Travis

Will your scroll saw take pinless blades? Most scrolling is done with with pinless blades. It is much easier to thread the blade through pilot holes this way. With veining and line cutting especially, you're pretty limited pinned blades. I've seen some people remove the top pin, thread it through the pilot hole, then re-insert the pin (or use a small nail). This is very time consuming and, depending on the brand of blade, it may not be possible. If you can use pinless blades, I strongly recommend that. You can find some quality blades from Mike's Workshop. I'd buy his sampler pack to get a feel for different types of blades. These are all pinless blades and will produce really great results for you and pretty cheap (compared to the stuff you find at the hardware store). Welcome to the hobby. You'll have a great time with it. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. There are a lot of friendly and knowledgeable folks here.

Hi Matt. Its good to see a fellow Montanan. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. There's lots of friendly and talented folks here. You'll have a great time. You can set up a User Gallery (you can find a [tut]tutorial here[/tut]) and post a few pix of your work. Its fun to see what others are working on. Anyway, welcome aboard. Jump in and have some fun!

Hi Creaky. Welcome to the Village. We're glad to have you. I'm not sure what a burr puzzles are. Are those the 3d puzzles that look like a jack (from the game jacks)? Anyway, 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 bit. Jump in and have some fun!

Hi Curt. Welcome to a Village. We're glad you found us. We'd love to see some of your portrait work. You can set up a User Gallery (you can find a [tut]tutorial here[/tut]) and show off a little. Its a lot of fun seeing other's work. Its rather inspiring. Anyway, welcome aboard. Jump in and have some fun!

Hi Louis. Welcome to the Village. We're 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. Its a lot of fun seeing what others are working on. Anyway, welcome aboard. Jump in and have some fun.

Hi Frank. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. We have several members in the UK/Europe. Be sure to stop by the scroll saw chat that grampa mentioned. Its a lot of fun to chat with fellow scrollers. 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. Its fun to see what others are working on. Anyway, welcome aboard. Jump in and have some fun!

That was a lot of fun. We had a pretty good turnout too. Its so much fun to talk shop with like-minded folks. I'm looking forward to next Thurs. And for our friends on the other side of the pond, we have a UK chat too at 2100 GMT every Thursday.

Got a full page for yourself! Nicely done. It would be hard to out-do that one. But if you go for the gold, please share some WIP pix with us.

That turned out really nice. I always underestimate the beauty of pine until I see projects like this. Nicely done!

That turned out great. I really like the red background. It really brings it to life. Nicely done!

I did a WIP tutorial on how I made a tray puzzle for my son. You can find that here. I use spray adhesive to mount my pic on 1/4" ply. Just check the back of the spray adhesive and it will have instructions for a permanent bond (each brand is different). Then I clear coat it with acrylic spray before I begin cutting to protect the picture. I freehand the puzzle using color lines. It makes it a very unique puzzle.

Hi Tod. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. We should be able to keep you in sawdust for quite awhile. There's so many great patterns to choose from. The Pinups section doesn't require a password. You just need to be logged in with your regular account. There are lots of really great designs there. Many from the WWII era. Anyway, welcome aboard. Jump in and have some fun!

Its wishful thinking, but I would love it if Santa brought me a mini-lathe. I also would like to try my hand at pen turning. I've also had my eye on the Kreg Master Pockethole Jig System, which seems to be a bit more in Santa's budget.

What kind of scrolling do you typically do? I know most of us dabble in a bit of everything, but we tend to gravitate back to a certain type of project. Do you do mostly portraits? Intarsia? Compound Cutting? Puzzles? Decorative items? I know I find myself making lots of simple cars for my son and to give away. I also do a lot of portrait style cuttings. H'bout you?

Well said, Chris. As of right now, we have 800 free scroll saw patterns that were kindly donated by SSV pattern makers. I think that's really cool. Because of the generosity of our pattern designers, we'll always have something to cut. The easiest (and best) way to show your appreciation for our pattern makers is to post a picture of your finished cutting. This is especially true for custom pattern requests. Pattern designers LOVE to see their patterns cut. This is what gives them the motivation to continue to bring you such wonderful designs. If you post a picture in your User Gallery, be sure to give credit to the pattern designer in the Pattern Designer field. I'd also like to take time to thank all of our pattern designers. Whether you post only one pattern or hundreds. Having such a diverse pattern library is wonderful. So many different artistic interpretations really keeps things interesting. You certainly keep raising the bar. I'd also like to thank those designers who fulfill custom requests in the Pattern Requests forum. That is such a cool feature of SSV. I think its awesome that you'll step up to help out a fellow scroller. That's what community is all about...one big scrolling family. Thanks to you all.

Anybody get their Secret Santa Gifts yet? If so, post some pictures. We'd love to see them. I must admit, I'm a little behind in mailing mine out. I'm hoping to pop them in the mail tomorrow.

Here are a couple tutorials on how to use Inkscape to resize your patterns: Prepare A Pattern For Printing Using Inkscape Printing Oversized Patterns This is how I always print mine. Others may have their own techniques for using patterns in the Pattern library.

I like that one. You did a great job on it. The grandkids will be delighted.

What kind of wood do you normally cut your freestanding puzzles from? Looks like oak from the pic, but I can't be sure.

That turned out great. I agree, the base worked out really well. Nicely done!

It looks like you do mostly free standing puzzles. Do you do much for traditional jigsaw or tray puzzles?

Hi William. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. There's lots of good information and patterns here. We'll keep you busy for quite some time. If you run into any questions, please let us know. Everybody is very helpful here. If you'd like to set up a User Gallery, you can find a [tut]tutorial here[/tut]. Jump in and have some fun!

I might have overreacted a tish. I usually able to keep things in perspective, but this one just got to me. Eh, its over and behind me now. But if anybody sees that pattern floating around, please let me know. That pattern should not be available since it is created from a copyrighted photo.

I emailed him and asked him to remove the cutting. It looks like he agreed as there is nothing more than a picture of Mr Bean from a movie poster. I wish he would have responded to my email, though. Someone basically took my cutting and lifted a pattern from it. The pattern was still my work and it was taken without permission. This is the reason I'm a bit irritated.

I was browsing LumberJocks this morning when I came across this project: http://lumberjocks.com/projects/24417 This was lifted from an original cutting I did in January 2009. I never distributed the pattern because it was based on a movie poster. I sent him an email asking him where he got the pattern and to remove it from Lumberjocks. Has anybody else seen this pattern floating around? If so, please let me know. This is not a legit pattern. I'm a little irritated (which is a huge understatement) that folks find the need to steal pattern from others. I feel like I'm extremely generous about sharing my patterns and pattern-making knowledge. I give away 99% of my patterns. If there's one or two that isn't available for various reasons, please let me keep it for myself and don't steal my work.