grandpuppies

very cool, nice work

I found that a cardboard box with an open side and a piece of foam taped to the back of the box can catch the pieces the mop insists of grabbing and trying to throw across the room when sanding the edges on the drill press. When I get the saw and drill press set up again, I'll take a picture or two so you can see what I mean.

Laguna bandsaw all the way!!!

Joe, Thank you so much!

I couldn't find the horse in Steve Good's pattern catalog. Could you point me to it? I have a niece that would totally love it. Thanks.

Just to clarify the flat boxes the puzzles are displayed in such a way that customers can handle the puzzles and feel the smoothness etc. they are only sealed when sold.

I display puzzles in flat boxes with fiber padding on the bottom and clear lids. I have stickers with business name and logo I use to seal edges of boxes when I sell them and am put them in bags for customers or otherwise giving them to customers.

Open cardboard boxes of different sizes and shapes will solve a multitude of problems. For instance, I have a sanding mop I run on my table top drill press. It would frequently grab the small piece I was sanding and throw it who knows where. I taped a cardboard box big enough to cover the back of the drill press and if a piece was grabbed it went directly into the box rather than across the shop never to be found again for months. I always would take the things I wanted to spray paint out side and put them in a cardboard box to paint them. No fumes, over spray didn't get on any thing I cared about and a new box when things got too muck up. Just a thought.

I have that saw. I love it.

Fox Chapel has a book Wooden Banks You Can Make by Harvey E. Helm with ready to use patterns and instructions for 32 banks available for I think $15.

Still says unavailable.

Congrats !!!!

Three books with good patterns, two currently available from Fox Chapel - one Colorful Toys by Dmitry Bogomazov for 7.99 (not strickly puzzles); Baby Animals by Judy and David Peterson (their patterns and puzzles are excellent look good and hang together extremely well); and Adorable Animal Family Puzzles in Wood by Jaeheon Yun available from Amazon for 12.99. The animal family puzzles would keep a child with a good imagination busy for hours with all kind os stories about the particular families' adventures. I'm not a sales person for these books just a puzzle maker who loves making puzzles of real and fantasy animals. As the kids grow older the books by the Pertersons can lend quite well to years of puzzles if you get hooked There is another book I would suggest for for kid's presents Wooden Banks you can make by Harvey Helm available from Fox Chapel for 14.95.

Painters tape, white glue, let it dry over night, no problems, easy removal. Occasionally if there is a real narrow space between cut areas it may want to lift but a small piece of scotch tape holds well. I always am at least a day ahead or more of what I want to cut. Sometimes when I am getting tired at the saw I'll stop and spend a while setting up my next cuts. I have finally learned to stop a project when I'm getting tired. I use to push it but I finally put it together that that was why I'd run into trouble.

I love sailboats and sailboat racing, but the foiling boats bear little resemblance to sailboats and are really not feasable for ordinary people. I like to race and did for many years in San Francisco bay. And when there was a womens team in the race for challenger it was really exciting. But the new generation of boats and equiptment has taken something away from the sport.

I make small one piece animals and take them to craft shows as "pocket pets" that sell for 50 to 75 cents. these seem to be very popular with grandparents usually they buy at least 2 or 3, one woman bought 10. I usually cut the 1 inch thick pieces in half and wind up with 2 animals. At one show a woman was having a dinner party and and bought 15 fo them and party favors for her family. It is an easy way to use the scraps and much to my suprise brought in a little money. It is also a way to warm up when I haven't been at my saw for a while.

Check with Danny at Artcrafter's I think he had some thing like that through his Etsy store.

Another thing to possibly give a little help is to increase the contrast of the pattern - for example black ink on yellow paper is a better contrast than black ink on white paper the light reflected off the white paper makes it harder for the eyes to deal with. Also anything to cut any glare from the lighting will help.

The Purple makes the cutting stand out more. The light blue is nice sort of like a skyish background.

I use a Dremel for smoothing edges or I have a sanding mop I use when the pieces are 3/4 thick. With the sanding mop, It's mounted on my cheap bench top drill press and a cardboard box is taped to hang over the back of the drill press to catch the pieces if they are snapped out of my hand. I just approach the mop slowly and keep at it until the feel is good and smooth. Most of the time the 120 grit is good for the sanding mop. Any time you are sanding something small with a sander that can grab it it is a good idea to use a cardboard box big enough to put your hands and the sanding tool to catch anything that attempts to get away.

I had used the Laguna 18" at work and when It came time to buy a saw I went with the Laguna 14" SUV. I've been very pleased with it. It was not cheap I agree, but It has proven to be a stellar saw. And it handles Bandsaw box glueups like a champ. I did not have room for a table saw and I find I'm able to do many of those cutting functions on my bandsaw also. Just take some thought and ingenuity and preplanning.

Really Cool. Where did you get the stand?

I have a Dewalt 788 type 1 available for sale I'd like $200 for it. I am located in Oakland, CA. e-mail address is elgray@ earthlink.net. Thank you.

I sell primarily in the fall (Oct. thru Dec). My prices include the tax amount. For my own ease I round up to the nearest dollar amount. I do include readily available price tags for items showing price and tax with total price tally. I don't want to deal with a lot of loose change. I accept cash and state I prefer it to the customer but I have Square for credit cards - this only works with cell phone reception or internet connection. I take my inventory - instant satisfaction can be important. But if there is real interest I will take special orders I do require a deposit on special orders and refuse any thing that gets too far out or too complicated I need to be able to sell the item if the original purchaser backs out. One think I find helpful to attract customers is a line of small inexpensive items to get them to stop and look. I make "Pocket pets" - small cutouts of animals that are one to two inches or so I sell for 50 cents - that I make from scrap cut-offs from larger puzzles (my main item) these attract a lot of parents and grandparents. I do make sure to caution them about kids putting them in their mouths, let them know that if the kids do, they are responsible for monitoring them. Couples seem to get a kick out of them for their partners as well.

I have a good size cardboard box taped top the top of the bench top drill press. It fits loosely down the back and part way around the around the sides and has managed to catch all the pieces the mop tries to throw across the room after the first one or two it missed. I find I have altered the way I present the pieces to the mop, so if it does grab a piece it is thrown into the box. It helps to offer a pray or two in appeasement to the missing piece gods. When the box gets messy it is easy to replace with a new one.