scrimper

I am sorry to say that I have been very lax in posting here. I am a regular poster in the scroll-sawing section in UKworkshop but I have to admit that I do forget about visiting here - so please forgive me for 'jumping' in again. I have been a fretworker since I was a boy watching both my late father and grandfather (both Fretworkers) and have always had an interest in fretworking (it was always called Fretworking in the UK and I am still living in the past). Around a year ago I published my Fretworker website entitled "Scrimper's Fretworking Site" and posted the link to it in this forum. Since then I have updated it with more info and designs. The website is all my own work and opinions and does not make or involve any money not advertising. My main interest was to record the history of the old Hobbies and Handicrafts companies of England as there is very little about them online. The site covers much history with information - more pre 1960's than today but also has help and advice pages plus some designs free to download. Please note the designs are old UK Fretwork designs mostly pre WWII which I have redrawn and sometimes modified from images in old catalogues from either the original Hobbies or Handicrafts companies. I have great admiration for the draughtsmen who drew out these designs often several per week without the help of computers or design software and I am tying to keep them alive (many have already been lost) The present UK Hobbies company are aware of my website and designs and are happy for me to place these old obsolete designs on it. If you have a spare moment I would be delighted if you had a look at my website - I don't get many visitors as it's not promoted anywhere. I would of course be pleased to receive any comments about the site. https://sites.google.com/view/scrimpers-fretworking-site/home

Thank you Roberta.

Hello everyone, I feel a little awkward posting this here as I have not been an active member, so I hope you will forgive my forwardness in posting this here. For some time I have been creating a website on Fretworking (scrollsawing) mainly because I have always been a fan of the old fretwork days and especially the old Fretwork companies Hobbies and Handicrafts of England. There is very little of their history on the web and I wanted to keep their history alive so to speak. Back in 1900 my late grandfather was an expert fretworker (he used to teach the hobby to youngsters in his home town. He also sold Hobbies fretwork items in his shop, My late father was also a good fretworker, I have followed the tradition and been keen on the hobby for over 60 years, My grandsons are also keen fretworkers. As well as documenting the history, the site also has lots of advice on the hobby inc saw buying, blades and general advice plus some free designs to download. I have done this purely out of interest, I am not a professional web designer so don't expect perfection, it is all my own words and work and I do not make any money whatsoever from the site. The existing Hobbies company have given my site their blessing and are happy that I have put their history online. (I have put a link to Scrollsaw village on the help and advice page of my site I hope this is OK?) Perhaps members here would be kind enough to have a look at the website and offer their opinions good or bad. Thank you so much for reading this. John The website is here https://sites.google.com/view/scrimpers-fretworking-site

Sorry about this folks but Scrimperuk has now morphed into scrimper. Unfortunately I am a bit dopey, I thought I already had an account here but could not find any record of it so I joined up as scrimperuk. once a member I looked at the members map and surprise there was scrimper listed as a member and of course it was me. I could not access the scrimper account but I contacted admin and Travis has very kindly amalgamated me with the scrimper account. It all sounds very complicated but basically if you see reference here as scrimper or scrimperuk it's me. So sorry for a second introduction, actually I think it's my third!

Hi Dick You can see my old treadle machine in my video, the video is in two parts, part one is here

Many thanks for the welcome. I will probably not post here at the moment because I discovered after setting up this account that I already had one under the name "scrimper" I though I had but could not find any reference to it in my records, furthermore the email I used for the account is defunct so I can't access it. I am trying to get access to that account and amalgamate the two or cancel one.

Hello folks as you can see from my title I am scrimperuk from England. I have always been a scrimper, more to do with making do and mending rather than saving money. Most of the things I do are done with stuff others have thrown away. I have been a fretworker since I was a young boy, both my late grandfather and late father were fretworkers and I still have my grandfathers original Hobbies treadle machine he bought back in 1900, although nowadays I generally use a Hegner machine. My main fretworking interests are in the history of the UK Hobbies and Handicrafts companies and their early fretwork designs of which I have a large collection. For quite sometime I have been working on my website entitled The "Fretworker" however I am not ready to publish it yet as it isn't finished. I am sorry to be going on a bit but if you want to find out why my friends think I am an oddball you might like to have a look at my Youtube channel which you will find under my user name scrimperuk. you will find over 200 of my videos on lot's of subjects but many on fretworking and scrollsaws, plus the first four parts of my history of the Hobbies and Handicrafts companies. Thanks for taking the time to read thus far.

Thanks for all the kind comments about Max the GSD. sorry I caused thread drift.

Sorry to have to say this but that beautiful German shepherd in my avatar only has a few weeks left to live, 4 weeks ago we took him to a vet with watering eyes the vet diagnosed aggressive cancer in his windpipe eye and lungs with no hope of any cure, we are just spoiling him in his last few days, it is quite heartbreaking. he is a rescue dog and only about 6 or 7.

Just a little confused? The videos listed above are all my own work, my name is not Larry? Has Larry done some similar videos?

Have a look and see what you think, comments and advice will be most welcome. Afraid the first video starts a little abruptly, the reason is that I was in the process of cutting when I bought the camcorder and thought I would try it out, I never intended to put it on youtube but it seems ok so I gave it a go! Ist video https://youtu.be/taIAQ25XQcY 2nd video https://youtu.be/ldWZP-qvA-o 3rd video https://youtu.be/nKKrvhuW5ls 4th video https://youtu.be/3tOvvSSkzvc 5th video https://youtu.be/ffxuNUsa114 6th video https://youtu.be/xh0IaUQLRVQ 7th video https://youtu.be/dbQTl0kt1Jo https://youtu.be/oVfNYFFSmjA

I recently bought a video camera (only a cheap one) and attempted to make some scrollsaw videos, they are probably a bit boring to most people but I wondered if it is acceptable to put the links to them on here (is it allowed?) and whether anyone is interested in having a look? If anyone is interested and it is allowed on the forum I will post the links later. Thanks

Do you think it will look better with a background as in the picture below? A background will show the detail whatever wall it is fixed to and it will protect the delicate bits?

Sorry I should have been clearer, it's an old pattern no longer available, Hobbies of Dereham were the original publishers, The present day Hobbies Company are no longer at Dereham and they don't do these old plans. I have collected a lot of old plans over the last 40 years some were my grandfathers. What amazes me about these old plans were that they were issued every week and supplied with Hobbies weekly magazine, this was in the days before computers or photocopy machines, some one sat in an office and drew these wonderful designs out, that is why I cherish these old plans and like to make the items.

Lol I have actually made two but I am keeping the 2nd one for myself, I give most of my stuff away and have very little for my own wall. You can have a copy of the pattern if you fancy making one.

Here is my latest piece, It has not been varnished yet so is not fully finished. I made this using a Hobbies of Dereham England Design The design is number 1017 and it was published on 10th April 1915 when the First world war was in progress! I reckon that this is the hardest piece I have cut in terms of inside cuts there were over 135 bits to cut out on the main frame! I made this for my daughter for Christmas so I hope she likes it! I could not get a mirror to fit (Hobbies used to sell a special bevelled one in 1915) so I found an old plain mirror and cut one from that. In case anyone is interested I made this from an old plywood kitchen cabinet which I removed over 38 years ago! It was good quality birch plywood but covered with several coats of gloss paint but after scraping this off I has some fairly decent plywood to use.

That looks really detailed, don't think I could do those thin lines.

Really nice work, IMHO lettering is one of the hardest things to cut.

This is another letter rack I made in the past I made 2 versions of this one as you can see from the pictures.

What I mean is that now I have made it I feel that it looks a bit ugly, the wood is a bit thick 1/4" and letter racks of old were usually a little more delicate. It is functional and strong but does not (IMHO) have much finesse. The one below I made 20 years ago and although it's smaller and not so practical I think it looks nicer.

No; it's not an owl or a Deer this time it's a letter rack. I made it up by using some patterns from an old 1911 hobbies plan, the original pattern was for a sort of wall hanging rack, I scanned parts of it into photoshop then turned it into a table standing rack so it is totally unique though I must admit it's not very pretty! No idea what the timber is, it was a large end of a log the colour is like oak but it's not oak it's more tropical timber, possibly was used to make door frames, it is really dense and hard to cut. Sorry the pictures are not good, I found it difficult to get a decent shot of the thing.

I didn't know there was a chat room!

I love making whirligigs and have 5 in my garden at the moment I use all sorts of scrapped items in mine, including bearings from old vacuum cleaners, bit's of rod from old clothes airers and fan blades from thin scrap metal sheets such as old metal shelving sheets. Bit's of Meccano are useful too. I love the books by Anders S Lunde they have inspired me to make my own designs.

I use simple old fashioned water based gum or paste type glue, here in the UK it's sold in the so called pound shops you get 4 longish tubes of the stuff for £1 UKP, it's in a soft squeeze tube about 6" long with a foam cap and it's simple to cover the pattern or wood with the gum, leave for a few mins to dry and after cutting out the pattern can be removed quite easily. If it has fully dried just wet it gently with a small brush and it will come off very quickly then dry with a paper towel or similar. I have been using this method for many years without problems.

I always scan mine to jpg, it is a lossy format but unlike photo's patterns can be saved and compressed quite a lot without effecting their effective use. I like to cut my patterns on a line so with old patterns like Hobbies or Handicraft ones I scan them then open them in photoshop where I remove the heavy colouring and add an outline to cut to. I can also modify the patterns as I wish and take parts of one pattern and mix it with another. you can also repair or replace parts of the pattern that are missing.