kmmcrafts

I don't think I ever said or even implied that this HF saw was better than DW nor did I imply or say that DW is better than this HF saw... I also believe I mentioned in the original post that these are too new to have a longevity test done on.. The video I posted was merely a "visual comparison" of similarities and that it "appears" to be very similar built.. Many of the folks here are older retired and not working the field anymore.. many on fixed incomes and see no reason to buy a commercial tool when a HF tool will do them just as good and then they have more money for the bingo cards on Friday mornings at the local McDonald's senior bingo day..

Good to see you dropping in here Randy.. I hope you'll stop in more often.. Back in the day I almost bought one of those cw-40's but I opted for a refurbished Dremel 1800 instead.. was a good saw for the money I paid as I production cut on that saw for 2 years before I upgraded to the DeWalt and sold the Dremel.

My son works for the state as a mechanic repairing plow / salt trucks, graders and anything from semi trucks to weedwackers, LOL.. They have snap-on and Mac trucks come through but many of them run the Icon from HF because the tool trucks only come through once a week.. if you break a tool just as he's leaving out the driveway you gotta wait until next week.. HF is right up the road.. and they replace them free just as the tool trucks do.. Yeah they gota send someone into the store but that's better than waiting a week.. They're great tools.. and less than half the cost... Heck even the cheaper Pittsburg tools get replaced free..

Most my tools when I first got into the business was purchased as refurbished Hitachi and many of them was still working great when I upgraded to larger DeWalt models.. I honestly liked the smooth operation and comfort of the handle grip on my Hitachi better than I do the DW one I replaced it with.. All tools are or were refurbished up until more recently..

I'm sorry I guess my small mind thought some folks might like to see a video of the side by side comparison of the DeWalt and this HF saw.. I apologize to anyone that wasted their time watching this. I seem to forget there are many more smarter people out there than me that already knew about these saws and why they are priced so differently yet very similar.

Just run across this video and thought I'd share.. The ending part of the video is where this guy compares this saw to his DeWalt.. Most these tools are too new to the market to test for several years or see how long they are trouble free for.. I haven't looked real hard at the bigger power tools like this but maybe should have looked closer at them when I bought my new DeWalt miter saw and table saw.. Pretty impressive for the price I think but I'm sure others will think diffrently

Yeah, most people use a pegboard with hooks to hang the ornaments on.. Nothing wrong with that method but I feel like they all get blended together and don't really stand out.. building a rack so the boxed ornaments can stand up at an angle towards the isles to grab attention is key.. IF customer wants to get all touchy feely they can simply open the box.. the box with cotton also gives a bit of protection from the kiddos that like to grab and touch everything too..

I have never seen anyone selling them or displaying them in boxes either.. Not many do it that way.. sometimes it's good to be different than the others.. and is some cases make it better selling..

I was turned onto these boxes by @Rolf many years ago... I think he sells at a few shows displayed in the boxes maybe he can chime in on this.. I no longer sell in person so maybe the craft shows now days would be better without the box. The boxes are cheap enough when buying bulk that it's really only raising the price by around $50 - 1.. Most craft shows I've been to the people selling ornaments are only charging $5 - 8 as my area isn't the greatest area for shows.. however back in the early 2000's I did fairly well at $10.. It's been a few years since I've even seen anyone selling ornaments at the shows..and back in 2014 at a show there was a vendor selling laser ornaments for $2 or 2 for $3 LOL.. probably why I don't see too many selling handmade ornaments much anymore, LOL Giving the option for a box is a great way to go about it I suppose.. I've always tried keeping things simple.. and the boxes are cheap enough that I never really raised my price just because of the box.. in fact I lowered the prices for in person sales as back then I was selling ornaments online for $12 but I rolled it back to $10 so I didn't have to make change etc. also out of the $10 I paid the sales tax.

The clear top gift boxes are a great way to display ornaments at the shows if you build a stand to make the boxes sort of stand up at a angle to show them better.. When I did in person sales almost everyone commented on how nice the packaged ornament is to give as a gift.. I'd have to get me old computer out to get the photos off it of how they're displayed in the clear top gift boxes.. When I switch to the boxes sales went up.. I no longer use the clear top ones since I'm shipping them the cardboard boxes give a little more protection and I'm not needing to display them at a booth anymore. Edit: I remember I have a photo on my FB page from back in 2016 where I was packaging some orders for the day that is showing the ornament displayed in those clear top boxes.. You can see that a business card fits in nicely.. having these set up on a rack at a show in the box is how I displayed them and I used address return labels to hold the clear top on in some cases.. The return label with printed just like a mini business card. When displayed at a show I would use colored paper to place behind the ornament on top of the cotton to make the contrast better and make them more Christmas looking with red and green paper behind them.

I think a lot would depend on where you're trying to sell at and also how are they packaged if they are.. All of my ornaments starting priced at $15.97 + shipping ( I sell online so shipping is a factor for me ).. I also package every ornament in a gift box.. so they're ready to give as a gift if the customer is purchasing it as a gift.. if not the box gives a bit more padding for packaging in the mail as the gift boxes are cotton filled too. Shipping is usually right around $4 - 5 for ground advantage.. so they're spending a total of around $20 some of my ornaments are double layered so they're priced closer to $18.97 + shipping and then adding any type of personalized or custom design is yet more money.. I sell a lot of them too and being priced higher like this allows me to be able to run a sale, or do bulk / wholesale orders which is really the larger part of my income.. The lowest I will sell a bulk order is $10 each.. for a pretty basic design..and goes up from there.. Selling at a craft show or farmers market.. I'd probably price things similar to the others saying $10 - 12 if there is no gift box etc.. I just think the gift boxes are a must have as then if the customer does purchase they have a box to easily carry with them rather than just handing them a ornament in a bag or something.. Everyone will have a different idea of price and many times it's based on experience and the market in their particular area..

I made some slide top ones years ago that I think may have been Steve Good's design.. basically just angle cut the top and two sides to glue onto the box so they fit snug but not too snug or too loose to allow for movement of the wood. I did a couple where the inside was hollowed out with just a forstner bit too. If I used the CNC the heart shape would be real easy to just cut the foam insert and make a perfect fit to the box.

Yeah the CNC could make a batch of them up if one wanted to go into production mode with a large batch.. I'm not sure I'll go that route yet.. maybe in the future but for me to just make a handful of them I think the scroll saw would be faster than the time it takes to set up the CNC.. CNC is great if you have something that you want to repeat cut ( production) but most 1-3 piece projects it's just easier an quicker for me to scroll saw them.. It's also slower partly because of how I have the CNC set up.. Lots of the guys will create jigs and stuff so they can repeat or easily set up a job.. I just haven't done that yet. Can make perfect inlays with the CNC though.. so long as you're working with some pretty stable wood.

That's a different type of hinge set up from what I've seen before.. I'm also looking at the different style of hinges.. The ones I seen yesterday while researching were just some round insert type thing.. not sure what those are called but that's sort of what I was thinking about using for hinges.. I have a lot of Walnut and Spalted Maple to use up as neither wood looks good for fretwork type scroll saw projects as the colors in the spalted maple take away the detail of fretwork cuts and dark walnut doesn't show fine details well from a distance so I'm looking for some projects to use up this wood.. Any suggestions for hinges or anything about making some ring boxes is welcome..

Thank you, I'll send a message shortly.

Beautiful work as always JT! After seeing RJ's reply I started searching and I did see some foam insert options.. I never thought of foam with felt over it until I started searching..

Thank you RJ, Now you make me feel guilty .. Now I'm going to have to make my wife a ring box and get a ring for her... no I was looking to make some ring boxes to sell.. but not looking to make a nice box with crappy pillow inserts.. I want them to be nice boxes..

I'm wanting to make a ring box.. the box part I know how to make but my question is.. how does one make the little pillows (I guess that's what they're called? ) that hold the ring in the box? I don't want to make a box and have the ring rolling around inside of it, LOL Any tips on making these and what material would work for that? My thoughts was some soft leather strips and somehow glue it and roll it or double sided tape? I don't really want to take a sewing class just to make the pillow things, LOL

I know I've had this in my possession at one time and it was years ago.. I'm not sure if it was in a magazine or one I purchased from a website.. Back around 2014 ish I had a external hard drive crash that I stored all my patterns on and I lost everything that was on it.. I had a few of my regularly used patterns on my computer so at least I had those. Lesson learned, back-up your files and then back them up again.. I now have another external drive that I back up my files to but also back up to 2 other computers and also onto a couple different thumb drives.. some are stored in the house and others are in the shop.. thumb drive in fireproof safe as well, LOL But if anyone knows where to get this pattern I'd love to have it again as I never did get the opportunity to actually make one.

This looks great.. great wood selection and cutting too.. job well done. I love cutting wedding / anniversary type things as it's nice to make a special gift for a special day.. I've always wanted this pattern but have never found where it's from... I'm pretty sure it's from one of the many magazines I have but maybe not because I've searched those a few times looking for this exact design..

Closer look at the photos shows paint around the edges of the I.D. tag.. clearly been painted and not a Hegner but I do believe this to be a Hegner stand and then painted saw and stand to match is my guess...

We have a list here on this site.. not sure how updated it is but there is a list of places to get patterns etc.. it's at the top under the "Resources" tab. Here is a link to the list but there are other resources under that tab besides pattern makers.. https://www.scrollsawvillage.com/pattern-shops/

IF he's starting with green lumber then 1" is probably about right.. You'd be amazed at how much lumber shrinks when it dries out.. a 1" green lumber will likely be around 3/4 once dried.. also how it's dried makes a difference Kiln dried or stickered and air dried.... then depending on the type of sawmill ( circle saw or bandsaw) and the runout of the blade on said mill etc.. by the time you get it milled down so the board is smooth you may end up with 1/2 - 5/8 finished lumber.. Of course this depends on how green and what species of lumber you're working with.. in this case poplar does shrink quite a lot..

Yeah I seen the I.D. tag but wondered if it was actually for the saw or if someone pieced together some different saws and stands etc.. I had never seen this model saw like this so yeah I really wondered if someone put the tag on a Hegner for some weird reason, LOL The one JT posed looks like basically the same saw and I have seen one that looked like it before.. which is now making me wonder if they may have removed some of the covers.. as the one he posted has a cove to cover up the upper arm which then makes it not really look so much like a Hegner.

This says it's a Central Machinery but sure looks a lot like a Hegner to me.. Thoughts? https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1278946467113428/?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3A5852bab3-2a62-4789-bc60-7a082ae2fa2f