Mort

Thanks, everybody. Looks like I have Christmas figured out for everybody else, too, if the response is this good.

I took this picture: And carved me a mirror: Its 1/4" mahogany plywood, a piece of cheap crappy mirror glass I had laying around, and boiled linseed oil finish. The picture is our kids when they were a bit younger at Pearrygin Lake in Winthrop, Washington, a couple miles up the road.

Just find an outline of Arkansas, put it into MS Paint, and write your own words. I Googled "Arkansas outline" and found a bunch. And Bob, as they say, is your uncle.

Well, unlike many on this forum, scroll work is not the main focus of my woodworking. Gun to my head, it'd be rustic art, with the various tools being a means to an end. So, with that in mind, here's a few of mine: - Continue completing my shop. I'm a few big tools short (planer, drill press), and a bunch of little stuff away from being pretty well equipped. Since a year ago all I had was a miter saw, I'd say I've come pretty far in a short amount of time. - Complete an extremely high end piece of... something. I live in remote rural area where Wal Mart is pretty much it as far as big shopping goes. I'm tired of cheap, underbuilt, Chinese-made crap. Even if its just an end table, I'd like to build something where my craftsmanship and design is such that people notice it and are impressed, and then later I tell them I built it myself. - Do more charity pieces. I'm kinda stuck on the one I'm doing now, but its not like there's a timeline. Charity pieces would make me feel better about myself, and maybe lead to people wanting to buy stuff from me.

Thanks for all the kind words and advice. I'm still kicking around ideas for this map. I've gotten to the glue-up stage thus far. A map exists of the day-by-day progression of the fire, so I thought about separating the days with a copper wire inlay. I still may do that, but it will be extremely difficult, at least for someone of my beginner skill level. I guess the entire reason I got into wood working was to learn patience, this will certainly do that. A tough part of this project is that I can't sand the surface, because it will ruin a patina that I can't replace. And I can't replace any of the boards, like I can with my normal pallet maps. I did save all the cutoffs for practice, so if anybody has any cool ideas, I'm all ears.

Okay, so this is what I'm dealing with. It was in a scrap pile already, so I don't know what it was, maybe a wheel from an atv. My whole reason for wanting to use aluminum is because I'm trying for mostly fire salvaged materials, and it would contrast nicely with the burned wood of the pallet. You can see now why something as thin as a soda can wouldn't survive. I thought maybe if I could cast this into a thin sheet, I might be able to saw some letters out of it. I saw the Mike's Wood-whatever page has some aluminum cutting blades, I wasn't sure how thick it could be or how many TPI I needed to get a somewhat intricate cut. Here's the work in progress: My house is denoted by the red arrow. To give some sort of scale, its probably 40 miles or so from the top of the map to the bottom.

I'm making a pallet map project (lots of scrolling, I should upload some pictures), and I want to use some scrap aluminum I salvaged from a fire clean up (the map is the day-by-day progression of a devastating wildfire we had this summer). My first thought was to carve the name of the wildfire in the pallet wood (also salvaged from a fire cleanup) and melt the aluminum and pour it into the holes. After watching a few YouTube videos, I came to the conclusion that this was impossible because it would catch my project on fire. Hmm. So what if I were to cast a thin layer of aluminum and saw the letters with my scroll saw? How thin would I need the casting to be? And what blade should I use? Just kicking ideas around, I wouldn't expect any pictures for a while.

Naw, one of the reasons she's a keeper is that she doesn't "not let me do" anything.Her exact quote on something, I think it was buying beer or something like that, was "who cares? You're an adult, you pay your taxes."

Met my wife in a chatroom, oddly enough, but that was probably the last time I was in one. That was over 10 years ago.

Dang, 55? We've had a couple days where it broke 40, I thought about going outside in my t-shirt and shorts.We'll be back to our below freezing norm shortly, according to the weather report.

Weirdest thing I know about was probably sea cucumber. But when I was 13, I stayed overnight in a small rural Chinese village and the host family prepared a huge meal for us. They didn't speak any English, and I didn't speak any Mandarin, and it was probably better that way. Tasted good, though.

I love Thai food, but mostly I get Pad Thai and Cashew Chicken. Maybe that is to Thai food what McDonalds is to American food.

That's what my wife suggested, some marine rope knotted at the end. Might have to find me some of it. Next time I'll do a better job at actually following the plan I had in my head rather than just start cutting stuff.

I don't know about you guys, but I think I was born in the wrong state. I should've been from Hawaii. Its 75 in the winter and 85 in the summer. What could be better than that? The day before Thanksgiving I plowed snow for 11 1/2 hours. That is not how I like to spend my day. Everything is harder when its cold and snowy out. Don't get me wrong, its pretty. But not when you have to live in it.

Well, here's what I came up with. I'm still working on the handle, might have to do something in leather. I tried turning a few, wasn't in love with them. Thanks for the inspiration!

I bet its a lot quicker, especially if you're doing a whole bunch of small pieces.

As a follow-up, I went to my local lumber yard today to pick up a few cedar fence pickets (by the way, rather than buy stuff from a huge conglomeration that outfits their employees in aprons or vests, I like buying stuff from a guy named Larry who waves to you when you drive by him on the road. One advantage to living in a small town), and my buddy Rich who works there says they have all sorts of cut-offs that they'll just give away. Just stop on by, he said. Just make a friend at your local lumber yard. They don't even have to be named Rich or Larry. BTW, he also said they have 1/4" mahogany plywood for $20 a sheet. I might have to pick one up soon.

One question I would have, is the tilting head instead of a tilting table a worthwhile $400 option? Or is there another reason the Excalibur costs so much more?

Congratulations! I'm working on 8 years next summer (an anniversary on 7/7/07 is REALLY easy to remember, which is why I chose it). My in-laws will hit 50 years next year. There is hope for the human race after all.

Great advice on the push blocks. I made a few different styles, one I just traced an old handsaw handle and cut it out of a piece of 1x pine. You can run it over the blade all you want, and when it gets worn down, you just cut out a new one. That way, you don't cut your thumb off, like a former co-worker of mine just did.

I love working in cedar. Its cheap around these parts, and it smells so darn good when you cut it. Fence pickets go for about $1.80 a piece at Hombre Depot for the thin fellers, at my local lumber yard a 7' 3/4" thick picket goes for around $3.

Boy, if I didn't trust your info, I wouldn't believe you. Thing looks like it just came out of the box yesterday, save for a scratch on the back of it. Cuts great.

I may borrow/modify this idea if its alright. I love it! My uncle is the sales manager of a craft brewery in the Seattle area, I bet if I made one and had it displayed in their tasting room, people would want them left and right.

The way he did the inlay was kind of a "why in the heck didn't I think of that?" moment. That may have helped me out yesterday (maybe not).

Just coffee for me, I'm out of eggs. That's alright, less time eating and more time in the workshop.