Bill WIlson

I'll be interested in the replies to this question, as well. I had a similar experience with FD SR 2/0 blades in the past and have exclusively used Olson 2/0 since. I recently tried some #1 FDUR blades and like them a lot. If the 2/0 size is as good as the others, then I'll definitely have to try them out.

Very nice work! You're doing quite well for someone only in the hobby for 2 years. Those aren't easy projects. I've scrolled most of the locally available, domestic hardwoods; cherry, red & white oak, maple, walnut, sassafrass. As for imported woods, I've used a little purpleheart, African mahogany, sapele and of course, plenty of Baltic Birch plywood.

I let the pattern dictate how I cut it. I can't say I have any real hard & fast rules, nor can I claim to be all that consistent. I probably have tendencies, such as I usually will stay on the waste side of the line, but I don't think about them much, so I can't really say they are a rule.

I don't paint a lot, but when I do use acrylic craft paint, I like to apply a quick coat or 2 of shellac first. It seals the wood,prevents grain raising and provides a hard, smooth surface for the paint. This helps minimize the visible brush strokes. Thinning the craft paint a little would help as well, but it will take more coats if you want to get full, opaque color. You mentioned that you have airbrushes. What paint did you use in them for your model railroading? I can't imagine that you could thin acrylic craft paint enough to get it to spray in an airbrush, but not sure what paint works best in them. Have you ever considered using dye? I've been playing around a little using fabric dye lately. It works pretty well. I'm tempted to get an airbrush to try spraying the dye. Up to now, all I've done is dip/soak the piece in a dye bath. I don't really like to spray paint in the house. I have a basement shop and the fumes are unpleasant and linger long enough to dissuade me from doing it, unless it's absolutely necessary. I do spray some clear finishes inside though. I have a very large cardboard box I use. The box is simply 3 large flat pieces of cardboard that are taped together at the corners to make the sides. Having them as separate pieces, loosely taped together allows me to fold it up for storage. I cut an opening in the back piece to which I attached a furnace filter with hot glue. I use 2 other large flat pieces of cardboard as a base, to cover the table and a top. They aren't attached at all to the sides. Again, this allows for easy storage when not in use. I put a fan in the shop window, with a furnace filter covering it to help exhaust the fumes. Behind me, I use another fan to move air through the spray booth and toward the window. The box keeps the overspray contained and the fans help keep the fumes down to a manageable level. I use a lazy susan platform so that I can turn the item and easily get full coverage.

No reason that shouldn't work. I often use plain shellac as a base coat, before painting with acrylic craft paints.

Melanie, The term "hardwood" references the type of tree, as in hardwood (deciduous) vs evergreen. The measure of a wood's hardness typically refers to its resistance to denting and wear and doesn't always necessarily correlate to sheer strength, across the grain. The weakness of cross grain in hard wood is much greater as the stock gets thinner. For example, you could pick up a small, ornament sized circle of 1/8" thick red oak and easily snap it in half, across the grain. You would not be able to readily do so with BB ply, given the nature of its construction. Plywood is made up of a series of wood layers, with the long grain running in opposite directions for each alternating layer. This gives the plywood incredible resistance to breakage, much greater than that of the wood in its natural state. Of course, thicker wood will be much less prone to this breakage, but it is impractical to cut many scrolled projects from 3/4" thick stock.

Melanie, The decision to use BB ply or hardwood is mostly one of personal preference. However, there are some practical considerations to take into account. When using hardwoods, I typically don't go much thinner than say 3/16". Thin hardwoods are pretty fragile, especially in short, cross grain areas. If the pattern is very intricate & detailed, BB ply is often the preferred choice, because you can go with much thinner stock for stack cutting. Personally I think thinner Christmas ornaments look best. Thin BB ply (1/8" or less) will be less prone to breakage than a hardwood of the same thickness. The visual aesthetics of hardwood are hard to beat. The natural appearance of the grain and color are big reasons we like to work with wood. BB ply is pretty bland, but it's well suited for coloring with dyes or paints, if that is what the project calls for. Also, for Christmas ornaments, I find that ones made from the darker woods I love, like cherry and walnut, tend to get lost in the tree. They don't stand out, because they are too dark. BB ply ornaments, with a clear finish, will show up better against the dark green of the tree. So while I prefer the look of natural hardwoods, I've been making most of my ornaments out of BB ply lately for these reasons.

Being proficient with both spiral and straight blades really opens up the entire spectrum of scrolling projects. Spirals are ideal for some projects and straight blades best suited for others. It took us all a little time to learn the specific characteristics and quirks of our blade of choice. It just takes a little more time to learn about the other types.

To Scrappile I generally don't use BLO on projects with a backer. If I did, I would apply the BLO before attaching the backer, but I wouldn't expect the glue to hold. I would probably only do this on small pieces that were getting framed and didn't necessarily need to be glued. There are probably steps you could take to avoid getting oil on the gluing surface of the piece, but it seems like a lot of extra work when there are other alternatives. That's why I advocate using different finishes and choosing a finish not only for appearance but for how it works with the piece, overall.

I use BLO, but not usually as a stand alone finish. You can apply it however you please. Basically you want to flood the piece with the oil, let it soak in, then buff off any excess that may remain on the surface. BLO takes some time to dry. It may feel dry to the touch in a day or so, but conventional wisdom is to allow up to a week before applying any sort of top coat. Heed Dan's warning about spontaneous combustion. The oil dries by oxidation, which generates heat. Balled up rags concentrate the heat which can become great enough to ignite. Always use caution when disposing of BLO soaked rags.

Very nice cutting of a really cool pattern. I love the look of those old, pre-WWII era pick-up trucks.

For scrolling, I prefer Baltic Burch ply. My local Lowes does not carry BB. They have ply with birch veneer, but it isn't BB. I think generally speaking, BB ply has more layers, fewer voids and thicker surface veneer. On the other hand, the grain is pretty bland and sometimes I have to be careful to work around the football patches, but comparing what I can get locally, BB is generally more stable and higher quality. I have a local source for it and I can spend as little or as much as I want there.

Welcome Casey and thank you for your service.

I also use my table saw and radial arm saw, where applicable, to make perfect and consistent straight edges & angles on the outside of projects. While most of these patterns are designed so that they can be cut with only a scroll saw, that doesn't mean that another tool can't be used for some of the operations, if is more accurate and/or efficient.

Well apparently I haven't been following the forums as closely as I should. I think this is something of a travesty and as consumers, we have a right to know what we are buying and have an obligation to support the designers of these patterns. I'm going to make this a topic at our scrollsaw club meeting tomorrow. I want other scrollers to know about this. Maybe if enough people are made aware of it, some pressure can be put on the vendors to change their practice.

I didn't want to hijack the original Buying patterns thread even the thread on Copyright Advice, but I have a related question on the topic. On another scrolling forum, I read a thread that seemed to imply that some commercial scrolling supply and pattern vendors are offering patterns that are very similar to patterns by the original designer, but modified slightly. The implication was that the original designer is not credited with the pattern. From the replies in the thread, it seemed as though this has a practice for some time and more than one vendor is known for doing this. I had no idea such a thing was going on and given the sensitivity to copyrights, I was stunned at the implication that this could be a common practice. I'm being intentionally vague about the specifics, because I don't want to falsely accuse or pass along incorrect information. I'm posting the question here, because this forum generally gets a lot more traffic than the others and I wanted a broader perspective on the issue. I've never heard about this practice in all the years I've been visiting these forums, so does anyone here have knowledge of such a thing?

I buy patterns and other than the sometimes exorbitant prices for shipping, I feel I get my money's worth. Of course, if a free pattern that suits my needs and tastes is available, I'll take advantage, but there are a lot of very talented pattern designers out there selling some great patterns, the likes of which I've not seen anything comparable, available for free. To each his own. What kind of information are you looking for? Most purchased patterns include cutting and assembly (if necessary) instructions. Not sure what the source of the confusion is.

Are we talking about straight blades? If so, depending on the detail and intricacy of the pattern, I will use a #2, #2/0 reverse tooth Olson or maybe a #1 FD/UR. For me, anything larger is more aggressive than necessary for 1/4" thick material. Spirals are a different matter.

Like blade preference, I think this is a something that each user needs to find what works best for them. There are many variables that play into blade speed; material, blade, pattern, feed rate. Run at the speed that gives you the most control of the cut. I'll sometimes change speeds during a cut and I rarely ever run the saw wide open. It all comes down to how comfortable you are with the cut you are making. I don't cut for speed and I cut different types of projects from different material, so I adjust the speed accordingly. Those who specialize in one type of scrolling or cut for production may have a different perspective.

So there is hope for harmony between the top feeders and bottom feeders afterall?

It's interesting to me that within even a relatively small, niche group of hobbiests, there is always a wide variety of perspectives, experiences and methods to how we do things. Being an unabashed and unapologetic bottom feeder, I very much appreciated my Jim Dandy when I had my Dewalt. I would have been loathe to give it up. I never tried any other type, so perhaps I would have like something else better. I did the block of wood thing for a year or so,before I got the Jim Dandy. Would not have wanted to go back to that. I bought the EX-21 earlier this year and like how the top arm stays up by itself and has more clearance than my Dewalt did.

Like you Dick, I've sort of moved away from using the blue painters tape on BB ply, especially for very detailed patterns. Despite painter's tape being easier to remove than regular masking tape, it still is tedious getting all the tiny bits pulled off of a portrait. And I found that if I use mineral spirits with painter's tape, it just gums up the works and leaves a sticky residue that is worse than if I had applied the pattern directly to the wood with spray adhesive. I will occasionally use packing tape to help with lubrication. I believe it does work, but it's benefits are more noticeable in some applications than in others, so I don't use it all the time. Unless I'm working with wood that is particularly prone to burning (line cherry) or harder/thicker than I typically cut, then I don't bother with the tape much at all anymore. I'm going to be cutting some puzzles out of 1/2" ply soon. I may try to experiment using tape on some and not others, to see if I notice much difference.

That certainly is the conventional wisdom and advice that I would agree with. However, I know of one fellow in our scroll saw club who did things a little differently. He joined our club a number of years ago, despite never having used a scroll saw. He had a friend that was in the club and he thought it might be an interesting hobby with which to occupy his retirement free time. So he hung around for awhile, listening and asking questions, but never doing any actual scrolling. He eventually bought a new Dewalt saw, but it was probably a couple years before he ever got it out of the box. His slow start not withstanding, once he started scrolling, he took to it like a fish to water. He bought some Baltic Birch ply and started practicing. For some reason he started out using spirals, I guess mainly because the patterns he liked to practice with were better suited to spiral blades. Each month he had at least 3 or 4 new projects to show on our brag table and the speed with which he developed his skills was astonishing. To this day, several years later and dozens of the most intricate fretwork portraits under his belt, he has yet to use a straight blade. He says that when he finds time, he'll teach himself how to use straight blades. He wants to eventually build some big fretwork clocks. I have no doubt he will, someday.

Actually de-waxed shellac is critical, primarily when used underneath a top coat of polyurethane. Poly doesn't bond well to itself, much less other finishes, so if one is using shellac as a sealer or barrier coat and intend to top coat with poly, then you should use de-waxed shellac. In spite of this one exception, shellac (waxed or de-waxed) is very versatile as a barrier/binder between otherwise incompatible finishes or where oils or stains might bleed through other finishes. To my knowledge, there isn't much of anything that shellac (waxed or de-waxed) won't stick to.

Very nicely done! The inlay is a really nice surprise, when you open the lid. Beautiful!