really nice one of Thomas the Tank Engine. I'm going to do one of Transformers too. I just printed them on heavy paper/cardstock (I have a laser printer at work...shhhh). Then after mounting to the wood, I give it a couple coats of clear coat to seal in the picture. I'll take some WIP pics of the tray puzzle and post them soon, but I figured you puzzle makers out there might find this useful.

Scroll Saw Woodworking & Crafts (formly known as Scroll Saw Workshop) is my favorite. But I also get Creative Woodworking & Crafts magazine, which is monthly. They're a scroll saw magazine too with a lot of cool projects. You should definitely be subscribing to both. Awesome magazines. Every once in awhile, Wood Magazine features scrolling projects. Mostly during the holiday season, though. If anybody knows of any others, I'd be happy to add them to the wiki.

I think a birch or maple would be nice for the heart with a cherry or mahogany backer would look nice. Put some oil on the wood before sealing them to make the grain pop out. Birds eye maple plywood would be really cool too if you can find it (and assuming they make such a thing). I wouldn't get too carried away with grain patterns, though. I have a feeling that the detail will be lost in the busy grains. Sloans is a great place. I've been happy my purchases there. You can also check Wood Deals Online in the scroll sawing section. I didn't see much today other than baltic birch. But maybe check them when you're ready to buy to see if anything becomes available.

I need to make one of those myself. I ended up buying some miter slides from Rockler just for that purpose. They're really nice and won't warp. Terribly expensive though. I bought one thinking they came in pairs, but they don't. So I had to buy a second. 2 for $20 is pretty reasonable IMO. 2 for $40 is crazy expensive. They better last me a lifetime. What materials did you use for the sled? Is it just regular construction grade lumber?