Old Joe

I made a lot of Christmas presents this year and thought I show a couple, and also one other project that I made this week. The first one is “The Pitch” from Scrollsaw Mag. The 2nd one is from Steve Good. They were for my grandsons. The 3rd one was for my policeman son in law. The 4th one is from a George Harrison album cover and the picture is 90 degrees off axis, but it is BB inlaid with Paduck. The last is a 2” Kokopelli figure and sun cut relief style out of one piece of BB, stained, then mounted to a 2nd piece.

Super! Mario Brothers always reminded me of real life with the wife in that you work your tail off filling the bucket with tokens from doing nice deeds, only to have the whole bucket dumped out for one little screwup!

That’s high on the wow factor!

Sensational! I thought about doing this when I saw it from Steve, but I have got a bit too much on my plate right now.

I still order my FD from Mike’s. My last order came in 3 days. My last Pegas order I used D&D and got my blades in about 3 or 4 days. I have ordered from Bear twice and both times it took over two weeks. (I prefer FD UZ Ultra Reverse and FD standard Reverse for most of my cutting). I like dealing with Mike’s.

Thanks, Alex.You being the designer can identify how much more difficult it is to cut it 25% smaller than your suggested size. I was too lazy to figure how to resize it onto two pages from my printer. This was actually the fourth pattern of yours that I have shrunk for the same reason.I kind of like the smaller size and have gotten used to cutting them like that.

Nice work!

I made it even harder on myself. Alex suggests making it 12”x12” but I just made it as large as I could on a standard printer letter size paper- 9” 1/8” square.

Alex Fox’s Wolves. 366 cuts. BB oiled, mounted on 1” Poplar stained with True Black. Alex says on his pattern page that this one is rated as intermediate level. I may not ever reach his advanced level. I found this one to be pretty challenging.

I have a selection of spiral blades. They remind me of a bunch of lures in my tackle box. I rarely use them, though I do occasionally. I have played around with them, but I really just prefer flat blades, primarily scroll reverse, mostly #3’s, and if truth be told, I like Flying Dutchman over Pegas, have little use for Olson, and I work with a wide variety of hardwoods and Baltic Birch. Just my preference. That said, work with what you feel comfortable with, which is my advice with lures, too. If you have a negative attitude about green plastic worms then you will get worse results than your results with your favorite black worm because you fish It differently and less patiently. Same with scrollsaw’s blades.

Nicely done!

Alex, Seriously, I thank you so very much for your patterns. They make me look better than I am. You are the real artist. I am just a lowly craftsman who gets along with his tools.

I built a deck for someone out of Ipe a few years back. Every screw and nail had to be pre-drilled. The client wanted it stained against our advice. The near $100 per gallon stain, plus a pre-staintook okay, but that stuff doesn’t rot and will develop a beautiful natural patina if left to age. We had to custom make rails for a non-standard angle for the stairs and it was a challenge. It made for a pretty deck!

I have done several of Alex Fox fretwork patterns and several of his baskets. Between the many zigs and zags, and the often close bridges, I think he is a very mean man! (Just joking, but many of his patterns are challenging !).

John, it’s a funny thing. I put this up on Lumberjocks the other day and I got a letter from a well known member on there yesterday that really liked this piece. He makes really nice bowls and asked if I would be interested in swapping the cat for a couple of his bowls. I told him that I might be later, but that I had just finished this and my wife wanted to keep this one around for a while. We agreed to do a rain check.I did put a fair amount of time into this one and if I sold it for cash I would want a fair price, otherwise I’d keep it, barter it, or gift it. Thank all of you for your kind compliments. It’s always nice when other terrific artists/craftspeople like you folks appreciate one’s efforts.

Very cool!

I’m going to answer you, km, and JT in one post. JT, I have a spindle sander, but will use the drill press occasionally for small projects as I had for years before I had dedicated sanders. My Delta drill has a reputation for developing that wobble. I think it’s an inherent design/manufacturing flaw. KM, I consider the Grizzly a vast improvement to the Dremel plunge router for getting perfectly straight holes. And easier to deal with, though in large projects, as you mentioned, there can be an issue with the center.

I think of it as being more like a small Wen press but a little more substantial.I really like the small footprint of this one. I have a full sized Delta tabletop, but it has developed a slight wobble in the chuck that hasn’t gotten bad enough for me to deal with, but is on my list.

I just finished an Alex Fox pattern with 330 cuts and I just wanted to share with you folks how much easier my scrolling life has been since I added a Grizzly Baby Drill Press to my shop a while back.This drill is very versatile, and though I have a full size Delta, a couple of Dremel contraptions, the Grizzly has become my go to unit for scrolling. It takes the tiniest micro bit, yet I also use it with sanding drums and Forstner bits. My only minor complaint is the depth control, though accurate, is a bit tedious to set. Unfortunately, the price is now about $20 more than I paid earlier this year, but it is still worthwhile, IMHO. Check it out:http://www.grizzly.com/products/Grizzly-5-Speed-Baby-Drill-Press/G7942?iparcelcountry=US&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIm9DyjNG_3gIVgVqGCh3VJQqMEAQYASABEgLY3vD_BwE

Thanks, Charlie. It’s 8 1/2” x 11.”

I just finished this Alex Fox pattern. 330 cuts, Baltic Birch Natural Danish oil, mounted on 3/4” Poplar board stained about as dark as I could get it. I may move on to ornaments, or baskets, or maybe boxes for awhile.

I don’t like conventional frames for fretwork and if possible I cut a backboard of ideally 1” stock, but will settle for nominal (3/4”) 1” stock. I feel that for many portraits they display better without being enclosed in a frame. I also virtually always rout out a keyhole slot for hanging them.

Great, and varied advice, folks! Personally, I usually pre-drill all of the holes, start cutting in the center and work my way out. Ithink it’s kind of fun to look at them from the back as I go along.

Fantastic project and impressive workmanship!

Thank you all for your compliments, and for sharing your experiences and advice regarding selling detailed portraits and other scrollsaw pieces. I don’t really get much joy from stack cutting ornaments, and the thought of trying to stack cut four of some of Alex Fox’s patterns is daunting to me. This one pictured here would be challenging to get a blade through the micro holes on multiple layers of wood, but the Girl With the Violin has fretwork with some bridges that are not any thicker than the blade. As to the cost of the wood, I buy Baltic Birch in 5’ square sheets at a pretty low price, but virtually all of my fretwork is mounted on true 1” hardwood, or occasionally 1” nominal. The backs all have keyhole slots routed into them and a personalized Steve Good “Hand Crafted”coin inlaid in the back, giving them an overall professional finish.I literally would rather give them away as gifts than to sell them for too cheap. That said a local gift shop was interested in selling some of my bud vases but they only wanted the most simple designs. The thought of sitting at my saw knocking out dozens of the same vase has no appeal to me. But, getting back to topic, I have been getting folks asking me a price for both the fretwork portraits and the vases and I just don’t know where to begin to set a price.