greasemonkeyredneck

I have noticed something lately. In the past, to several people's horror, I have nonchalantely thrown pieces into a pile as fancy firewood and started over. Recently though, I've been able to save several pieces of fancy firewood as finished pieces with very little thought on the matter. It has me thinking though about a few pieces from the past that have long since been put through the wood heater that might could have been saved. I mistakingly required the pieces to be perfect as possible. It makes me think of something I read on the internet, I think by Ric Hutcheson, that none knows you messed up the original pattern unless they designed the pattern or you tell them you messed up. Another way of looking at it came from my brother a few weeks ago. I showed him a photo frame that I was debating using. I had a "slip" with the router. It looked fine from the front. The back had a gouge beside the slot for the portrait though. He told me he didn't see a "slip", but he did see where the wood had "character".

For my latest cutting, I wanted to do the different color backgrounds for the unicorns like I did with the pegases. Note that the one with the red background has the unicorn facing the opposite direction. For the first time since I've been scrolling, while removing the pattern, part of my wood splintered and pealed off, leaving a not so pretty cutting. To keep from completly loosing that one, I cleaned the back up more carefully than normal and just flipped the cutting. I think it worked out ok. I held up the red and blue side by side, putting the opposing unicorns facing each other and I think it would look beautiful on opposite sides of a fireplace or something. My wife loves unicorns. I think I may do that for her in purple background, her favorite color.

I love detailed portraits more than I do simple ones. I just like to do things that others sometimes feel intimidated by. That being said, ANYONE can cut things like this. I just think that there's a few things you have to keep in mind when doing this type work. First and foremost, remember that no matter if your project is simple or has thousands of inside cuts, there's only one way to get either one done, and that's one cut at a time. While remembering that, you may run into a problem that I have. On my cheap Delta, I have learned an important lesson the hard way. If I cut most of Jeff Zaffino patterns EXACTLY according to his pattern, I will create some mighty fancy firewood. The vibration and other factors of my saw just do not allow me to do that without pieces breaking off. So, I use this analogy. Think of his pattern as a roadmap. Just because a road is shown on a roadmap does not mean you have to go down that road. If you carefully compare my cutting to the pattern, I changed cuts, eliminated cuts, added cuts, and various other changes. I do what I think will look good while still working fairly close to the pattern. An example would be Jesus's face. Notice that the on the pattern, his face is attached with one little tiny piece of wood near the top. I cropped a cut and left another attching piece at the bottom of his face. I do all this while working on the pattern. The othr advantage to this is what I call a iniquity. Doing the changes at the saw like I do makes it so that if you cut the pattern now and again later down the road, they will not be exactly alike. Each one is unique because there is no way you are going to remember exactly what changes you made this time when you cut it again. So, trust me, with a bit of patience, and a little confidence, ANYONE can cut one of these detailed portraits. Give it a try sometime. The first time I cut a Jeff Zaffino, I amazed myself what I was capable of. Since then, there's been nothing I was scared to cut.

Alright Ron, give it up. Where can I get that Jesus pattern? Pweeeeeeese?

Actually, I have seven dozen staight end spirals laid over at my shop now. I bought them from Wildwood Designs some time back. They were one of the lessons I learned from all the useless blades I've bought in the past. Every one of them break before you even get the tension tight enough to do any cutting. I don't know of it was a bad batch or what, but I have been scared to spend any more money to find out. I have recently decided on my favorite spiral, FD #3, and I won't buy any more blades to "try". I'm going to stick with what works for me. I have over a hundred dollars worth of blades at my shop now that are pretty much useless to me. I don't have an allignment problem on my Delta. I do have to recheck that my table is square from time to time. I think it's just vibration that moves it just a hair from time to time. That isn't too big a problem to me though. As for scuffing the ends, I don't do that, but I do have to clean the contact area every now and then on the blade clamps. It gets a residue buildup and the blades will start slipping. I try to remember to do this each time I wax my table.

This topic brought a subject to the front of my mind that I really hadn't thought much about, blade prep. I was wondering if anyone else staightens the ends of spirals before using them. I have found that if I use plyers to staighten them before first putting them in the saw, I don't have a bending problem. If I don't staighten them, sometimes the very end will bend over on me just enough to make it a pain to feed through the tiny pilot holes in the wood. Moderator's Note: This topic was split this post from this original thread. I figured it was an interesting enough subject to warrant its own thread.

No! You should brag. It's great to have accomplishments like that. I wish they had shows like that nearer to me. It's nice to know though that we have an award winner amongst us. Accomplishments like yours though let the rest of us know that what we do as a hobby isn't totally dead as an artform. That's good to know. Congradulations. Great work.

My favorite is the Jesus portrait. I don't know if that's your design or not, but if it is, it'd be real nice of a fella to post a pattern like that for the rest of us to cut. (hint, hint). That's some nice work though.

I recently tried spray painting my backer board. I liked it. Then I got an idea for a pegasus pattern I have. Here's the results of my little experiment. The cuttings were stack cut. All I done was painted one backer board black, one red, and one blue. What do ya'll think?

After making a couple of successful attempts with my stack cutting, I felt it time to give myself a real challenge. So I stack cut my favorite Jeff Zaffino portrait, Christ Ascending. This was a free pattern posted on his site a few months back for Easter. I stack cut these three at a time. They turned out good. I only has one tear out on only one of the cuttings. It was in bushes in the middle of all the men at the bottom, so I was able to shape it up a little and use it anyway. Here's a photo of one of them.

I finally got around to taking some more photos this morning. I wanted to post this one to show the difference that the spray painting has made. I used to say I hated paint, but if you'll look at the detail in this photos, I think the more uniform color has just made a world of difference.

I've never used Pegas blades, so I can't speak for them. For me though, Flying Dutchmans were the first blades recommended to me after I got tired of Olsens. When I first started scrolling, I was using Ryobi blades I picked up at Home Depot. They were alright to learn with, but like Travis said, they are crap. They cut well enough, but lasted all of three minutes in the thinnest of woods, and that was when you were lucky. So I shopped around for a different blade. All anyone sells locally was Olsens. At first I thought that was the blade for me. The problem was that at five bucks a dozen, I couldn't afford much scrolling like that. So I started looking online for a cheaper source by buying in bulk. That was where my nightmares started. You can read all about my blade problems in other posts. It just turned out though that FD blades are better for me. Some like different blades. In the end though, I think its what each individual is comfortable with. I don't try to tell anyone that their blade is inferior to my blade. I think if you have a blade you can enjoy scrolling with, then by all means, stick with it.

Those look great to me. My only experience with U-joints though are on vehicles. The only real test will be how long they last. From looking at your photos though, with strong enough wood, those may work on a vehicle too.

I don't know if I'm positive what you mean. If I'm correct though, you mean like what I call a shadow box. It's basically a box built around the cutting and backer. If that's the case there's nothing wrong with this. I've done several past projects like this. To me though, it's just as hard as a frame. I'm building my sled for a different reason. My problem has more to do with getting the cutting and backer perfectly square to fit in the frame or miter box. As for making the frame or box, the only "device" I use is a miter saw. I use what is sometimes called a mitered chop saw, not the old miter box with a hand saw. The trick to getting the cuts right on the miter saw I use is to first get it to cut square. First, make a test cut. Take one side of what you cut andturn it over. Against the fence, push it back together. If there are no gaps, it is square. Sometimes you have to play with it until you get it perfect. As soon as you get it perfect, adjust your arrow indicator. Some cheaper saws don't have an adjustment. On those you actually bend the arrow tag to adjust it. That's all there is to it. The just remember that unless you're making a mighty wierd frame, then all your cuts will be 45s.

Well todaystarted off pretty bad. I opened the shop, flipped the light switch, and nothing happened. I spent the morning tracking down a dead short. Upon finishing that, I figured that with my limited shop time lately, today was shot too. I wanted to start a project anyway. I wanted something I got make a good showing in a half day since I've been playing things day to day lately. So I thought about a patter I'd downloaded a while back from here at SSV. It's called "Jesus Falling 2nd Time. It was uploaded by macfil20. His wife Cathy designed it. Well, I worked late and finished it. Thank your wife for me. Great pattern.

Mike actually sent me two samples of the 2/0 new spirals. I personally didn't like them at all. They are just too slow cutting in my opinion. I'm used to regular spirals though. I have never had a control problem. I find the trick to controling spirals is to have them tight, TIGHT. From reading the posts though, I think I know the problem with the 2/0. Most have said they cut ply. I'm am just not a great fan of ply. I love using solid wood. To me, it makes a great difference the appearance inside the cuts, especially since I like doing portraits with usually an excess of 200 cuts. My favorite cutting so far has been one called Christ Ascending. It was a free pattern offered by Jeff Zaffino and had over 300 inside cuts. I cut it in one sitting of about 14 hours. So, I will eventually use the 2/0 spirals. For now though, I think I'll stick with the #3 spirals for most of my cutting. I'll have to get used to the flat spot. I think I have that figured out too. I've been thinking about it all day. Think how a spiral is made. It's basically a flat blade twisted around and round. That will leave certain spots on the blade with no teeth on some parts of the outside. Then consider that the stroke of my Delta scrollsaw doesn't use the entire five inches of blade, only a little bit of it. Then it makes sense that if that particular spot is in the used area, then it will have a flat spot. This theory pans out in the fact that sometimes, there is no flat spot. It's just a random occurance. So, I think I can live with that. I love the fact of how aggressive the #3s are. The other thing I learned today was about the Dewalts. They marketed as Dewalts, but made by Olsen. They were dropped from the Dewalt line because of quality control issues. That's what I was told and tend to believe it, because of the recent experiences I've had with Olsens. So the verdict is, I will be ordering more blades from Mike. It'll be #3s though. Please tell me you have regular #3s though Mike. Before I knew about you, I ordered from Scrollit. I still have 8 dozen of them to use before I order again. All Scrollit offered though was #3 reverse spirals. I don't like the reverse, never have. I can't explain that one, I just like my regular spirals.

I may just have to get used to that, even though it is a nuisance. If it wasn't for that "one spot", the #3 FD spirals would be the answer to all my problems.

Ok, I just finished stack cutting three last supper portraits last night. They were 3/16 inch thick and stacked three high. The wood was cottonwood, which is a soft wood that I would probably compare to pine.The wood is covered with masking tape and then the pattern glued to the tape. I tried the FD-2/0 spirals I had gotten from Mike's Workshop. They cut beautifully. The problem is they lasted about two minutes apiece. About thirty minutes into the project, and after already going through ten blades, I decided to back up and regroup. I remembered I still had about two dozen Dewalt #2 spirals I'd bought a while back on a clearance rack. I used them to finish the project. So, now I have a multi-layered problem. First, several questions. 1. I hear everyone is using FD-2/0 spirals for portrait cuttings. What kind of wood are they using? 2. How thick is the wood being stacked, if at all? 3. How long do the FD-2/0 spirals last for them? Now for some history of my problems. 1. I started out with spirals on Olsen #2 spirals. I loved them. They cut good and they lasted reasonable I thought at the time. In 3/4 wood, they would cut consistantly for twenty to thirty minutes. 2. At $5 a dozen locally, I decided to start ordering by the gross online. The first gross I got were crap. Half the blades snapped before I even got enough tension on them to start cutting. 3. Tried a different company. Got another gross of #2 Olsen spirals. Lasted a lot longer. Seemed like the teeth were wore off the blade. I never even finished that gross. They are still laying on a table in the shop because you could chuck piano wire in your saw and cut faster. 4. Found six dozen Dewalt #2 spirals on a clearance rack at a local hardware store. They cut like my "old" Olsens. I started using them as cushions while looking for a good source for blades. 5. Tried another online source for #2 Olsen spirals. Crap again. 6. After over $100 in Olsen #2 spirals, and a lot of kicking myself for ordering gross after gross, I started asking questions. I was told, supposedly, that Olsen started outsourcing production and that was why the quality went in the crapper. Flying Dutchmans were recommended. 7. Order gross (please don't get onto me yet, yes I know I should have learned my lesson by now about the grosses). Ordered gross of FD-#3spiral reverse blades from Scrollit. 8. I was amazed at how easily the FD-#3 spiral reverse blades cut through even 3/4 oak. My problem was that 1. They left the inside of cuts too rough and 2. They seemed to have like a 345 degree cutting radius. It seemed like they had a "flat" side to them with no teeth. They cut reat in all but one direction. When you made it too that spot, you have too turn the work. I was used to NOT having to turn my work on spirals. This was a source of aggrevation to me. 9. Got to thinking about #2/0 spirals. Order a half gross from Mike's Workshop. Now here I am. Has anyone else had the same problems with FD #3 spirals (the "flat" spot)? Does anyone know of a blade that cuts at least as good as my "old" #2 spiral olsens? I'm not naive enough to think a blade will last forever. I would like to get 15 to twenty minutes from a blade at least though. I'd like the blade to cut evenly on all sides. This was just something I got used to with Olsens. I was perfectly happy with the kerf size of the #2 spirals from Olsen. So, I'd like some about that size. If possible, I'd like the blades to be Flying Dutchman. I want to order from Mike's Workshop. I'd never gotten as quick shipping and the customer service I recieved from him. I am desperate. My blade problems are quickly turning something I dearly love (scrolling) into an anxiety problem. A local friend suggested I was doing something wrong concerning the saw or tensioning. I don't believe that is the case. I can pick up the "cushion" blades (Dewalt) and they perform great. I don't believe that would be the case if I was doing something wrong. Besides, I do things just like I always have and I haven't always had these problems. The Dewalt blades are discontinued, so they aren't an option. Besides, I want a source for gross ordering. So, any help would be appreciated. I would really like Mike's input on this one. I thought I may confuse him on the phone though. Also, I thought a public post on the topic may get me some more input on to what I might blow some more money on. If I had known the right blade to order from the beginning and spent as much cash as I have so far, I'd be set for blades for a year at least. So now its in the hands of all the experts. Please help!

The stack cutting was a success. I finished framing the last of them last night around midnight. I did have a little trouble in the beginning concerning blades. I will be posting a few questions on that in another post shortly. Other than that, I was happy with the results. Even with careful studying, I can't tell each one wasn't cut individually. I will definately be stack cutting more in the future.

The sled bed is MDF. I used it for the sheer purpose that I've found that is virtually never warps or cups. The fence is common two by material. I used that simply because at the moment it was the bulkiest, straightest piece of wood I could lay my hands on in the shop. Same for the back brace, which looks like another fence. The runners, under the sled, are planed down oak strips. I wanted to make them out of something that would not wear easily or get indentions in the edges if it got bumped when moving off the table.

I've been neglecting it, but I have been wanting to try this. It would greatly improve productivity. Now if I could just figure out a way to cut my frame making time by three.

I finally got around to snapping a few photos of the sled. Here's what I got done so far. Remember, it isn't done yet. I need to mull over a few idea about how I want to add the other attachments. I've sort of changed my mind about a few details midstream. It works good enough at this time though for square cuts. I'm doing the Last Supper portraits and I crosscut all my backer boards yesterday. All I had to do was mark them on the outside edge, line them up with the blade, flip the saw on, a quick run forward and back, and after checking them with a square, they were perfect. This is going to work out to be a great addition to my table saw.

I'm going to need luck. Or prayer. I got the frames built the other day. I got my wood planed down, the backer boards stained. The reason I need the luck, hope and prayer though is I'm trying something I've never done before. I've done a lot of cutting, but never have gotten much into stack cutting. I have stack cut two pieces at a time for time consuming clocks before, but my portraits are usually done one at a time. Well, money is tight and lately, my shop time is even tighter, so I'm going for bust. I'm stack cutting three of these this time. At least I'm gonna try. Let's hope they turn out allright. I figure the worst I can do is mess up and only be able to use the top cutting. If that happens, the frames are built, so I'd just have to cut two more. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for all the kind words. Hurting like hell, I got in the shop today and built the frames for the portraits. Also, I got a private message from another SSV member wanting to know where to get the pattern for that portrait. If any of you want to cut this, the pattern can be purchased at Wildwood Designs for $12.95 plus shipping. Here's a direct link to the pattern http://www.wildwooddesigns.com/prodinfo ... 38&dept=54 but be sure to check out all of Wildwood Designs patterns and plans. I get a lot of plans from them. I've never had any complaints about their patterns. They have a lot of the more advanced patterns. All my clock plans have come from them.

I actually got some great news for the time that I can get back in the shop, whish as GOT to be ASAP. I got a phone call yesterday about a Last Supper portrait I sold about a week ago. I have an order placed now for two more than what I have cut. That means I think I need to cut at least three, since I still have one promised to my wife to hang in our house.