greasemonkeyredneck

I cut this one out of mahogany. I normally cut them in cottonwood and stain them. someone ordered it off my Etsy site today and I didn't have one cut. So it was a rush order and I was worried that the stain wouldn't be dry enough to ship out in the morning. I think the customer will be satisfied with the mahogany though.

That's the four youngest ones. I have eight kids.

I wasn't sure where to place this, but since I am proud of my kids, I thought bragging rights might be appropriate. I'm not sure about the dates in other towns, but here on the first saturday of each month, Home Depot has a kid's workshop. They give them an apron. Then they get a pack with a project that already has all the parts cut, nail positions marked, a pack of nails, and instructions. You get to help your kids assemble whatever project they have to do. Then when they are done, they get a snack, a certificate for that class, and a pin with a picture of that project to place on their apron to collect. They do a different project each month. This month, they made a little bean bag toss. They gave them cookies and juice for the snack. Below is a photo of my kids with their completed projects. Next month is fire safety. They are gonna do hot dogs. They'll have the fire truck there. The kids are going to make a fire house bank. Any of you who have kids and live near enough to a Home Depot should take their kids on down. I was told today that they do it at all the Home Depots. It's a lot of fun for the kids and the parent. It doesn't cost a dime. It's a great way for the little ones to get an intro to woodworking without having to be around saw or other of the dangerous power tools. The most danger they are in with these little workshops is maybe hitting their thumb with a hammer.

It's time for me to do another motorcycle.

I finally tracked down this pattern. I seen it a while back here on SSV. I can't remember who, but someone told me where to get it. I finally got around to cutting it. I stack cut three of them and did three different color backgrounds, flat black, gloss black, and red. I made my usual mahogany frame for them.

And here's the other one I bought the other night. Messman designed it and it is listed on the Spittin' Image website. This one came out to be 11x13. It has a custom mahogany frame with keyhole slots cut in the back for hanging. The cutting is luan plywood and the backer board is painted black.

The pattern for this one can be found at http://www.spittinimagewoodworking.com/ ... itemid=672 . The designer is our own Chris Messier, or Messman. I bought it the other night. Ya'll have got to check out thaat site if you haven't already. If you've bought many patterns, then you know that $3 is dirt cheap, and that's the most expensive pattern I seen on that site. I also like the fact that when you buy one, you download it instantly, print it out and start cutting. I cut this one from birch plywood. It's a custom made mahogany frame. It is 11x14. Thanks for the great pattern Chris. I bought another one that I'll be cutting as soon as I can. I'm glad I found your site. I'm always on the lookout for good patterns that are affordable.

Look under the bragging rights section at my carousel horse. A lot of that is paint over stain. It turns out fine. From my experience, anything can go over oil base anything. Hoever, the only thing you can put over water base is another water base.

My favorite part of this project came before I even started. I looked through the magazine before putting it in a frame. I love to look through old stuff like that. My favorite was a full page ad for the "Luxury Chevrolet". It sold then for $1449.

Hello. I'm so glad to hear there's someone else from Mississippi interested in scrolling. I've searched high and low to find anyone remotely near me who does scrolling. I'm in Vicksburg. I'd love to get with you sometime and get to know each other better. Welcome to the village.

For today's project, I've had in my shop for a week now a June 12, 1950 issue of Time magazine that a friend's wife wanted framed. I finally got a round to it. She said she's been looking for a long time for a frame the right size and sturdy enough to hold it, with no luck. I took it over to her today and she was thrilled with it. This is the first time I've framed a magazine. It wasn't difficult though.

Yes, I posted a lot of photos. I am mighty proud of this one. If any of you have kept up with it in the in progress section, then you know this has been a long hard one. I think this is probably the most detailed piece I've ever done. It is made of solid wood. It is not to be ridden though. It is purely a piece of art. The plans for this comes with instructions on adding a metal pole to make one to be ridden. This particular one though is going to be a wedding present for my brother and his fiance. I hope they like it. I haven't kept track as well as I should have, but I'm estimating about eighty hours of work in it. In a few days to a week, I will be putting a polycrylic topcoat on it. That will just give it a protective shine though. This is what the finished project looks like. If anyone wants to do one of these, you can get the plans here: http://www.woodcraftplans.com/osc/wildf ... p-180.html

I'm posting this in General Scroll Sawing because I think it's important for everyone to read this. In the woodshop, we all try to pay attention to tool safety. Tool safety is mighty important. However, please don't overlook the obvious other hazards in the shop. I have an example that happened to me yesterday. I was closing the window and getting ready to go to town. There has been a piece about two foot tall in a triagular shape broken on that window for over a year that I know of. I've never thought nothing about it though. A little duct tape would have helped hold it in. You've probably figured out by now, it fell out. That triangular piece turned into a glass sword basically. It came down too fast for me to react. It sliced my finger. I was lucky though. The point stuck into the top of a WD-40 can about a quarter inch from my leg, sitting on a low shelf. If that can hadn't been there, it would have went straight into my leg. Now, with some of the meds I'm on, I bleed freely. By the time I would have gotten help, I probably would have bled out like a wounded deer. I'm a fool. I've heard God looks out for fools and children. I'll soon be 35, so since I'm too old to be a child, that makes me a fool. After this incident, I wondered what else in my shop besides tools could kill me. It didn't take me long to notice another hazard waiting on me. My largest work table has three plug receptacles that are mounted into the table top. They are handy. They are also deadly when I'm bad about setting my coffee cup right beside one of them. Man I've got to be more alert. PLEASE! Let's all look around our shop and take care of some of the obvious hazards that can be fixed easily. A few moments of prevention is well worth keeping us all around to cut another day. Be safe ya'll.

Scrollsaw Workshop at http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/ has something near the top of the page you can download called a "scrollsaw pattern printer". All it does is make words and numbers to what ever size you want and prints them out. It's a handy little software to have and it's free. I used it here a while back to make a frame for a friend with their name on it. It was for an 8x10, but you can size it accordingly. Just measure the length you want to put it in, size it using the pattern printer, print it out, and apply to your wood in the area you want the lettering.

Someone I have respect for, Steve Good at http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/ has n his site that he is a SAW member. He may be able to give you even more info about it.

Thanks so much. I promptly uploaded it as my avatar. I can also use it on other sites now.

Not the best photo in the world, but cameras do funny things when it comes to taking photos of me. I'd appreciate it if anyone could do something with it to make it an avatar.

How about fretwork? I'd love to see some of the fretwork projects like I have in a few books. Fretwork could consist of projects like baskets, picture frames, and such that just has simple cutouts that wouldn't necessarily fit into other areas. Some of that may crossover to utilitarian though. Just a thought.

From my own personal experiance, resawing pieces that small usually winds up being an accident waiting to happen. For small pieces, I just plane them down to whatever thickness I need. Yes, this wastes wood, but I'd rather waste wood than a finger or something. I may need that later.

Check any plant in your area that makes ANYTHING out of wood. Some nice wood can come from the most unlikeliest places. I get near all of my wood from a local casket plant. I have beautiful oak, cottonwood and mahogany from there. We're not talking scraps here. I have gotten 30x72 sheets of planed 3/4 thick mahogany. If it's got the slightest imperfection, they scrap it. Now, I have to take the good with the bad to get it. I have taken a whole load of firewood just to get five to ten sheets of good wood. There's always people in the winter though willing to take the firewood off my hands. Between that and my scraps, about five different households we know don't have to worry about firewood.

I use anything I can get my hands on for a table. My main work table consists of a kitchen table I saved from a family member's garbage that had been left outside to give it a warped top, a door screwed down to that for flatness, and some MDF on top of that for a clean, renewable, surface. My paint, catchall table beside the work table is a door on top of sawhorses. I do have several work benches littered around the shop with different tools on them. A few weeks ago, the school threw away a 48" x 10' (feet) table that used to be in their computer lab. I saved it from the dumpster. You got me to thinking. With all this table top area, why do I have to clear a work area every time I work on a project? Strange.

Sounds like you tried regular Gorilla Glue. They now make Gorilla WOOD glue. It isn't brown, it dries clear. It is white color in the bottle, just like most wood glues. It doesn't expand like the regular brown stuff. It actually performs just like most wood glues except for a couple exceptions. It sets faster for one. That is what I like about it. Less clamp time means I can assemble things like clocks without having to clamp overnight. I can clamp a subassembly and it is set enough to work with by the time I get the next piece cut or sanded. The one drowback I have found is that if you go crazy and create too much squeezeout, there is no amount of sanding or cleaning you can do that will allow you to stain it. I've been using Gorilla Wood Glue for about six months now and I love it. Just make sure that the white looking wood glue, NOT the brown stuff.

I had planned on starting this past weekend, but I think it's this nasty weather we've been having that has me down in my back again. I have the plans for two different horses. One is a carousel type horse and the other is an ancient greece type battle horse. I'm going to start on one of them next, as soon as I get back to work. I plan on posting WIP photos for SSV. I just got to decide which one I want to do first and then actually get started.

I've read all over the web about tubes, racks, boxes, and all sorts of ways to keep your blades neat and tidy. I like my little baggies though. I jut leave them in the bags they are shipped to me in. Then these are in a coffee can with a lid on it. Of course, I only use about four different blades. Everyone knows that I use spirals more than anything else though. For those, there is also a soup can screwed to the side of my work table. When I pull out a new bundle of spirals, I take the wire off from around it and out them in the soup can so they are within easy reach when changing blades.

I probably need my butt kicked for my maintenance habits. I wax my table if and when it is needed. Not after a project, but just whenever it gets nasty enough, I take my leaf blower and blow dust from my work area, to be swept up with the rest of the shop. I never grease links or bearings as long as it's running. I have two Deltas that are exactly the same. I keep one as a spare. If the one being used acts up, I switch them out, repair the down one when I get time, making it the spare. Other than that, I saw, that's what I do.