shadylady0447

I like the way you torched the ducks! Really makes them stand out. Nicely done!

Hi Dennis and welcome to the village! Travis has a cool little tutorial that will explain how to post pictures here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=20 We'd love to see your pictures. If you have any problems just holler and someone will be around to help you.

Wow! We have some really nice entries for the contest! Thanks Mike for providing the generous contest prize. Of course, Travis announced the contest the day after I finished the Bobcat WIP! LOL That is a gift for my daughter and her other half! But thats OK....I made this jaguar for my husband! No WIP as it is almost the same as the bobcat! This one has 180 pieces...is made of poplar...overall size is 15 1/2 w x 16 1/2 h.....pattern by Neal Moore....frame by me! My husband thinks it is for our son! LOL

Wow, greasemonkey, that sure looks a lot nicer than the plastic ones ours are in! LOL You did a beautiful job on the case. My husband is in the process of transferring all of our vinyl LP's to cd's. I can't even tell you how many we have. Lots of them are from the 60's. This summer, my older brother brought us all of thiers...the box weighed about 80 pounds! He's 9 years older than me so there is music from the 50's. His wife had every LP from every Elvis Presley movie. I don't think we'll live long enough to put these all on cd's! I have about 7,000 songs in my computer thanks to my son....all types of music......even some rap! LOL No, Marshall, I don't listen to it and I don't know why its in there! Always a pleasure to see your finished pieces. Thanks for showing us.

Excellent cutting, Bubba! I would also use a wood glue just as Kepy suggested.

Jo, make sure the "print to file" box is not checked.

Congrats to your daughter, Chris!

It looks great! Thanks for showing us.

Mike, that is so sweet! She will love it! Nice work!

There are only three places on the bobcat that will be touching the backing board. I decided that I wanted to be able to glue to a larger area so I made a shim to attach to the back. I think this will be more secure. I have cut and sanded the poplar board I am using for my frame. I have a small dremel router table and used a small round over bit on the edges of the boards. I’m using a band clamp to hold it in place while the glue dries. I used corner clamps on my last frame but I think this one is easier to use. The next step was to stain the backing board and the frame. Then glue them together. Now I can measure and place the cat on the backing board and glue him down. These last steps take the longest and I get impatient waiting for the stain and glue to dry! I let the glue dry for 24 hours and sprayed him with three coats of Deft Satin Spray finish. I think the bobcat looks pretty good! For those of you that followed my work in progress, thanks and I hope you enjoyed it!

We live way out in the country so we don't get trick or treaters! No kids at home either! All of you with little ones, please be safe and have a great Halloween!

You did a great job on both, Ron! I like the shelf but the bass is very nice looking, too! Thanks for showing us.

Success!!! The cat has the rest of his head and I managed to glue all the little pieces in their proper places! I thought you would like to see a couple of pictures from the sides so you could get an idea of the different elevations in the piece. You can see in the second picture why I was having such a time with the left side. There is not much room for error. This is the back of the piece. Not very pretty but it gives you an idea how its put together. I didn’t follow the elevation guide when I added the small pieces. I used my own judgment on the placement and I am pleased with the way they turned out. Now I have to build the cat a frame. See you in a couple of days.

Darn it, Travis, I don't have an IPod! I love audio books. I mostly listened to them in the car while I was still working. They are pretty expensive to buy so getting them through the library is a great idea. I didn't know you could download them. Now I have another thing to put on my wish list!

A very touching story. Thanks for sharing it with us.

I don't listen to music while I'm cutting. I love all kinds of music but I have to move with it.....not good for sawing! I was a teenager in the early 60's so rock'n roll is always a favorite....the louder the better. Love the big band sound, blues and jazz. I was born too late...I like stuff like Jumpin' Jack Flash and Minnie the Moocher! Don't care too much for the acid rock....AC/DC - Back in Black makes me drive way too fast! LOL My kids loved it...turned a boring 4 hour trip to Gramma and Grampa's house into 3 1/2 or less! So when I'm at the saw I prefer my own thoughts!

Those turned out real nice, Frieke! Thanks for showing us.

I made a lot of progress on Saturday but it was also a frustrating day! I discovered a couple more mistakes in both the stain and elevation charts. So you can better understand my frustration, I have included pictures of the charts. I was having a lot of trouble with the left side of the cat’s face. Following the elevation chart, I carefully assembled the left side but it just did not look right. I took it apart and put it back together three times before I was finally satisfied with the results. Yes, I am my own worst enemy! To make sure I was headed in the right direction, after deviating from the elevation chart, I fitted the pieces together to get an idea of how he would look. It is very important to get the eyes correct when doing a project like this. Once again, I felt the elevation chart was wrong. As you can see from the following picture, the eye on the right is set at the level called for on the chart. I thought it was way to deep so I set the eye on the left higher and decided it looked more realistic. After making the decision to change the eyeball elevation I finally got a lot accomplished for the day! Saturday was so frustrating that I just had to take a break from the cat on Sunday! So to relax I made a few patterns! Today I will hopefully add the top of his head and try to figure out where the rest of these little pieces are supposed to go!

Very nice work. He looks like a lovable guy! Your matting and framing always make your portraits stand out.

Frieke, you did a terrific job on both the pattern and the cutting. You have a very cute daughter, too!

You did an excellent job on it. I really like the way it is framed and mounted! Very nice!

LOL, Kevin!! You need a backup saw! Check out Craig's List in your area. Here's a link for you! http://miami.craigslist.org/search/tls? ... maxAsk=max The bobcat may put me in the nut house for sure! But thanks for the nice comments on my work, I appreciate them.

Thanks, Christina. I'm glad I could salvage my work and thought it would be helpful to show my booboo! LOL I could have trashed it and just re-cut those portions. I'm sure you've used a hot glue gun and know that when its dry it is like rubber so it just peeled right off.....lucky me! Marshall, all of the patterns in the book have a staining picture and an elevation picture which are in color and each color corresponds to either the stain color or the elevation of the piece. The pictures are about 3 x 3 inches and the colors they used don't have enough contrast between them. Even after scanning the pictures and enlarging them I am still having trouble distinquishing the difference between some of the colors they used. I think a better way to do the charts would have been with numbers. It would be hard to mistake a 3 for an 8 unless the printing was smeared! I will be sending a letter to Fox Chapel about the problems I've had with this book. Maybe the designer can change some stuff before they reprint it.

Marshall, that is going to look great sitting on your son's desk! Very nice work!

Thanks for the short video, Travis. I'm interested in watching the whole thing. I'll have to find a copy. I had and aunt and uncle who went to Alaska right after WWII and filed a claim under the Homestead Act. They were not in an area as remote as the one in the video but it must have seemed that way back in the late 40's.