CharleyL

For my scrollsaw and woodworking patterns, I usually use an old HP laserjet 4 printer. It does a pretty good job on 8 1/2 X 11 paper or sticky backed clear Mylar. For larger work I have a HP 5000 and a HP 5500 wide format inkjet printers that will handle 4' wide paper on rolls that are about 160' long. A little over kill for scroll saw work, but quite handy for doing larger woodworking, or for printing larger or life size photos. For small photos I use an Epson XP-830. or Canon Pixma Pro. Charley

The way my dad used those old Craftsman picture frame corner clamps was to pre-cut the pieces as close to 45 as he could and then assemble the pieces in the clamp. He would then pass a hand saw down through the mitered gap at the corner, which would trim off the offending cuts, making both pieces match, possibly at slightly off of 45 degrees, but they would then fit closely together and form a tight joint, at least at the accuracy of the clamp. He would then glue and staple the joint together. We had quite a few of my dad's picture frames in our house, all made this way. He had very few woodworking tools, and what he had were cheap, but his picture frames always looked great and stayed together. I have the MiterSet jigs that I use for setting the miter gauge on my table saw and I make picture frames and segmented circles and arcs using these gauges to get the perfect angles needed for doing this. One of the jigs sets the miter gauge in 1/2 degree increments to .001 degree accuracy. The other produces the same accuracy, but it's for making segmented circles, where the angles for some of these segment cuts need to be in partial degrees to the third decimal place. These MiterSet jigs are very precise, and made like aerospace hardware. Each comes in it's own foam padded blow molded case. https://miterset.myshopify.com/ I'm just a very satisfied customer.

Wrong end of the Country for me. I don't buy unless I can try, and the air fare would kill the deal. Charley

I always leave mine full, and it's hard wired, but I turn off the breaker when I won't be in the shop. It's a 5 hp 80 gallon unit. Every day that I use it, I open the condensate drain for a few seconds, so I never worry about condensate laying in the bottom of the tank and rusting it. There is a large piece of galv steel pipe with a reducer on each end that forms a collection reservoir in the condensate drain line with a ball valve on the outlet end of it. The drain then goes over and out through the side wall of my compressor shed with an elbow pointing down on the end of it. When I open the ball valve the compressed air in the compressor tank blows the condensate out of this reservoir. It scares the ducks and geese on the lake that's nearby, but I would be happy if it kept them from coming over here anyway. They are filthy buggers. Charley

Do you have an old cell phone around? Some of the better ones can be used to enlarge an image quite well, and even take a picture when ever you want. Make a bracket or purchase one and attach it to your saw. Some of the cell phones work very well for this. Charley

When I moved my Dust Deputy from my shop vac to a re-purposed whole house central vac unit that I had acquired from the neighbors when they remodeled their house, It collapsed the first bucket that I was using almost instantly when a planer shaving partially blocked the end of the hose (I was vacuuming the floor). I had used this same bucket with the Dust Deputy and my shop vac and the shop vac had never done this. The suction level of the central vac was obviously much higher than the shop vac. I studied the situation and realized that the 5 gallon plastic bucket that I was using had ribs around the upper third of the bucket, but no ribs around the lower 2/3. So I stacked 3 buckets together and the top one became the collection bucket. This gave me ribs the full length of the collection bucket and tripled the bucket wall thickness. This solved my collapsing bucket problem and I used the system this way until my son brought me a 20 gallon metal grease barrel. The barrel was already clean inside because the grease comes in a plastic bag inside the barrel. I switched to this metal barrel so I don't have to dump it as often, and my system has been working fine for me ever since. I installed the central vac pipes in the walls of my shop and have inlets located in two places in the shop, one in the shop attic, and one through the outside wall next to the passage door. The 25' hose lets me reach anywhere in my shop and I can take it outside to vacuum my cars and trucks. The strong plastic buckets that I was using came from Firehouse Subs. The chain sells their used pickle buckets for $2 each and the money is donated to the local fire company, so a win-win both ways. These buckets work great, with one exception. Recirculating the air through the dust collector and back into the shop will make the shop smell like a huge dill pickle. Nothing seems to remove this smell from these buckets quickly, although leaving them outside in the Sun with the lids off for about a week seemed to work the best. They are very good, strong, and cheap buckets though. I now have a second Dust Deputy and use it with my shop vac. It doesn't get used often because most of the time I'm using the central vacuum, but there are times when my son or I need a portable vacuum, so the shop vac / Dust Deputy and Firehouse bucket system gets used. It is great not having to clean the shop vac filter or keep replacing the bags. There is never more than a light trace of super fine dust on the collection container of the vac units. The Dust Deputy does a great job of separating out everything else. The central vacuum is vented to the outdoors, so even this micro fine stuff (the dangerous dust) never makes it back into my shop. When possible, we add a hose to the exhaust of the shop vac system and vent it to the outdoors too. Charley

They are still on my saws, but I don't use them myself. I have them there for my students, as some seem to need the hold downs when first learning to scroll saw. It's a safety device for them, until they get used to holding their work down. After that, even they want it out of the way. I just turn them backwards, set them as high as possible, and leave them there, until the next newbie begins using the saw. Charley

I cut it slow, so the blade friction doesn't melt the edge. If you have chipping or cracking, a finer tooth blade will help. Lexan is a better choice than Plexi because it doesn't chip or crack. They make bullet proof windows (much thicker) out of it. Charley

I use the factory stands, but I added pinball machine feet to them. These are round steel feet with a 3" long threaded bolt extending out of the top. The legs of my scroll saw stands already had holes in them, so I just added nuts and washers. These feet are designed with some flex in the foot/bolt connection, so they will sit flat on an uneven surface, and you can level the stand on for non-level floor by adjusting the nuts up or down on the threaded stem bolt. I use these for some of my other machines and tables too, or caster wheels if they need to be moved often.. I get them here. www.pbresource.com Search in "Cabinet Parts" and then "Legs/Levelers and Associated Parts". LEG2 and LEG3 are the part numbers. Both are similar, except for the length and size of the bolt. When you call, say "Hi" to Steve for me. He is a good friend of mine. (this won't get you a discount and I don't get a kick back from your order. I pay the same price when I buy them too). Charley

A photo, touched up and enhanced in Photoshop or a similar program will get you the pattern, but you will need to take a high resolution digital photo with the camera perfectly positioned at right angle to the surface of the pattern for a perfect image with no distortion. The closer you can get to achieving this, the better (life, and photography is never absolutely perfect). Another possibility, if you can do it, is to place this item laying flat on a scanner and scan the image. It will need to be flat against the glass of the scanner to avoid distortion. An image larger than the scanner glass can be scanned in sections to create several partial images, which can then be merged together into one image using Photoshop or a similar program, but with the newer high resolution cameras, it's usually faster and easier to take a photo of it. Charley

+1 Charley

Length wise sanding won't solve your problem. Cross wise sanding should help, but it's a lot more difficult to do. You want the sanding scratches for an edge to catch the grip, not make tiny rails for the grip to slide along. Use a sharpening stone and rub the end of the blade across it to make the cross wise scratches. Don't pull the blade lengthwise. The ends of the set screws get worn. A slight turn of the screw will give you fresh edges to bit into the blade. Look closely at the working end of the set screw and you will see a ring shaped ridge. With a magnifying glass, you will likely also see that this ridge is no longer sharp where the blade has worn it off. Turning the screw will give you a fresh sharp ridge again. After you do this repeatedly it will be time to replace the set screw with a new one. Use blue Locktite on the set screw threads to keep it from turning on it's own. Use only the blue Locktite, never another color or you won't ever be able to turn or remove the set screw again. The blue holds it in position, but lets you change the position when you need to. Charley

I've never had a problem with paraffin wax on my saw blades affecting the finishing of my work, so little stays on the blade anyway, but it fills the pores of the blade metal and makes a smoother blade surface reducing the friction and letting the blade run cooler. A cooler blade lasts longer, It also reduces the problem of the saw dust sticking in the gullets of the teeth, so the blade remains cleaner. For best results, I reapply a little after about about every five minutes of cutting and always before beginning cutting with a new blade. To apply, I just cut into the block of wax a very short distance. Then move it a little side to side and then remove the block. I then rub it against the back edge of the blade. I now use paraffin blocks purchased in the canning section of grocery stores. A box of it will likely last you 20 years, if you don't store it in a high heat area. If you do, it will become one very large block of wax and you will need to saw pieces off of it to use it conveniently. It will still be usable though. I usually loose or give pieces away at trade shows and classes long before I use them up, and I still have about 1/2 of the last box that I bought left. Out of the box each piece is about 2 1/2 X 2 1/2 X 3/4, so I cut each one in half as I need more and then work with just the half piece. Old broken candles work well for this too. I also wax the table of my scroll saw using Johnson's Paste Wax before using the scroll saw each day, It makes the work slide easily on the saw table. I do the same with all of my woodworking tool tables, but do it less often, maybe every month or so, or if I realize that my work isn't sliding as easily as it should. Again, it's never been a problem with finishes on my work caused by this waxing, but I always sand my work as a final step before finishing, so if there is any wax on the surface it will be sanded off. I suppose, if I left a thick layer on the saw table, it might cause problems, but I always apply it, let it dry to a haze, and then wipe off the excess. All it's doing is filling the pores of the metal and making the surface more slippery. A second benefit is that it prevents humidity caused rust from forming on the cast iron tables. It won't do much to prevent rust from heavy condensation or a water leak though. I've been doing both of these practices for about the past 65 years without experiencing any wax caused finishing problems. Charley

Why would you ever want to run at full speed? I run at whatever speed is best for the pattern and blade that I am using. I also run just below the speed that causes burning of the wood being cut. As the blade dulls I run a bit slower to keep from burning and then go back to the slightly higher speed after I replace the blade. If you overheat the blade it will remove the blade temper and the blade will break or dull faster. Keep from overheating the blade and it will last much longer. If the blade is changing color to blue, you are overheating the blade. I also apply paraffin wax frequently to lubricate and cool the blade. At the correct speed I get very little vibration from my DeWalt 788 and go much longer between bearing replacement too. Charley

I get what I use FREE at my local drug store. Pill bottles of the 5+ inch tall size. They give them to me just for asking. Each will comfortably hold about 5 gross with still enough room inside to get one finger in to slide a blade out. Those of you wanting smaller diameter bottles, I guess you don't go through as many blades as I do. Charley

A heat gun works, but a cup of boiling water is safer. You want it more flexible, not melted. Amazon carries short lengths of it, different end pieces, and the pliers to assemble it, but nothing is available for dis-assembly. They recommend bending to the extreme and it will pop apart (but usually never where I plan). Loc-Line is the brand name Charley

Nobody suggested blade tension and this can also be the problem. When compound cutting you need very high blade tension. The blade cannot bow as you are cutting, and it will bow if the tension is not set high. On my Dewalt 788 I usually run about 4 out of the 5 max on the blade tension setting. Bbe very careful not to put any side pressure on the work and apply just enough feeding pressure for the blade to cut. Tiny teeth don't cut very fast, and many expect scroll saws to cut as fast as other woodworking tools. Because of this, they push the wood into the blade way to hard. If the wood is burning, like I can see in the photos, The blade is dull,or you are pushing the blade sideways, or the blade speed is too high. Slow down and concentrate on proper feeding. Scroll sawing is a journey, not a race to completion. Let the blade cut the wood and don't try to feed it harder than the blade teeth can cut the wood. I use a block of paraffin wax and apply it to all four sides of my running blade to lubricate the cut. I do this when changing to a new blade, when beginning the next piece, or whenever I think it might help. It reduces the chances of burning, makes the saw dust fall out of the blade teeth better, and in general just makes the cut go better. Before each session I apply Johnson's Paste Wax to the saw table, let it sit until it gets a haze, and then wipe off the excess with a dry cloth or paper towel. This helps the parts slide around on the table with less friction making movement of the piece much easier. I've never had a project finishing problem because I've waxed the blade and table. I paste wax all of the tables on my tools and even lubricate the ways and slides with it. Saw dust doesn't stick to the wax after it develops a hard surface coating. Petroleum greases collect saw dust constantly and make a huge mess over time. Get rid of the 2 X 4 pine and try some poplar, at least until you figure out how to run the saw. When you do cut pine, look for wood that does not have significant grain lines. As others have said, the blade will deflect as you go from soft to hard to soft areas of the wood making it harder to follow the line. With experience, you will be able to reduce this when you really want to cut pine, but for now don't try to work with it while you are still learning, because it's too hard for you to know what is causing your problems unless you have the experience to know what is happening. Also try to rest your palms on the saw table and just move your fingers to feed and steer the wood. I think you will discover that you can follow the lines much better this way. You can't maintain the proper feeding pressure or steer the wood when trying to push using your whole arms and elbows. Of course you can't always keep your palms on the table because sometimes it takes more effort or larger movements, but get yourself into the habit of just using your fingers for feeding and steering, and I think you will do much better. My students improve quickly once I get them to do this. Charley

Looks pretty good, especially for your first attempt. I tend to use use smaller blades. They cut slower, but the cuts are smoother, resulting in less or no sanding. Sharp turns are less of a problem too. Compound cutting opens up a whole new world of scroll sawing. I have done very little flat work since first getting into compound cutting about 20 years ago. Be careful, it's a very slippery slope. Charley

The best way that I've found to transfer a laser printed image to the wood is to iron it on. The ink from a laser printer is a high temperature wax, so heat melts it. Just print your image on white paper as a mirrored image and then place it face down on the wood. Use tape along one edge so you can hinge the paper up to see the progress, and then apply the iron to the paper. The hot iron will transfer the image to the wood. Inspect the progress frequently and re-heat any spot that didn't transfer well. This works best when you print the image with a very dark setting of the laser printer. Line drawings without background or fill works best. Charley

A good marine quality Poly will protect it for quite a while, but if your stain isn't Sun resistant it will likely fade anyway. You will need to give the sign several coats and then re-coat it every few years. Sun and Weather are very hard on wood and wood finishes. Stick with a good brand marine grade poly and give it a fresh coat frequently and it should last. Wooden boats last years if the right marine poly is used and maintained. The old sailing ships were given coats of boiled linseed oil frequently to preserve them. If the finish wasn't repeated at least annually, the wood was quickly destroyed. Marine grade Poly smells much better, dries harder, and has UV protection ingredients. It's the more modern finish for the wooden parts of boats. Charley

You might try this link for information on compound cutting that I supplied last year. Fox Chapel publishing has several books on compound cutting. Dianna Thompson's books are fantastic. Charley

One thing that I read in the OP's post is that "his blade is bending enough to cut his insert". To me, that says that he is either pushing his work into the blade way too hard, or his blade is not tensioned tight enough and it is bowing backwards, or maybe a combination of both, but the damage that I can see on his insert looks to me like he is pushing the blade sideways, another newbie mistake. Scroll saw blades only cut when the work is pushed away from you and into the front side of the blade and teeth that are facing you, at least when the blade is inserted correctly, and you are not using a spiral blade. You also have to realize that the teeth on the blade are very tiny, and not at all as large as the teeth of the blades on the rest of your woodworking tools. Scroll sawing is a slow and exact process. Don't expect to fly through the cutting process like you do with your other woodworking tools. Concentrate on pushing the work only when you have the line being cut oriented so the blade follows it. You don't have to cut as fast as the blade can cut. You can even pause the cut and leave the saw running for brief periods, then push the work and cut a little further and stop again, or pause while you get the work turned enough to follow the line again. Accuracy is what you should be striving for, not speed. Great results can be achieved if you learn to feed the work into the blade no harder than the tiny blade teeth can cut the material. Smaller blades can cut tighter curves, but have smaller teeth, so they cut slower. An additional plus to using smaller blades is that the finish of the cut is smoother and requires less or no sanding afterward. If your blade is burning the wood your blade is dull, you are running the saw too fast for the material being cut, or you are pushing the work sideways against the side of the blade. It requires practice to learn how to pick the right blade for the work being cut, and how to recognize when you are cutting properly. Learn to rest your palms on the front of the saw table, or that position on your work if it extends over this area of the saw table. Then feed and steer your work into the blade with just your finger tips and not your arms and elbows. You will find that you can follow the lines better and make tighter turns when you master this technique. The only important spot to watch is the line where it is just in front of the blade and steer the work with your fingers so the blade follows the line ,or just to the waste side of the line if you are doing small work. Scroll sawing is a journey, not a destination. You will get to the destination, eventually, but while on the journey concentrate on following the lines as accurately as you can. This isn't easy and requires practice too, but you will get much better at it with lots of practice and patience. Don't hesitate to ask more questions. I'm sure you will have plenty. One of us should be able to answer any question that you may have. We love to help the newbies. Charley

Again, in my opinion a wood shop is no place for any kind of heat source that can ignite saw dust or wood. That's why I suggested that in Northern climates that the heating system be placed in a separate fire safe room with filtered warm air going into the wood shop from there, or a hot water system that circulates the heated water to radiators in the wood shop. Keeping the high temperature heating appliance away from the wood and saw dust. Space heaters like kerosene stoves, wood stoves, electric resistance heaters, etc. all get way too hot and can easily ignite wood and saw dust if used in a wood shop environment. When I lived in the Northeast, my shop had a warm air oil fired furnace, but it was in a separate room where no wood or saw dust existed. The duct work carried the heated air into the shop and the return air to the furnace went through several layers of filtration as it passed through the wall into the room with the furnace. A friend heated his shop with a natural gas furnace in a similar way, but his furnace was a hot water system, again in a separate room, with water pipes running from it to radiators in his shop. In both systems, the fire and high temperature surfaces were separated from the saw dust and wood in the shop by a wall. Nothing in the shop was ever directly exposed to the high temperature of the furnace. Only the warmed air or water went into the shop environment. I have only seen one pellet stove/furnace in my lifetime, because pellet availability isn't very good in the areas on the East Coast where I have lived. I liked the design and automatic features of the pellet stove, but again, I don't like the idea of having any heating appliance in the shop that gets hot enough to ignite wood or saw dust. A pellet furnace that's located in a separate fire safe room with a way to move heated air or water to and from it into the shop is the safe way to heat a wood shop, just as is an oil or gas furnace. Pellet stoves/furnaces, oil furnaces, gas furnaces, and electric resistance furnaces should all be located outside the shop, not in the shop, where wood and saw dust can come into contact with them. The only electric space heater that I think is safe be used in a wood shop is the oil filled radiator type electric space heater, because none of it's outside surface ever gets more than about 130 deg F.. Any other form of space heater that I know of has surfaces that can reach temperatures far above the temperature needed to ignite saw dust and wood, so they do not belong in a wood shop. I own welding and metal working equipment, and none of this ever gets near my wood shop either. It's all in my son's metal pole barn across town from where I live. When I do any metal working I just go there to do that portion of the project, out of the Weather, but with no heating or cooling, other than a few big fans. Charley

My main reason for going with the heat pump is that there is no open flame or high temperature surface in or on it to start a fire. Propane, city gas, wood, and electric resistance heating all have the chance of starting a fire, if adequate space is not maintained between it and the wood or wood dust. To me, they are just not safe in a wood shop environment. A heat pump doesn't get hot enough to cause a fire, and is also a good air conditioner in the Summer so two units, one for heating, and the other for cooling aren't necessary either. I'm retired now, but have been a volunteer fireman and rescue squad member since the age of 18, an EMT II, an arson investigator, and the fire marshal of a 3.8 million sq ft manufacturing facility. I know how fires start and the damage to lives and property that they can cause. Keep your shops as safe from fire as you can, especially if it's attached to or under your home. A wood shop is no place for high temperature heating equipment, It's just too easy for wood and saw dust to come into contact and in a small shop this is nearly impossible to avoid. In Northern climates this is not always possible either, but extra precautions, like putting the furnace in a separate fire safe room with air filtering and ducting of the air to and from it into the shop, or better yet using a boiler type furnace and plumbing to carry heated water to radiators in the shop, is the safer way to go for a complete separation of the high temperature heating appliance and the wood shop. Charley

My 14 X 26 insulated shop is heated and cooled with a 22,000 btu window style heat pump mounted high through the North wall. I've added a high quality pleated furnace filter behind the plastic cover where the original filter had been, so the unit kind of doubles as my shop air filter. A 12 X 20 X 1" furnace filter just fits between the cover and the evaporator coil. I'm in South Central NC, so you will likely need more use of cooling than I do, but it does go above 100 here occasionally. Charley