Travis

I've seen some people use those folding closet doors that have the slats. A bit pricey, I'd imagine. But I thought that was rather clever.

Most computer security systems will ask if you trust an application. All you have to do is say yes and it adds it to the "safe list." Since every computer system is different, I'm afraid I won't be able to troubleshoot that for you. As far as not having to sign up, that is correct. Once the app has loaded, all you have to do is type in the name you want to be known as and you'll be logged in under that name. If someone else has that name already registered, it will ask for a password. If not, you'll be able to use that name for that session or until someone else registers it. Hopefully you'll get your blocker figured out. We'd love to have you.

Spare time? What's that?

I'm happy to announce the newest feature to Scroll Saw Village. You asked for it, and here it is. A live scroll saw chat room! You can find the chat room here or by selecting "Chat" in the navigation bar above. You can discuss your latest projects, exchange tips, get live help, or share your day's adventures! Be sure to tell your scrolling friends about it. A live chat room isn't much fun without others joining in the fun! Right now, we're going to schedule Thursdays 7pm MST as the official chat time each week. I'm hoping that if we have a specific time, more folks would be inclined to participate. This will be an open chat where we can gather to discuss whatever is on your mind. Once a month, we'll have something a bit more structured. Sometimes we'll have special guests, other times we'll pick a topic to discuss. This will usually go for an hour or so, then the rooms will be opened back up for an open chat. And lastly, the chat room will remain open 24/7 for any other chats. It will be hit-or-miss, as folks tend to pop in and out throughout the day. Sometimes folks will be chatting, other times it will be empty. The open 24/7 is an experiment for now. If we find that nobody uses it, it detracts from our scheduled chats, or if spammers take advantage of it, we may have find alternatives. Finally, some technical notes. The chat room is not tied with your forum account. You don't need to register to participate in the chat room, but if you want to reserve your username, it would be a good idea to register your name. You can do so on the chat page. It's not complicated, but you do have to jump through a couple hoops. Be sure to read ALL of the instructions, and the entire email that is sent to your inbox. Let me know if you run into any problems and I'd be glad to help. I'll be putting together complete instructions in the near future. Jump in and have some fun!

Hi Donald. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. That's really cool that you heard about our humble little community at a woodworking show. There are lots of friendly and talented folks here. I think you'll fit right in. 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 very inspiring to see other's work. Anyway, there's lots to look at. Jump on in and have some fun!

If you need it smaller than 72pt font, you can try using Inkscape. First type in the name at 72pt. Then go to Path>Object To Path. This will remove the "font properties" and turn it into an object. Then you can resize it to any size you wish. To thicken or thin the lines, you can adjust the stroke width by double-clicking the stroke color box (lower left corner of the screen). Click the Stroke Style tab and choose the width of the stroke. I don't have the font, but it should work.

If you'd like to set up a user Gallery, [tut]you can check out this tutorial.[/tut] This should get you going.

Unfortunately, we're not able to distribute patterns (or fonts) that someone else owns. You could try contacting him and see if you can get it directly from him. If not, you can check out the Fall 2005 issue of Scroll Saw Workshop (now called Scroll Saw Woodworking & Crafts). They have the alphabet pattern in that issue so you can make your own. I hope this helps.

Hi Nicholas. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. Sometimes it's a bit tricky to find scrollers in our neck of the woods. Most people don't even know what a scroll saw is, let alone what it can do. Even less that realize there's a hobby that revolves around this simple tool. The great thing about the internet, you can find other likeminded folks who share your same passion from all over the world! We have active members from the US, England, Ireland, Belgium, Australia, Argentina, France, and more. Its so much fun meeting fellow scrollers. I think you'll have a great time here. Anyway, welcome aboard. Jump on in and have some fun!

For portraits on plywood, I just do 2 or 3 coats of spray acrylic. I like to hit it with some steel wool after the first coat to knock down any nibs (dust particles). Then I don't bother doing anything for coats 2 or 3. I really like the look and it works well for me. For other projects, sometimes I'll dip it in lemon oil. Just the stuff you buy at the grocery store to shine up your livingroom furniture. I use lemon oil because I can do it inside the house and the fumes won't bother anybody (which keeps me out of the dog house). It does a nice job on bringing out the grain, much like any other oil. Another reason I like lemon oil is the safety. Its non-toxic, and you don't have to worry about spontaneous combustion like you do with tung or boiled linseed oil. Then if I want a protective coat, I'll spray it with an acrylic spray. Anyway, that works pretty well for me. Everybody seems to have their own preference. Give 'em all a try and see what you like.

That turned out really cool! You did a really nice job on it. Thanks for sharing!

So I stayed up pretty late last night recovering everything I could from the Wiki. I think I was able to recover most of the information using Google's cached versions of the wiki. Unfortunately, some pages were not cached, so those were lost. If you created a page or added info to an existing page, check to see if its there. If you can remember what you did, please resubmit it. Many of the updates on the Commercial Pattern Vendor's page were lost. So if you sell patterns, check to see if you're there. If not, be sure to add yourself to the list. Most of the Clubs & Organizations remained intact. However, if you belong to a club, check to see if your club is listed and the club page is up to date. And lastly, we lost the Stack Cutting page. If anybody is feeling up to it, could someone recreate that? It was a great resource and I was sad to see it unrecovered. If anybody is willing to help out on the Wiki to bring it back to its former glory, please check it out and add pages, or info where you see fit. Thanks y'all!

Hi Paul. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. I've often heard that scrolling takes patience. I figure after 11 kids, you have the patience of a saint! Sounds like you have plenty of people to make stuff for. Scrolling really comes in handy for that. Anyway, we're glad to have you on board. Jump in and have some fun!

Hi Pat. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. Not many folks can say they have one of their cuttings hanging in a celebrity home! That's really cool. The best I can say is I have some celebrity portraits hanging in my home! Anyway, welcome aboard. Feel free to create a User Gallery (you can find a [tut]tutorial here[/tut]) and show off a little. We love seeing other's work. Jump on in and have some fun!

Well, it's been quite an adventure with some good news and bad news. I was able to upgrade the wiki to the latest version and I restored a backup of the database. Bad news is that the database is 5 months old. Which means we lost some material. I don't think it's a lot of stuff since only small handful of people contribute to the wiki. But we did lose some really good content none-the-less. OK....back to the good news. Google will often cache certain webpages. By searching their archives, I might be able to recover some of the lost content by copy&paste. I just recovered the Understanding Copyrights article, which I'm thrilled about. Its tedious work and I'll be spending the next couple days rebuilding the wiki as best I can. The moral of the story is: Back up often!

Well, last night, my webhost upgraded the mysql databases and we lost the wiki. I'm hoping to be able to recover the data, but the wiki software is insanely complicated. Since I'm not a computer or software engineer, this is no easy feat. Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out. Until then, the wiki has been removed from the navigation bar. Wish me luck.

Hi Whizbin. Welcome to the Village. We're glad you found us. There's lots of friendly and talented folks here. I think you'll fit right in! 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 find it rather inspiring to see what others come up with. Anyway, welcome aboard. Jump in and have some fun!

Spiral blades are fun. I use them all the time. They work especially well with portrait-style cuttings. But I'd encourage you to really learn how to cut with a straight blade. It's much easier to get long sweeping smooth cuts, straight lines, and sharp corners with a straight blade. And with certain projects, controlling the blade is easier. Here's one thing you can try if you're flexing the blade too much. Every once in awhile, let up the pressure on the workpiece to see if you're putting too much pressure on the blade. You're only there to guide the workpiece, let the blade do the cutting. I'll often release pressure on my project just to be sure I'm not stressing the blade. Flexing the blade can cause problems, especially on stack cutting, puzzles, and other items that require precise cuttings. Welcome to the hobby. You'll have a great time with it. You'll be amazed what you can do with such a simple tool. Stick with it. Just like anything else, it takes a few projects under your belt before you get the feel for it. When you do, there's no stopping you!

Here's a nice little article in the Wiki that should help. When I stack cut, I use blue painters tape around the entire stack and get it as tight as possible. Then I put a couple of finishing nails in the waste area in two spots. This keeps the wood from shifting while cutting. I usually don't like my stacks larger than .75" because if the blade flexes while you're cutting, the cuts will be different from the top to the bottom. Just take it slow and try not to put too much pressure on the blade and you'll be just fine.

The staff has been talking about the possibilities of adding a chat room. We're still working on the details. But for now, we're leaning to a scheduled chat once a week. If we do this, what day of the week would work the best? What time?

I'll throw this out for whoever wants to try it, but I think 3 sheets of 1/8" plywood laminated together would look really cool. It would really emphasize the plys, something most people would want to hide. But I think it would look really cool.

That's a great idea. If you're already on Facebook and have a nice network of old friends and acquaintances, you could easily get some sales. Its the modern version of bringing your cuttings to work and leaving a signup sheet in the lunch room to generate sales. I know I've had one of my friends contact me to do some custom work for her just because she saw a couple of pieces I bragged about in my feed.

Awesome resource. Thanks for sharing! I think any tight grained type of wood would work well. Open pore wood like Oak might not work so well as I'd imagine it would crack easy. I think Zebrawood would look awesome. I've never used it, so I'm not sure how fragile it is. Give it a shot and see what happens! Great thing about rings, they don't take that much wood to make.

That's a urban legend. The artwork has to be significantly different to the point of non-recognition. Otherwise it's considered derivative work and violates the original artist's rights. Disney and NFL logos fall under trademark laws, which are similar to copyright, but much more rigorous. While there isn't any copyright lawyers here (that I know of), we do have a really great article on copyrights you might want to check out. As a designer, it's best to be familiar with them in order to protect yourself from some nasty lawyers. We try very hard to protect our fellow artists here. That is the reason you're only allowed to post patterns you have personally designed from material you have the rights to. Not only is it respectful, but it also protects those involved and the community as a whole. The last thing I'd want is for this wonderful community to be shut down for something as silly as a free pattern.

Those turned out great! Is it for a fundraiser or to be given away? Either way, the recipients will love them. Nicely done!