Travis

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For blade breakage, I'm going to take a guess. Some spiral blades twist the entire blade. So the spots that get clamped in the holder also have a twist. When you tighten it up, sometimes it catches the edge of the blade instead of the side. This will kink the blade weaken the metal at that spot. You'll know that this is the case if the blade keeps breaking where the clamp screw is. I know I've had trouble with this in the past. The trick is to tighten slowly, making sure the blade twists so that you're clamping the side of the blade. Some people will use pliers to straighten out the end of the blade. Others will use a small hammer to straighten out the ends. You can also purchase flat ended spiral blades that will take out that frustration. You should be able to cut in all directions. However, there is more stress when going side to side. When a blade cuts, there is a slight forward/backward rocking motion. Putting side pressure adds another axis and additional stress. So if you cut side to side, just take your time and let the blade cut for you. You want to avoid flexing the blade side to side as much as you can. Here's a piece of advice I give new scrollers. I'd learn to cut with flat blades first, then do spirals. Flat blades will have more precise control. Plus it's easier to cut straight lines, long sweeping curves, and sharp corners. Once you're comfortable with flat blades, try spirals again. I only use spirals on portraits or projects that have a organic/wavy lines. If you start with spirals first, it's hard to go back and learn flat blades because you've been "spoiled" with the option in cutting all 4 directions. That's my 2 cents, for what it's worth. LOL

That looks great! I think you're well on your way. Welcome to the sickness...errr...hobby!

I used basically the same technique to create some Doctor Who wall sconces for my wife last year (we're big Whovians). The bottom part is from one of Steve's patterns, and the top part is the Tardis with 2 of the Doctor's silhouettes.

Mother's Day Sale! 50% off all Scroll Saw Patterns. Use coupon code: mom at checkout. Good through May 11th, 2016. http://www.scrollsawgoodies.com/shop/

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Well, beer explosions aside, I did finish the bottle openers! This was the design I was going for. This was after the CNC work. This is the final product after the painting, distressing, and hardware added. I really like how they turned out. My wife claimed the red Nuka Cola one and my buddy is going to pick his favorite. I'll probably try to sell the other ones. It was a fun project.

I've never tried it with a PDF. I know it works with a JPG. Can you save it as a JPG, then try it?

As mentioned, GIMP is what you'll want to use for portraits. You can find the tutorials here: http://www.scrollsawvillage.com/articles.html/_/pattern-making/gimp/ You'll have to convert it into a vector before you can change the colors. You can find that tutorial here: http://www.scrollsawvillage.com/articles.html/_/pattern-making/inkscape/prepare-a-pattern-for-printing-using-inkscape-r22

It sounds like you're clicking the install application and not the GIMP application. That's why it keeps asking asking you to install. Instead, look in your start menu and see if you can find GIMP and see if that works.

I based the portrait on the movie poster. Here is what he should look like:

My wife and I saw the Deadpool movie a few weeks back. We really enjoyed it, so I thought I'd make a Deadpool portrait. This was also the first project I did on my live stream. It was a lot of fun to cut out. Normally, I don't color my portraits. But this one cried out for some color. Since I stack cut a few of them, I decided to experiment with stain. I used an ebony stain and a red sienna stain from Minwax. The first one, I had trouble controlling the stain. It would bleed out into areas I didn't want. So, for the secone one, I used a woodburner to outline the areas of color I wanted to corral. That worked really well. The colors didn't bleed and I had much better control.

Here's the link: https://www.twitch.tv/bytravis/v/62749364

Ha! I fixed the link. It should work a bit better this time.

Science blew up in my face on my live stream yesterday. I'm making some bottle openers that are Fallout (video game) themed. I'm testing out the magnetic cap catcher when I had a slight beer malfunction. You can find the highlight is here: https://www.twitch.tv/bytravis/v/62749364 Fallout fun happens around 15s. I thought it was pretty funny. My shop and clothes smelled like beer, which made my wife question what I was really doing in my workshop all day.

I used to have a Cricut. It was a lot of fun. I used to use SirCutsALot program for making my own designs (along with Inkscape). Then Cricut sued them and shut down the 3rd party design support, which I assume is so they can sell more overpriced cartridges. Then I boxed it up and been sitting in the closet since. Every once in awhile, I think about buying a new cutter, as long as I can design my own stuff. I'm sure things have changed now where that is a possibility. Lot of fun. I'd like to do some vinyl cutting to add to my projects.

Howdy All. I'm online and streaming now! We should be able to finish up the Deadpool portrait in this session. You can watch live at: https://www.twitch.tv/bytravis If you're unable to catch the show, you can watch it later. Just go to the same link and the previous stream will be available. It just won't be live. When it's live, you can ask questions and chat a bit more, which is a lot of fun. Just a note, I won't be announcing my future streams in the forum. I'll probably only announce them in the shoutbox on the main forum page. I don't want to keep bumping old threads. If you want to keep up to date, follow me on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/ThingsByTravis/ I'm also on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/byTravis There I'll announce when I go live.

Correct, it would fall into public domain in 2141, regardless of the pattern was passed on to the estate. You can thank the fine folks at Disney for this law. You can imagine what would happen if a certain 6' rodent goes into public domain. However, things like our favorite mouse fall under trademark laws, which is even more complicated. I think there is a limbo land where the estate has to take an active role in renewing the copyright, though. I'm not sure how that works. HP Lovecraft's stories, for example, the estate actively renews the copyrights and polices the usage rights. Technically, yes. The pattern is the creation/art and the cutting is the derivative work. But it is understood that the creation of the pattern is for others to create the finished product. So the copyright holder licensed the end user with the right to reproduce their work in a certain way. Sometimes, you'll see restrictions the pattern such as "Only for personal use" or "Not to be used for lasers," etc. On SSV, the User Guidelines say that if you post a pattern to SSV, you are giving permission to SSV to distribute the pattern (IE, have it on our website) and SSV members are allowed to cut it. But the pattern designer may put on restrictions like "Personal Use Only" if they'd like. However, a person may not download the pattern and post it on other sites or sell the pattern itself. BTW, I think it's a good practice that if you intend to sell the cutting (craft show, Easy, your website, etc), you should contact the designer and ask if that's OK. Most of the time it is. Permission to sell the final cutting is implied, but it's nice to ask.

I'm not a lawyer, but here is my take on the matter. If you're looking for clarification for you own website or business, it would be a good idea to talk to a professional copyright lawyer. 1) The owner or designer still owns the copyright. It is not in public domain. 2) Yes, it’s still a copyright violation. Just because you’re not making money off of it, doesn’t mean it’s not in violation. 3) It would have to be a significant modification, otherwise it’s considered derivative work, which violates the original copyright. 4) Creator’s live plus 70 years. 5) Usually, the copyright remains with the original designer. They work out a deal with the publisher to publish their patterns in the magazine. 6) Yes. They often do. Sometimes the contract says they can’t make the pattern available for a certain amount of time (i.e., before publication). With that said, it's up to you on how much risk you're willing to accept in your own business dealings. Are you going to get into trouble making a sports team logo for your nephew? Probably not. If you were mass producing them and selling them at the game; someone's probably going to take issue with that. As for SSV's policy, we don't allow copyrighted material. Sometimes some things slip through, but I try to police it the best I can. But if someone does take issue with a copyright violation, the heat comes down on me. And while I love our SSV family, I don't want to go to court for them.

Hi Ron. I removed the pattern. We can't post patterns that came from magazines or books. I can see why it's a popular seller, though.

Thanks everyone who joined me today for some scroll saw fun! I'll be streaming again next Sunday at 1pm PST. Hope to see you there!

Howdy all. I'll be streaming live from my shop in about 10 minutes (1pm, PST until 3-4pm PST). I'm cutting a Deadpool portrait. More information is at the beginning of this post. You can find me live here: https://www.twitch.tv/bytravis

If I'm working with 1/8" ply, I try to stack cut them. I prefer cutting at 1/4" or thicker. It's easier to control the blade that way. If the board is too thin, it is hard to control.

I don't have Photoshop Elements, but I do have Photoshop. So a good way to do the margin outside of the script is to go to your layer effects. Select Outer Glow Change Blend Mode to Normal Change Opacity to 100% Change color to White Change Spread to 100% Change Size to whatever size you want your margin. You can do something similar with Stroke in the same menu, but it looks like you're already using that for the black outline.

I removed a couple comments. Let's keep the conversation friendly, folks! I think it's a cool design. The kids will love it. Nicely done.