greasemonkeyredneck

I have a wood heater in my shop too. I always seem to be able to produce enough scrap wood through to keep my heater going. There is a back room on my shop. It does leak a little, so it isn't good for anything else. I put all my scrap wood through the year in there. By the time winter comes, we use any mildewed or dirty wood at the shop. The wood that is still clean goes to the house to use in the fireplace. I am lucky though. In Mississippi, we don't use heat but for about three to four months a year. Actully, my "wood room" has been filled for a while now. We've been burning bon-fires almost weekly in my outdoor fire pit for about three months now.

Yea, a lot of my projects, some don't see how I cut them on the scroll saw. Actually, the plans for some, like the train, say to cut the pieces with a jig saw or band saw. Those saws would probably get the job done quicker. I have found though that the scroll saw makes cleaner cuts and are easier to keep on the cut line. I did cut one of my motorcycles on my bandsaw one time. It required so much sanding that end the end none of the pieces matched up correctly. So, the whole thing wound up being fancy firewood and I started over on my scroll saw.

Here's photos of my latest Rocking Iron Horse. I finished it this morning. This one has taken me longer than normal. Trying to raise Christmas money. So, as I'm able, I'm building things that I know normally sells pretty good.

Several days in and so far so good. I'm currenty building another one of my trains. All my cutting is done one it and I only used two blades in three quarter cottonwood. I have found a little problem with it though. The bottom blade holder has to be set just so. It has to ride evenly in the bottom bracket. If it isn't set right then it will cock either fowards or backwards and the blade will last all of thirty seconds from the for or aft stress on it. It' going to take some practice getting it just right. Also, when the blade does break, the bottom clamp just falls to the floor. It's a good thing that where this saw is placed in my shop, it shouldn't get lost under nothing. I'd better start looking for a replacement though. It's only a matter of time before I lose it. I think this is probably the flying piece that qlty referred to.

I have several scroll saws. My Delta gets more of a workout than the others. My second favorite though is my old Craftsman direct drive. My only complaint with it is that is doesn't accept anything but pinned blades. I've always wated to be able to use what I call regular blades on it. So, I seen this Conversion Kit on ebay and decided to give it a try. I thought other may be interested in it. I've seen it sold in various places. This one was pretty cheap though with free shipping. It installed easily. Took all of five minutes to install it. Just testing it out went fine. I had some Olsen thick wood blades that I chucked into it first. It holds pretty good. I guess if I had to come up with a complaint about it, it'd be the bottom clamp. You attach the bottom clamp to the blade. Then you chuck the top of the blades. After that you hook the bottom clamp you installed before over the metal hook that's attached to your bottom arm. Also, it comes with an installation block to allign your blade in the bottom clamp. This didn't bother me too much. I understand that when you are changing the purpose of a saw, you have to make compromises. Oops. I stripped out the threads on the top clamp already. No worries, I've had this problem before. I have no feeling in my right hand. Because of this, I have a habit of overtightening things with it. After doing this, I drilled out the hole a tad larger and installed a machine screw and nut. I've found in the past that this setup usually lasts longer than the factory threads in small parts. All in all, I think this is a good kit for saws that only take pinned blades. After installing it, you can then use pinned or regular blades. It will make my saw a little more versatile. Actually, I'll probably seldom use pinned blades now that I can use regular blades on this saw. I'll still keep some around though. Everyone knows I like big projects. This is the saw that had the sideways slot for turning the blades sideways. That's a huge help when you have large pieces. I saved the original parts in a convenient place just for this purpose.

I haven't been able to do much. As you have commented before, I am sure you know of my health problems. Well, my back pain turns to back torture during bad weather. And bad weather we have plenty of lately. My shop time lately consists of me walking over there, piddle around for maybe a half hour, tops, before I'm hurting too bad. Then I sit down at my design table with a cup of coffee and some scrolling books and catch up on reading. By the time the pot starts running low, I'm starting to get a little depressed becuase of all the things I WANT to get done. Then I come back to the house, get online, and look at patterns and such. So, even with my pain level like it is, I'm still on scrolling material anyway. So, to go back to another post we had recently, I might be a scroller.

...there are more scrollsaws at your house than vehicles. ...you lie awake at night figuring out how to redesign projects so they can be cut on the scrollsaw instead of with other tools. ...if you've ever driven over a hundred miles just to have a look at a used scroll saw as a possible new addition to your shop. ...you think fine sawdust from your scrollsaw might be good for your complection. ...your wife has ever found scrollsaw cutouts in your dirty pants pockets. ...you move your hand to scrolling a portrait in your sleep. ................................you name your newborn Delta, Excaliber, etc. You get extra points for their name (first or middle) being olsen or flying dutchman.

My Dad and I had a great visit. While he was here, he wanted me to help him design and cut a gift for his buddy and fellow S.A.S.S. member. For anyone who has never heard of it, it stand for Single Action Shooting Society. Anyway, here is what we came up with. He seemed happy with the result. I wrote down his alias and number while he was here and I think I'm going to make Dad one for Christmas.

I finished my latest motorcycle. I made a few changes. The biggest change was that where I usually never use paint on kid's toys, I added silver paint to this one. I changed the rim design to four holes instead of eight for a little bit different look. I also used some different color stains on other parts too. I played around with the brightness of these photos in Windows. Let me know if that's any better than my other photos.

Thanks for all the great advice. I think I found my problem. The problem is that I'm not a photogragher. I'm so not a photographer that I don't think I'm even spelling it right. After reading all the advice though, I have been playing around with adjusting the photos in Windows though. As for the camera, it's a fairly new camera. I bought it to shoot video, which t does very well. After getting it though, my old digital camera died and I started using my video camera for regular photos too. I do shoot photos on auto, because to figure out all the manual settings on this thing requires reading a manual as thick as a lot of dictionaries. Then on top of that, after reading most of it, I need that dictionary to figure out the meaning of most of the words. So, I'll learn how to adjust them on my pc and try to do better in the future. Oh! The person who originally brought this problem to my attention in a provate message, you know who you are, thank you for bringing my attention to it.

I thought it was just me being nitpicky until I got a private message inquiring about my photos. I'm in a constant struggle trying to figure out how to get consistantly good quality photos of my work. Most times, my photos are terrible. I've tried different color backgrounds in the past. I've tried lighting variations from taking all photos outside to going and buying a 500 watt light to shine one the subject. I've even attempted to wait until after dark, turn off all the lights except the spotlight. I mean, i have went to multiple extremes to take good quality photographs. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Cottonwood actually. I'd never heard of cottonwood untill last year when I started getting this wood for free. It's reall nice wood. It cuts smooth and has nice grain patterns. My only complaint with it is that it is bad about tearouts on the planer. I was planning on staining these, but after getting them done, I liked them enough that I decided to leave them nude.

Until now, I've been selling my work on the internet and just through word of mouth advertising. Well, one of my sons went to work last week for a local furniture store. He assembles furniture and goes out on the delivery truck. I met with his boss lady. Now a majority of my work will be going straight to her store. She came by to look at my work and was thrilled with it. She is going to sell my work in her store at no cost to me. She is willing to do this because while she has furniture, she thinks my items will make good decorations on her walls and on some of the furniture. I can't tell for sure at the moment, but I think this may turn out to be a good thing for me in the long run. I've wanted for some time a public forum for displaying my work. For a lot of things, like portraits, since I've started stack cutting, I'll have copies of those items to keeps some at my shop while still sending items to her store. Also, I gotta say I'm proud of my son. All my kids aren't strangers to hard work. He doesn't have to work though. I don't make them work away from home while they're still in school. He wanted to work though. Maybe they're learning some work ethic after all. Now I just got to get his truck fixed so my wife won't have to carry him back and forth. The story behind the truck is that my brother's truck caught fire a while back. He bought a new one and gave my son the burned one. I've been working on it. I've got it cranked but still have some vaccum lines to run before it'll be road ready.

Here's my latest cuttings. Angel Curio Shelf Wildlife Curio Shelf Home Sweet Home Curio Shelf To give you an idea how easy these are, here a couple of photos of a day's work. Now I say a day's work, I cut about five hours yesterday evening and a little less than three today. That's around eight hours for three shelves. I think that puts them in the easy category. If anyone want to cut some of these, the plans can be bought at woodcraftplans.com . They can be found in the scrollsaw corner section. They're reasonably priced at $7 bucks for each. They also have another similar one called an Elegant Scrolled Shelf. I didn't care for the looks of it though. Some of you might. Also, be sure to click the next button at the end of the fifth page in scrollsaw corner. He's recently added more plans for a total of 416 scroll related plans. They recently aquired some of the plans from the Berry Basket Collection. Anyone familiar with the Berry Basket can tell you they are quality plans that are timeless in style. I've ordered a lot of plans from this site and have always had good service and great plans from them. They even replaced some plans for me one time for free that never arrived. Some other sites won't do that without fileing a claim with the post office first, which can take months. Check them out. They are a family run business.

That is beautiful. I hadn't really thought of using pine for my cuttings. I love those grain lines though.

That looks great. You made me think though that I use all dark backgrounds behind lighter wood. Maybe I should reverse that setup from time to time.

I am positive the blade is upside down. There have been times that I was sure my blade was in right. I use almost nothing but spirals. According to "feel" the blade will be right. I'll start cutting though and the "fuzzies" will be on top instead of bottom. I'll turn the blade around and everything will be back to normal.

We ought to rename this post shop safety. I've been studying other safety issues lately. I was thinking about what ron wb said about his health. Some may have noticed in photos the brace on my left knee. I wear that because that leg is dead. I mean dead with the fact that you can drop a sledge hammer on it and I wouldn't feel a thing. My right forearm is also feeling free. I freaked my boys out one time when I turned my head to do something while holding a torch. I didn't realize I was giving my right hand thrid degree burns until they started screaming. All this is from nerve damage in a life changing wreck back in '99. Anyway, enough with the history lesson and on with the point. I have two table saws. One is set up for ripping and the other has the sled for cross cutting. The cross cutting saw has no guard. With me being prone to falling (I've done it a lot in the past), maybe I'd better rig up some kind of guard on it. Also with the same saw, I'm the world's worst about runnng my finger between the blade and a fence two inches away. I have many push sticks I've made. I need to start using them. In the ceiling of my shop, there is a naked wire that has been there since I got the shop. The breaker is off to it, but I need to take the time to tape it up. I go right within inches of that wire when I climb up t the loft to get down a piece of cedar or heart pine. I could list many. The point is though that we all have things that need to be done in our shops. Let's please set aside a day (in the NEAR future) and get some of this stuff fixed. Life is already short, and lets's face it, a woodshop if like playing in traffic anyway in regards to safety. Every tool in the shop is an accident waiting to happen. It's not wise then to have added hazards scattered everywhere. Let's keep safety in mind. OH! One more thing, let's start using some dust masks. I don't as much as I should. I've always blew it off. I've smoked two packs a day for fifteen plus years. I worked for years on asbestos brake liners on cars and trucks. So, I disregard my morning coughs. Lately though, I've actually been coughing up sawdust at times. That can't be good. Scroll saw and sanders especially create very fine saw dust. It is inhaled easily. Do a little test to see how much is in the air in your shop. When you quite at night, clean off a table, or any clutter free surface. Cut out the lights and go home. Now go back the next morning and see how much dust is on that clean surface. All of that was floating around in the air before you went home. Think about it.

This pattern is available for free from Steve Goode at Scrollsaw Workshop. http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/ Check him out if you've never been there. He's got free patterns for any taste or skill level. Also, Steve provides all these patterns for free and he runs that site strictly through donations. Anyone who finds themselves using as many of his patterns as I have, please send him sonething. All I sent him a while back was $10, but if he's anything like me, every little bit helps.

It's built for kids to actually play on. The wheels turn and the handle bar and front fork assembly move. I think I did a work in progress on one here on this site a while back if you're interested in checking out how one is put together. They are actually not nearly as hard as they look. They are quite time consuming though. I have around forty hours work in each of them. Everything except the rockers are cut on a scroll saw. The rockers are done on the band saw. Everything is put together. Then you sand all the parts to fit properly. Then you take it back apart for staining, or painting if you wish. Then you put it all back together again. In final assembly, all my parts are put together with glue and screws. Then I countersink all the screws and plug the holes with 3/8 dowel that I cut into small pieces. Then I touch up the wood where the dowels are. If you check my photo album, I also make a rocking train, tractor, and pig. Also, I recently done a carousel horse with rockers, but it is an art piece, not for playing on.

It is fifty inches long and twenty nine inches tall. You can buy the plans for it at http://www.woodcraftplans.com/osc/rocki ... p-168.html

This is only my second sale over there. To be honest though, I haven't really worked it like I should. I really need to take some time and do some better saleing. Anyway, you can see my Etsy site at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6823431

I've been finding a lot of hard to find items such as sanding sleeves and pads at Harbor Freight. They also have a website. Most of their tools aren't exactly the best quality, but I save a bundle there on things like sanding pads, and have never had any problem. I have a 12" disk sander and that is the only place that keeps pads for it around here.

I attach a lot of stuff to painted surfaces. I use Duco Cement. I've never had any problems. You can find it in the hobby section of Wal-Mart or the craft store.

Here's my newest rocking motorcycle. This one has color! I decided to play around with more tinted stain. It was a pain keeping the stain from running together too bad. It was manageable though with plenty of masking tape.