scrimper

Sadly this is the only piece of fretwork that my grandfather did that remains but I know of other things he made. I have the picture below that shows my father using my grandfathers Hobbies Imperial Fretsaw, I don't know the exact date but estimate it to be between 1924-1927.

Lol no he wasn't Dutch, for some reason (I have no idea why) both Hobbies and Handicrafts often offered patterns with a Dutch theme, perhaps their designers liked windmills! Lol

The design came from either Hobbies or Handicrafts it was sold as a wooden greetings card. Annoyingly only a few days ago I was browsing through my old magazines and I saw a page with this and other similar designs on, I don't mean the actual design but a page advertising them. I can't remember whether it was a Hobbies or handicrafts magazine. I will find it again in due course. I have hundreds of old patterns some of which are in very poor condition that I am trying to resurrect and save. My ambition is to put them on-line so that others can save them too and the patterns won't die. We have to remember that in those days they did not have copiers or anything and patterns were often pasted on the wood for cutting thus sacrificing the original pattern, My father always used carbon paper and traced the pattern on the wood to keep the pattern but some designs were so complex that was not feasible. I imagine too a lot of patterns were probably destroyed in the two world wars or perhaps a young fretworker went off to fight and never returned thus his patterns might have been scrapped by relatives with little interest in fretwork. Some of the old patterns I have may be the only ones? What is needed is some sort of online pattern library where patterns could be saved for posterity.

(This might be a bit boring to you, I wanted to share the picture but felt I ought to explain the story behind it. I apologise in advance if this is not the place to post this.) My grandfather was a very keen Fretworker, he actually taught Fretwork in his local town to youngsters who wanted to learn what was a craze in those days. He made lots of items inc the exquisite Handicrafts Lords Prayer design and a huge model of Nelsons column, all of these have disappeared and I only have one small item that he made which is illustrated below. This small item was made by my grandfather around 100 years ago using a treadle fretsaw, it was kept hidden away by my father for over 60+ years who gave it to me to keep just before he died at the age of 93. I only knew my grandfather in his older years, he suffered badly in WW1, he suffered with shell shock and fever whilst fighting on the Somme, my dad who also did fretwork served 5 years in WW2, so in comparison I feel I have been lucky not to have been sent away to fight. I know it's not much but it is very precious to me and hopefully my grandson will treasure this one day.

I am not religious but in my opinion the very best thing you can give is just being there. Sounds strange but a lot of people are not present at their parents funerals. No matter how old your parents are nor even if there passing is expected it is still a big shock.

Regarding the ears, I have to come clean, the ears are down but on the pattern there is a very tiny cut out to show the ear however I thought no one would notice and left it out (as I did 50 yrs ago) But if I am honest after I had finished it I did notice!

I made this nativity item for the wife and ended up having to make six more for family members who seemed to like it. I think I found the pattern in a book somewhere? (I made them last year but only just got round to taking a picture) The purple background is cellophane which shows the item up well when a light source is behind, another way I did it was to use the cellophane and place some kitchen foil behind then a wooden backing, this way it reflects light in an interesting pattern. (The one shown here has the solid backing) It's just bare wood, I did not apply any finish

Recently made this gamekeeper bracket from an old Hobbies pattern, I know it's not very exciting but the reason I made it was that 50 years ago when I was a young lad I made the same item from the same pattern using a Hand frame and a bit of old plywood from a tea chest. I still have that item in my workshop and I wanted to remake it using some better timber. In case anyone asks yes I do still have the same pattern that I used 50 odd years ago,(I have kept all of my old patterns) in the days before printers and copiers we used carbon paper and traced the pattern onto the timber to save the pattern. The main difference in my quality of cutting then to now is that I can now do the lettering a bit neater than I used to, probably more to do with the fact that I now use a Hegner rather than a hand-frame than any improvement in ability!

That is really nice and I bet difficult to cut in thick material?

Very good work. I find that lettering is one of the hardest things to cut, it has to be cut perfectly (as here) or it spoils a piece.

I really like these.

That is just fantastic and my kind of fretwork. Excellent work

Very nice it is too!

I think they are referring to Scroll saw woodworking and crafts magazine. http://www.scrollsawer.com/

Thanks, FWIW I am not going into competition with you or anything, I was just interested.

Hi all, Anyone have any advice on finishing these plaques, I am hopeless at doing a finish. What I have in mind is using a water based matt clear varnish.

I have to say that fairly recently I decided to try FD blades after always using the Niqua brand for over 30 years and I have had a lot of breakages too. I am not the only one, in another Scrollsaw forum I am a member of (UK) quite a few there have reported breakages recently with FD blades. Understandably we all have blades break from time to time but some of the FD blades seems to break one after the other whilst the Niqua blades only need changing when blunt. I assume there must have been a bad batch.

Very nice, I have never tried to do these portraits, they look to be hard to do.

I love that little chap in picture number 9

They look good especially all hanging out together. Don't answer if you don't want to but just as a matter of interest what do you charge for them? I have no idea what people would pay, I have never sold any of my stuff.

Have to be honest If it hadn't been highlighted as a mistake I don't think I would have noticed. I bet a lot of folk wouldn't either.

Many thanks for the kind comments, in fairness they look better in the pictures than they do in real life!

(I am a bit dubious of posting this after seeing all the fine work here but thought I would give it a try anyway) So here goes -- Just finished cutting these brackets, one is made from mahogany with the cyclist overlay in Maple. The mahogany panel is made from 4 strips joined edge to edge making a 10 1/2" panel to cut the bracket from. The maple was just a short off-cut found in a skip from a kitchen fit I ripped it edgeways to make three 1/8" small panels and cut the cyclists from this. The second panel is cut from 3mm birch plywood which came off an old wardrobe that I broke up. I haven't applied any finish yet but I may just use water based clear varnish, (any other suggestions welcome). The coloured backgrounds are not definite yet, they are just being tried out and not fixed. The brackets are approx 10" high and 11" wide, strangely enough the part I found most difficult to cut are the 7 round holes in the corners! I cut these with the saw but when doing so wished that I had used a drill bit instead!

TBH I imagine that most of us suffer more damage to our bodies due to unseen particles that are emitted from motor vehicles that we breathe in rather than sawdust from our scroll saws! However you are correct breathing in sawdust is best avoided if possible. I always feel that my scroll saw is the least likely machine to cause me problems?

I have to admit that whilst I use dust collection on all of my other woodworking machines I don't on my Fretsaws, I use a blower to keep the line free of saw dust and that's about it, I did set up the (supplied) suction device on my Hegner but did not find it very effective and went back to the blower!