kmmcrafts

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Columbia-Forest-Products-5-32-in-x-1-ft-x-1-ft-7-in-PureBond-Birch-Plywood-Project-Panel-10-Pack-5534/315126783 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Columbia-Forest-Products-5-32-in-x-1-ft-x-1-ft-7-in-PureBond-Walnut-Plywood-Project-Panel-10-Pack-5107/312981163 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Columbia-Forest-Products-5-32-in-x-1-ft-x-1-ft-7-in-PureBond-Maple-Plywood-Project-Panel-10-Pack-4940/312284408

This is copied from a post on FB laser engraving group I'm on.. This doesn't sound good for those that use a lot of this stuff. I'm probably good for a couple years ( If I don't do too much laser work ).. Just an added note if people don't know why this stuff has gotten so rare and pricey. 1. Pandemic 2. Baltic Birch is from the Baltic/Siberian regions of Russia, the last couple years have been way warmer then usual during the winter and the ground didn't freeze hard enough for the normal "season" of harvesting trees......heavy equipment in basically swampy wet areas doesn't work 3. Russia has not been exporting logs to China nearly as much as they were because of above reasons (most of the Baltic Birch in the US used to actually be made in China from logs imported from Russia. 4. Moving forward, HUGE sections of the forests used to harvest Birch have been on fire all summer (the forest fires they are dealing with over there are larger then all the fires in the US combined) The bark of Birch is incredibly oily and is amazing for starting camp fires etc. I have seen video of the fires over there and its just dense birch forests all on fire. And there are several other contributing reasons that play into it. That's why I don't expect it to get better any time soon.

Yes, but the thought of printing customers receipts all in red might be a little less professional.. I bought this cheap printer as a test to see if I'd like a laser printer before spending the big money on a color one. This thing was less than $100 (Model HL-L2390DW) and I'm impressed with the prints.. My desk is very small and the big old large format printer I had took more than half my desk and was the only place I could put it, so it kind of cramped my style. As for savings in ink, I'm not 100% sure that it's saving me yet.. The old Epson Workforce WF-7610 was about 6-8 years old and started giving problems recognizing the ink cartridge and needed a new ink cartridge carriage which isn't too expensive to fix or hard job to do. I wanted to try the laser printer and also wanted something with a smaller footprint. Ended up giving the printer to my friend this summer, who is using it now. Since this one is a laser printer the ink won't dry up like on a inkjet so when I replace it I'll keep this one around as a backup. It's not fun being in the middle of busy holiday sales and have a printer go down or even give issues.

Honesty agree with Paul on this.. That said and to answer your question.. I don't know how the "new" Dewalts are, I had a type 2 that I bought new in 2008.. It was smoother running then the P-20 I tried out at LL Johnson lumber.. They had a clearance out model that I almost bought. Glad I didn't as parts for them are really hard to find now days. Are you sure the P-20 only weighs in at 70lbs? Those things are dinosaurs and all cast iron.. My Hawk weighs 110lbs for the smaller 20" saw.. I'd think that P-20 would weigh more than that since the Hawk is all light weight aluminum, other than the steel stand and motor. As Paul said, Hegner is a quality saw and small footprint, fairly light weight too.

Yes I did recycle the first cartridge that came with the machine before you told me how to trick the machine into having more ink, LOL.. I've only had this thing since the first of the year.. well.. I bought it last year around Christmas time but didn't take time to set it up until after the busy holidays, so around the new year I set it up. By April I needed a new cartridge. I've heard the ones that come with these machines is not a full one, just a trial one so.. that may be true because the replacement is still pretty full. I'll be sold on it if the cartridge gets me through the holidays. If so I might try to see what kind of deals I can get ( maybe black Friday ) for a color model.. I can live without the larger format for what I do.. but this B/W is getting to me. I'll run it until the new year as I don't like doing any kind of changes during the busy time unless it's necessary

I replaced my epson large format inkjet this spring with a low cost small black and white Brother laser printer. While I didn't use the large format papers often I sure do miss having that when I do need a larger pattern. I opted to go small and B/W because of the talks of ink cost.. I do a lot of printing but honestly I haven't really noticed where I am saving much if anything on ink.. probably am if I was to really add it up as its hard to tell when no two years of business / sales etc is the same.. since I've started this adventure every year has been growth.. last year was huge increase in business.. I went through several ink packages printing shipping and receipts etc. I'm about to consider replacing this printer, not too happy with just B/W since I can no longer make my patterns have the red outline. Not large format.. and not certain it's all that much cheaper.. The bigger issue with inkjet printers is if you don't use them regularly the ink dries up and you have to do a lot of print head cleaning which waist a lot of ink.. I print papers pretty much on a daily and never had that kind of issues. I hope you report back in a few months or more to elaborate more on the printer and the ink cost etc.

This come across my FB news feed this morning and the idea of scrolling something similar is cool, Not asking for a pattern just giving some inspiration to others as I thought it was pretty neat. Almost could be cut as is but that is most likely a copywrite image, I wouldn't endorse cutting this.. but making something around this idea would be cool. https://greenlivingtribe.com/how-many-animals-can-you-spot-in-this-picture/

Yes, I said in the title thumb screw dress tool, some may not know the term dressing tool etc. though. But yeah that's what it is for.. I don't normally do this at all.. screws are real cheap.. a box of them is like $5.. however many of them are not completely flat on the ends. Even the steel ones are fairly quick and easy to just screw into wood and sand it by hand. Due to shortages of almost anything these days.. when I placed a order a couple months ago the only thing that was available was stainless.. they take a lot more sanding to do it by hand.. also take much longer before they need to be redone.. but when they do.. you probably want a belt sander to do it, LOL. also gotta be careful with how tight you turn them if you're heavy handed.. not the greatest mix to use stainless in aluminum.. but so long as you're careful and smart about it you'd be fine.. Edit to add: I don't do this at all with the Excalibur or DeWalt saws that have the spin tip on the end. That tip will move wobble around enough to throw off a flat 90 squared end and you can accidently chamfer one side or another and creating more of a problem than you started with. If you have slippage with these many times it's just a wiping on a cloth sprayed with brake parts cleaner or other type of cleaner that isn't oil based.. mineral spirits leaves a film of oil.. I know some use it with results but it's better to use some other type solvent. Most times they just need a good cleaning and also just apply a small amount of Vaseline to the O-ring so the swivel end spins nice and free. A drop of oil on the threads to keep them working smooth too can go a long way with extending the life of not only the screw but also the blade chucks.

Well it works but not as great as I thought it would. I think if one used a “locknut” it’d work much better. The issue I have is the screws want to spin to easily. You’d normally only need to sand them very little and could do it by hand normally. I happen to have bought a box of both thumb screws and set screws, and the ends are not flat so it takes much more sanding then just by hand so I made this up to run on my belt sander. I traced around the nuts and cut it out on the scroll saw. Then used epoxy to glue the nuts into the board ( 1/4” bbply. ) In my case I used 1/4 - 20 nuts. I a storehouse of lock nuts I might try to see if they’ll work. I also have some flat cold rolled stock and a tap that I could go all out on and make a nice one. I’m just playing around with this idea first since most people have scraps of wood and in many cases left over epoxy too. So far just drilling appropriate sized hole in scrap wood and threading the screws into the wood works best so long as you get them started in straight.

Yeah, it's good to be working 3-6 months in advance.. Most people posting patterns post them within a could weeks of the holiday.. most those patterns for me anyway end up being next years cutting because I'm already busy by the time the said patterns show up. But selling online there is more steps.. well maybe not more steps but different steps.. such as photographing the work.. making the listing and describing it well.. It takes search engines up to 6 weeks to crawl the new listing and place it in the search results accordingly so if you make a listing today it could take 6 weeks for that to show up if said customer searches for it.. Anyway, wonderful pattern! thank you for sharing it

I've never been able to do this on inkscape either.. and the eraser tool seems to me just smears the line you're trying to erase around.. Sometimes I get lucky with trace bitmap and other times it sucks and I can't figure out how to make it look good.. maybe it's the photo quality that is the issue.. As for erasing I found going to the gimp program and doing the cleaning up works way better than trying to use the stupid erase tool in inkscape. There must be a better way within inkscape that I just haven't learned yet as it's a powerful program..

Cool a new trick, I didn't know holding the control key would keep everything proportioned.. I've always resized by checking the box to keep proportioned at the top of the tool bar and then selecting to resize arrows in the width or height boxes at the top of the page.

Yes inkscape and gimp are both very handy and powerful software's well worth the free download and learn if you can. Another very powerful and in my opinion way better than inkscape or gimp as far as ease of use is the Vectric software that came with my CNC.. BUT... it doesn't work well to use to create patterns because to my knowledge there is no way to save it for use with printing the finished pattern.. only way is for G code to go to the CNC and carve it out.. That would be my software of choice IF I could design and print out or save as a Jpeg, PDF or other type of file to use with printing out the designs. Probably a way to do it.. I haven't looked real hard.. Probably not many people would buy the software just for patterns etc. since I think the cheap version is still around $500+..

Yes, I cut this with the laser. What I do to resize is use inkscape and once loaded in inkscape I make sure the box is checked to keep it proportioned. Several ways to resize on there but I just use the buttons at the top in the toolbar for to make larger or smaller.. since the box is check to keep proportion the same you only have to click either the wider or taller buttons and they both change at the same time. Seems really simple to me but I do remember a time where I struggled with that.. but there are plenty of folks here that help if you trying to do something and can't figure it out.. rather than ask to have someone change it for you ask how to change it.. then eventually you pick up on that. I've "had" to learn some of this stuff since I can't just hand draw on the pattern for the laser and CNC machines.. In the beginning of modifying my own patterns I used to tape patterns together or tape text on them etc, LOL.. can't with these machines though.. BTW, Lot of laser / cnc designs can be cut using a scroll saw.. many designers when sending you the download link for the file / pattern they send them in several different formats.. such as printable PDF or SVG for laser or DXF for CNC.. so this pattern could be just printed and cut on a scroll saw. They send you a zip file with several different formats.. just choose the PDF one when you open it if you want print it to scroll it.. Here is the link to the sellers etsy page where I got this pattern from.. I actually order a whole set.. have most of the state ornament patterns too. Here is a short video of my laser cutting out one of the state ornaments this morning. https://www.facebook.com/kevin.metzger.56/videos/574532267228682 I had to make the video pubic so you folks can view it.. Sped up the video, actual cut time was just over 5 minutes. Think cut time for the trucker cross shown above was around 5 minutes too. You might think that's fast but, LOL.. I can cut a stack of 5 in 20 -25 minutes on the scroll saw so the laser really not any faster unless you have more than one machine running.. it does allow me to do other needed work while it's running though.. like finishing, sanding blanks, designing new stuff.. so it does free up some of my time..

I know this was brought up by Jim Blume a week or so back but I thought I'd show a example of one I did today. This design is meant for laser / CNC cutting and I did cut this with the laser tonight. The original design was at a size of approximately 11 x 8.5.. I resized it to be smaller for a ornament instead. The gift box it's in is 5 1/4 x 3 1/2 just to get an idea of how much I changed the design in size from its original state. I do this kind of stuff quite often just to make things that maybe others are not making.. Many folks would look around ( if they wanted this design ) for a ornament when searching the pattern makers websites and never find a ornament like this.. because it wasn't designed as a ornament, LOL I've done just the opposite too.. I've taken ornaments and enlarged the diameter and then made it into a wall clock or other larger wall hanging.

Hahaha, Oh boy here is another example of a lightbox.. I think we all need to stay away from this topic until the original poster replies back with more specifics on what they need. There have been 4,5 or 6 different opinions on what a light box is, LOL.. Then there is talk about light bulbs on this topic. I will say.. your idea of a light box sounds like it could be useful.. maybe we need to continue on with this subject.

Doesn't work when mail ordering them because no stores around here have the odd sized one with the right angle plug in part that works in my light fixture.. This is a great idea though.. not sure how the store lighting might also affect the video too.. most all the stores in my area have switched to LED strip lights too so it might give a false reading on the video anyway..

I used to do a lot of scroll sawing live videos using my iPhone as the camera.. The new LED bulbs I put on my magnifier lights make black lines and shadows in my videos and make them basically unviewable.. I don't see this with the naked eye but the camera sure picks up the pulse. I've been going to buy a standard Fluorescent bulb to put into one of my magnifiers so I can get back to doing videos of me sawing.. I'm wondering if this is what you are seeing with the naked eye somewhat.. some of these LED bulbs I do see really fast flickering.. most times I don't notice it.. kind of like when the fluorescents start going bad they sometimes flicker.

Ahha,,, So we have someone that has experience at this and knows exactly what happens.. I would have never known.. So how bad does it burn? like catch on fire burn or just slightly scorching the wood edges like a laser does kind of burn..

Ray if it runs way too fast I've read on another forum that if you put the blades in backwards it'll cut a lot slower..

Well, I was thinking the same thing.. which is why I was really confused. Your idea of a lightbox makes much more sense.. Never would have thought of that one...

Yeah, I'm not sure what you mean by "lightbox" ? as in a box to get proper lighting for taking pictures? That's what I think of by the term lightbox..

I used to do and still do by accident change the lines to red.. however dummy me bought a laser printer last year that only prints black, My first laser printer.. I do like it, I guess it might save a little money on ink but I'm not quite certain of that.. Not even had it a year and have had to replace the ink a couple months ago. The ink is more $$ than the inkjet I had so I'm not 100% sold just yet. Maybe it was the cheap laser printer I bought. To get a color unit in what I need / use is quite pricey upfront so I was running this cheap one for a year or so to see what I think.. I'll compare my ink cost at the end of the year and see where I'm at with it. As for learning inkscape I used to be the same way and still am with some of the more advanced things we do as pattern makers. This is somewhat how I am with my CNC too.. and the thing is as others have said.. you work your way through it and sort of learn it, but then don't do it again for a month or two and forget everything you went through the first time around..

Ray, I believe the single speed Hegners run at 1700spm. I think the best people to ask about converting it to VS would be the fine folks at Henger. I'm sure someone here probably knows as well but I'm not that person, LOL Sounds like a heck of a deal though for $40.

This is very sad news. Like Dan said, I think he was like a friend to most everyone on this forum. Condolences to his family and friends.