MrsN

I almost always cut in a stack and always try to save the bottom piece. I like using a torch to burn off the fuzzies, then a quick wipe with sandpaper and most of the time they are good to go.

I have made things from bamboo cutting board. Sometimes you can find nice cutting boards in the clearance section of HomeGoods or TJMax and similar stores. The cutting boards that I have used cut really well, but left a very fine sawdust. similar to mdf, probably due to all the glue used. It also has a different smell. I cant remember what the smell was, but it was different.

I really like the look of the bigger backer board.

My middle schoolers use hot glue a lot. it is useful for holding two pieces together when nailing or screwing. A little bit of hot glue and the pieces are sort of stuck, then put the nails or screws in place and you are good to go! They do make wood glue hot glue sticks, I haven't played with them much, but they are supposed to have properties closer to wood glue and might be stronger. That is the down side to hot glue, it doesn't have the penetrating strength of some of the other glues.

you can greatly reduce the strings by not dragging the nozzle though the glue pile. you can wipe the nozzle on the wood, to sort of cut off the strings before going on to the next part. hmm... that sounds about as clear as mud, but if you can figure out what I mean it works.

some boards have lots of internal stress which makes them do weird things when they get cut. when ripping a board on a table saw it is important to have a spliter installed behind the blade, because the natural stress in the board can cause it to pinch back together and bind on the blade. I once cut a 1 inch piece off a board and ended up with a corkscrew. the moisture level in the board may have something to do with its stability as well.

I really want to make something like that. Thanks for sharing!!!

I recently needed some hardware(drawer pulls) for a project I am working on. I found a company that I would like to recommend to you. D Lawless Hardware www.DLawlesshardware.com I placed an order on Saturday evening and it arrived on Thursday, even with a mail holiday on Monday. That is pretty quick by my standards. (even beat amazon’s two-day shipping on something I ordered at the same time) The prices on knobs and pulls are really low, and the quality of the pieces that I received is great. If I had purchased the pieces locally I would have paid several dollars more per knob, and I ordered 35 pieces so it would add up quickly. They have a flat rate shipping on all orders under $50. At $10.75 it sounds a bit steep, but really it isn’t too bad. My order plus shipping was still well under what I would have paid locally or at another website I looked at. Plus they offer free shipping on all orders over $50 which for hardware is fairly easy to do My favorite thing about this company is that they offer a discount for woodshop teachers when buying for school projects. I have spent a ton of personal money on things for student projects over the years and any business that appreciates the things that happen in my shop is awesome. Katie

I would use a rattle can if at all possible. anything large and one color is a good candidate for spray paint in my book. Dan's advice is good. If I had to brush it, I would use a normal brush.

I have 2 dewalts in my school shop. Both have broken air hoses because high school kids got rough. I simply wrap electrical tape around to hold it to the post. It works pretty well as long as you are fairly careful with positioning the air hose, I end up re-taping it every couple of weeks. I sort of want to try heating up the plastic piece and then pressing it back on to the round post. something like boiling water that wouldn't melt the hose but make it slightly pliable. I haven't done it yet because I don't have a good way to get boiling water in the shop.

Steve Good's forum has an interesting post on the topic. http://stevedgood.com/community/index.php?topic=763.0

I made a belt holder for my step-son's Karate belts. I had a belt to use as a measurement, but the pieces the belts wrap around are 1.5" x 12"

Sounds like a road trip to North Carolina is in order.

I have planed plastic on my wood planer. I sort of forgot about it when I posted last time. I dont know what type of plastic I was planing, it was a project for my ex husband (thus the forgetting about it) the planner cut it really well, but the auto feed didn't always work because the plastic was really smooth once it was cut.

There was a sign someplace on the internet, something like "$10 per hour for the product, $15 per hour if you watch, $20 per hour if you help". I don't remember the numbers but the idea stuck. Do you know of any places in the area that offer classes that you could use as a benchmark? I have one near me http://www.americanworkshop.com Private lessons go for $36 an hour. classes $75-$200 depending on what is going on.

I would keep the machine cleaned out while cutting. with plastic you have the chance that it will melt back in a glob and bind up on the machine parts. Use a dust collector, vacuum or air hose to keep the chips moving.

I needed to catch up on liking these so I put them all in to a list. https://www.facebook.com/scrollsawvillage https://www.facebook.com/scrollsawgoodies http://www.facebook.com/pages/Claytons-Wood-Creations/218353834956019 https://www.facebook.com/DivineWoodenDesign https://www.facebook.com/pages/tinkers-covecom/213980035293730?ref=br_rs http://www.facebook.com/kurtsscrollsawcreations https://www.facebook.com/PetesWoodcrafting https://www.facebook.com/rustyscrollsaw.creation https://www.facebook.com/knwoodworking https://www.facebook.com/rjwoodworks https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rustys-scrollsaw-crafts/1395808827359948?ref=profile https://www.facebook.com/pages/wwwthescrollerandtolercom/45549614725 http://www.facebook.com/DanSnowandSonWoodenToys http://www.facebook.com/woodknotsbyjcr http://www.facebook.com/tindellfamilycrafts https://www.facebook.com/Leeswoodartistry https://www.facebook.com/smartmountaindesign https://www.facebook.com/wilsonswoodworkingbarn https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rob-houtwerk/484915911638502?ref_type=bookmark https://www.facebook.com/gatorsgifts409 https://www.facebook.com/scrollinsawdust

I met him last year when he came to my scrolling club for a presentation. It was an awesome day. He is a frequent contributor to the different magazines and ran "the art factory" http://theartfactory.com/Index.asp He also was working on a veteran project, but I can't remember the details. He had a great heart and a wonderful smile (although it was partially hidden by the "santa" beard)

a glue roller will help speed the process of spreading that much glue. if you smoosh and wiggle each piece tight to the one before it you will get a pretty secure bond pretty quickly. I do cutting boards with my kids at school, 10-20 rows total. Their instructions are to flip all of the pieces so the gluing edges are up then spread a layer of glue over the whole thing. Be careful not to get too thin, more is better, but not too much either. (like Goldilocks...just right) then flip each piece and smoosh and wiggle them tight as you go. then use pipe clamps to clamp it all together. Evenly space the clamps and alternate clamps on the top and bottom to even out the clamping pressure and keep the board flat. Parallel screw clamps are nice along the edges to keep all the pieces aligned so they keep the board flat. The smoosh and wiggle technique is the technical term for squeeze the extra air out of the joint so that you could probably pick up two pieces because of the surface tension and lack of air bubbles.

I created a couple of tutorials on how to squish text. one is for doing it in word2010 and the other is in open office. If you look at the pdf's you should be able to transfer the concepts to other document programs. squished text.pdf Squished Text2010.pdf

5,108 I find myself in good company with pattern hoarders.

I don't like the stain and poly blends. when it tries to be both they don't do either all that well. As an over all statement, I don't really like gel stain either. (It has some awesome applications, but staining scroll work isn't one of them in my mind.) MinWax in "early american" or "golden oak" is my most used stain. It gives a nice brown wood color to almost everything. I think that some of the darker stains look fake and funky on many woods (especially baltic birch ply which is most of my projects) There are several stains that give a funky red/orange color that looks un-natural. A lot of the time I just lacquer or poly a project and call it done, or oil then lacquer. It really depends on the project as to what type of finish I use. My most used top coat is RustOleum 2x clear. It really does seam to go twice as far, and is cheaper then some of the other options. it works over all sorts of stuff; oil, paint, glitter, stain.

my site is www.facebook.com/knwoodworking

I sign the front of fretwork with pencil, and the back with a sharpie. I also sign the back of a frame with a sharpie if I frame the piece. Most other things are signed with a sharpie or pencil in an out of the way spot. I haven't figured out a good way to sign jewelry, so that just leaves my shop attached to a business card.

I sell unframed pieces from $30-$75 depending on the complexity of the cut and whether it is a custom photo type project. That being said, I prefer to have pieces framed. I think framed pieces show better then unframed pieces, plus I am always afraid that the unframed pieces are going to break. I buy frames a size larger then the cutting and mat the pieces. I buy frames on sale from michaels, not the cheapest frames but on sale I usually get them for $15 or less. I find that displaying my work this way really kicks it in to "Art". Framed pieces I sell for around $150.