kmmcrafts

I'd have been nervous too, I like cars and love driving old cars etc.. but only if I'm the owner.. I have a friend that is always wanting me to test run his car after he's done some performance stuff to it etc.. I don't care if it's an old clunker, that old clunker is someone's pride and joy or their only means to get around.. and my luck it'd break or someone crash into me etc.. so yeah.. I prefer not to drive others cars..

Earlier today I was checking out Bearwood site for some specialty dowel rods and thought I'd snoop around the site.. They're offering refurbish Pegas saws? about $200 ( if I remember right ) cheaper.. think it said no warranty though so what kind of refurb is that? Most other refurbs I've bought either come with the same or at least came with a short warranty period.. Thought they stood by their products better than that.. LOL. I kind of think maybe they're not refurbished by the manufacture the way they have that warrantee bit written up.. https://www.bearwood.com/product8099.html

Yes, I'll make another one someday.. If not, I felt good to give it to someone that'd appreciate it and one who had helped me..

Yeah, always was a kid that liked cars... had my first car to fix up at 12 years old and had it ready for the road in 4 years when I finally was old enough to drive " legally " on the road.

I'm not much of a gardener I guess.. I thought I was as everything veggie wise grows awesome.. in fact I give a lot of it away.. with the talk from our leaders about possible food shortages I thought I'd grow more than veggies, so this year I tilled up a much larger garden... bought some real nice steaks, ribs and bacon seeds put it out in the garden and watered it daily.. Not a single meat product grew... I'm wondering if I watered too much? anybody know? Most of it didn't grow I think because maybe some critter took some of my seeds. Also wondering if maybe I need to put "miracle grow" on it.. I think it'd be a miracle if any of it grew.

I use it and do so for fretwork as well but it really depends on the project at hand.. layout of the pattern is really important because if you have a lot of fragile areas that could break along the grain direction there is more chance it would break.. if you can place the pattern so the fragile parts are against the grain it'll make for a less fragile piece. I still use oak from time to time, not my favorite to work with but also if it does break it usually does so along the direction of the grain and usually a pretty smooth break that most times could be glued back in fairly easy without seeing a glue line. Back in my first getting into the scroll saw work I worked mostly with oak before I learned of BB plywood. I used solid 1/8" oak for my portraits.. Here is one of my solid oak pieces I made from 1/8" red oak.

No I haven't had any issues with breaking the H or E in my clocks and I've made a lot of them with text.. I do not like working with Oak and most all my clocks are made from Cherry. Oak likes to break along the grain and I have had a E break once with a clock made with Oak.. The base is also cherry.. from the same board.. in fact the board was about 8-10 wide so I placed the base pattern right below the trucks so it's even from the very same section of the board. Probably the photo angle or maybe because you're not really seeing the top of the grain ( face ) in these pictures you're more seeing the edge grain. I always try to make the bases from the same section of board as there are some different colored wood grains etc. in most any species of wood so I try to keep them with the same section of lumber so they match.

Made a clock of the car I'm building.. BUT, now that I made it and the local performance shop owner that specializes in these cars is really into these little Chevy Cobalt SS Supercharged cars and has been consulting me a little on my build.. well I may just give it to him since he has helped steer me in the direction I'm going with my street / track car and has saved me a ton of money.. he could have sold me a lot of parts I really didn't need, LOL Anyway, cut from Cherry using a FD-UR #5 balde.

The problem is most likely a setting in your browser.. what setting? who knows.. I had a similar problem some years back that wouldn't allow images from off site.. (ie back in the day when everyone use a photo hosting site and linked the photo to the forum rather than uploading to the forum.. the setting in my browser would only allow images on the site I was on.. if the background link to the image was from a photo hosting site I couldn't view it, .. I'm thinking you have some similar setting issue going on..

Other day had a customer that ordered a truck clock that I have then proceeded to tell me to make it a 1970 Chevy instead of the 1978 one they ordered, LOL... hate when customers place their order and then tell you to modify it.. Like shouldn't the custom request be done before ordering.. I'm thinking about ordering a brand new 2022 Chevy 4x4 truck but then message them after paying for it and tell them to make it a 1965 truck if it works like that.. Anyway, we worked things out.. and she sent me pictures of the truck she wanted a clock made of.. and here is what I came up with.. I'm not sure what I'm missing but I feel like some detail is missing on this somewhere.. resembles a 1970 truck but just didn't turn out ( to me) great.. just okay.. LOL Cut from Cherry using Pegas MG #3 Anyway, pick it apart.. tell me what I should have done to make it better.. BTW.. this is just dipped in Danish oil.. waiting a few days before spraying a topcoat on.. Okay, so.. I forgot I just did this custom order too.. just seen the pictures ( last 3 photos ) on my computer when opening the file for the 1970 truck.. the other set of pictures is of a 1986 truck order that I just mailed out 3 days ago.. and forgot already that I did that one too.. Old Age? LOL

Looks like poplar that I use most.. I have had some pieces with brown, green, purple look to them.. but I try to stay away from those for the puzzles I make.. the unicorn puzzle might be cool from the rainbow colored pieces I have.. but a dog puzzle to me looks best from just plain blah wood.. LOL

I cannot agree more with the having fun.. when it's no longer fun I'll also quit doing it.. I'm on 14 years of this now and this is the first year that I've been kinda coasting.. taking time off to do "other things I like doing" hence.. building the race car and just enjoying "real cars" instead of making wood car clocks, LOL.. I'm still open for business.. but I haven't advertised, promoted or done much to bring in more business.. still busy enough. After the covid lock downs for those two years was the busiest I've ever been and I was starting to get the kind of feeling of it being "work" since the lock downs forced a lot of folks to buy online I was swamp with work the whole two years.. made some real good money so I'm playing with this racecar build.. I do a little car repair stuff for a few friends and family and always have.. something I also enjoy and when I'm tired of making sawdust.. there is enough friends / family and friends of those friends etc.. I can and sometimes do slide into that business sector from time to time.. I turn a lot of work away on the auto repair side because well.. it's taxing on the body.. love doing it and can be good money but turn most of the work away these days.. much more fun sitting on a stool making sawdust and wood cars, LOL With car prices these days a lot of auto repair work to be had and pretty easy to get work if needed / wanted in both auto repair and body / collision work..

As for the MOV. video files.. I can see them but for some reason my computer downloads the video and then I have to open the download.. I don't like just downloading anything from the web so I rarely watch them...

I am able to see it on my iPhone using the safari browser just fine.. I'd say it's a setting on your ipad..

Beautiful work as always. Good to see you back in the shop making that Hegner hum, and thanks for posting an update. Hope to see you posting more again..

Many folks that are retired now worked for a company that valued them, gave out some sort of pension gave out some health insurance that you didn't have to pay a big chunk of your earnings to have that insurance.. Back when people wanted to work and be proud of what job they had and did.. The employer didn't consider you as a number and did their best to keep you with them and gave you a sense of stability that you'll be working next week, month, year etc.. IF you have to fend for yourself no matter what, you might as well do all of it on your own.. Times have changed a great deal.. maybe even before your times but I can say it was way better to work for someone 30-40 years ago than it is now.. People talk about how the young folks don't want to work and shortage of workers everywhere.. ALL the young folks I know don't want to work for greedy corporations, especially when these young kids have all the opportunities with just doing stupid YouTube videos and can make more money.. a young man about 6-8 years old building things out of legos on YouTube makes about $10,000 a month.. you suppose he's going to happily take a pay cut and go work for a sweatshop making $15 -20 an hour? People are fooling themselves about how this next generation is lazy and don't want to work.. it's more that they know what they can do and many are doing it online.. These kids are taking over Hollywood stars just being themselves on YouTube ,TikTok and other sights.. and they don't have managers and all the middle men taking the majority of their income either.. they get famous and "companies" want to sponsor them so these kids get cool clothing and whatever else free just to show it on their videos.. which brings me to this.. My son likes to ride BMX bicycles and do stunts etc.. he shows his riding etc. on instagram.. just short 30sec. - 1 min. clips of him doing jumps and stunts.. He has had companies offer hats, shoes, and you name it.. for free if he'll wear this stuff doing his stunts.. He's not trying to get popular or to start a entertainment gig at all.. he was doing these videos etc. just showing friends and followers his BMX tricks.. this stuff here is how "easy" it is right now for many of these young kids to just do what they like to do and make money.. yet you get grilled in a interview for a job that you really don't want anyway.. WHY go work when these opportunities are there to just play? especially when a real jobs pay sucks and very little if any recognition for the job from your boss when you can be recognized by a lot of folks for just playing and doing what you like / want.. Employers are going to have to step up their game, kids don't want their crappy $5000 - 10,000 sign on bonuses.. etc.. and then be treated as just another worker..

Definitely cheaper as she won't buy a whole shopping cart full of things we didn't know we needed until she found them on sale..

I don't use FD blades a whole lot any more but I do use the #5 quite often as the entry hole for veining can be a smaller hole than a Pegas blade.. that is the downside to pegas blades. I swap back and forth between brands quite a lot depending on the material and project.. My blades gotta be 5-6 years old so maybe older than what you have.. I've not had any issues with them.. Sometimes they get a run of bad blades.. I've had it happen in both brands over the years.. Hope your new batch solves the issue as it can be quite frustrating to break a lot of blades.. do more blade changing than cutting, LOL

The true cost of doing business is why my prices are the way they are.. I've went round and round with many folks on here about pricing and about legal business fees including as AmazingKevin says ( covering your behind LOL).. and those fees to do just that.. some folks might get lucky and never need the insurance for the business or the homeowners insurance won't drop you because of running a business etc.. Many business's cut corners to offer cheap prices.. good for them if they get away with it.. If you rely on the home owners insurance to cover you when your shop burns that you're running a business out of.. you'll go out of business very fast.. IF you sell with " intent to make a profit ".. whether you're hobby or not the IRS, your insurance company and many others see you as a business..

The more money you make the more money goes to the IRS.. He's doing it all wrong when you leave out most of the expenses that "could" be deducted.. The right way is to see how little you can "show" you make and still have the business survive.. .. While my statement is kind of funny, it is true..

I use rubbing alcohol to remove some of the burn residual from laser cut / engraving on wood and it wipes it right off.. Usually just put a little of it on a paper towel or a Q-tip and it works well.. not sure if it will work with this.. but worth a try I suppose.

Maybe I should back step a bit.. My issue was when everyone was backordered on #5 blades about 3-4? years ago and they showed they had them in stock.. I even emailed to make sure and I got a quick response they had them.. placed my order and they was pretty quick to print a label and provide tracking.. however according to my tracking number they never dropped of / picked-up my package for about 2 weeks.. then it took another 10 days to get to me.. BUT, to be fair it was at the peak of the holidays so mail was likely backed up.. My issue was that two week wait before actually mailing my blades.. I suspect they really didn't have blades and knew that a shipment was coming in so they said they did.. This was back when the #5's had a length issue ( which was why everyone was out of stock because they "Pegas" found bad blade issues and pulled all the inventory ).. I order blades way in advance, like I keep a full gross of blades on hand at all times.. when I get to my last package I order another gross.. so it wasn't that I was running out.. But with that said.. it was 3-4 months before I realized the blades they sent me was a batch of the bad blades, LOL.. They was really good about sending out replacements and they came really quite fast.. BUT, they came from Grobet? rather than Bear Wood too... I usually give companies a couple strikes before I say nope not again, depending on the situation.. I have ordered from them a couple more times.. one just recently as they was the only place I could find the wood dowel in the size and species I was needing.. Order did take some time but other than that I've not really had any major issues.. I don't mind slow mailing so long as it's expected of the company.. as for customer service handing issues I think they did a wonderful job for me because I was worried they'd not replace my blades after the order was 3-4 months old, maybe was longer than that even... so I'm not saying I'll never order from them but I am saying is why would I if I have other places to order that are top notch like Denny.. so long as he sells what I'm looking for, LOL..

Yeah, I also had issues with Bear Woods...

My policy is just a very basic one that is more for liability but they include $10,000 for machines used to make my products, and also includes my inventory.. but only at a raw material cost, not retail value.. A lot of shows ( my understanding ) require you to have some sort of liability insurance. If a customer trips in your booth and breaks their arm the show ( organization ) is liable but it can fall back onto you as the seller too.. The injured person may not sue you but their health insurance can and probably will so they can get their claim payout money back.. It may not even be a thing that was your fault.. it just happened at your booth..

Don't think you can get insurance to cover your cost of damaged items at a retail price level.. only at a raw materials level..