CharleyL

Gimp should work, but I haven't used it myself. Friends have told me that it works very much like Photoshop. Even the free versions of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements have the capability to do this. Learn any one of them and this is one of the functions that you will use very frequently. I can also very easily make a color photo black and white or make it brown and white like an old photo, combine parts of several photos to make one, etc. Don't always believe what you see in pictures any more. These programs are just toolboxes full of special tools for working on photographs. Learn how to use just the basic tools and you will gain a whole lot of ability to work with your patterns. Charley

I'll take some pictures of the reindeer scraps, but it may be a few days before I can post them. I'll start with the block of wood with the pattern on it, then show what it looks like after the first, or face view, cutting. Then I'll provide a picture of the block of wood after the second, or side view, cut. Then views of the dis-assembly of the cut pieces, kind of one layer at a time. It would be better if I could take a video of the process, but I don't have a working video camera right now. On a few occasions, like when I cut one of the larger sized reindeer for my cousin who had been asking how I cut them. I cut the reindeer for her and then kept all of the scraps together when I finished cutting it. I then applied blue tape to hold it all together with the end of each piece of tape folded to form a pull tab. So she got to "hatch" her reindeer after she had received it. I also sent her the blade that I had used so she could see how small it was. She was quite impressed. Charley

Thanks guys, My clamps are just two strips of 3/4" cabinet birch plywood about 1" wide and 6" long. I have other sizes and some made from solid wood and other materials, but I keep coming back to the ones made like this. They just seem to be strong, yet flexible enough to work the best of any that I've made. After cutting them out I stick the face sides together with double sided tape so they stay aligned with each other. Then I drill a hole through both of them centered and about 3/4" from each end. This hole has to be straight, so a drill press for this is very important. I make the holes large enough so that 8-32 stainless all thread will easily fit through them. I use the stainless all thread because it better resists stretching and bending from repeated use. The 32 threads per inch lets you get significant tightening forces using just your fingers too. I have tried all thread with more coarse threads and different diameters and came back to 8-32, but stainless, because it works the best of what I can buy locally. You can buy 8" long 8-32 stainless all thread from Lowes. It's in the gray metal "hard to find" stainless hardware section. You could just buy one piece and cut it in half if you will just be cutting reindeer, but I leave it full length and buy 2 for each clamp to make the clamps work for a larger variety of work. You will also need 6 flat washers, 6 hex nuts, and 2 wing nuts. All of this except the all thread can be common steel hardware, but stainless will work. It just costs more money. You can use plain steel all thread too, but over time they will stretch and bend. I've been there too. With the two pieces of 3/4" birch ply cut and drilled, I put one end of one piece of the all thread in each hole of one of the pieces of wood, with a nut and washer on each side of the wood. With the all thread just sticking out one side of the wood by about 6 threads and the long end of the all thread sticking out the other.. On this short all thread side of this piece of wood, after the nuts have been tightened, I add a second nut and tighten the two nuts together so they can't loosen. I do the same to the nut on the same side of the other piece of all thread. I then put the other piece of plywood on the long ends of the all thread and add a flat washer and wing nut to each all thread. This will allow you to tighten or loosen the clamp pieces to hold and release the piece of wood that you will be cutting. In use, I drop the project piece of wood with the reindeer or other pattern on it in between the plywood strips with the 1st side to be cut side facing up. I then make certain that the pattern piece and the bottom side of the clamp are flat against the saw table. Then I tighten the wing nuts to attain relatively even and parallel pressure on the pattern block of wood. It has to be tight, about as tight as I can get it using just my thumb and fore finger to turn each wing nut. During cutting, each time you make a top to bottom cut on the reindeer you will be removing wood from the block of wood, making the block of wood a little bit narrower by about the blade thickness, and the clamp will loosen. So the clamp must be tightened or the piece being cut will move. If the cut pieces change position with respect to each other, the reindeer or other item being cut will be ruined. Keep the clamp tight until all cuts have been made to the face pattern. Now that the face pattern has been completely cut, loosen the clamp and rotate the block of wood in the clamp so that the side view is facing up. Make certain that all of the cut pieces are in their correct positions and again tighten the clamp, again making certain that the bottom side of the clamp and the bottom side of the pattern block of wood are even and flat against the saw table as you tighten the clamp, again, as finger tight as you can make it. Now cut the side view pattern, again re-tightening the clamp each time that you make a full length cut that makes the block of wood thinner. When you have finished fully cutting both the front and side patterns, you can turn off the saw and loosen the clamp. Your finished reindeer will be in the center of the pattern block of wood, completely surrounded by the pieces that you cut free, kind of like a chicken inside a shell. All you need to do now is carefully lift the pieces off to find him. The top and bottom center pieces will have the profile of a reindeer, but only the center piece will be a real 3D reindeer shape. All the rest is scrap. Be very careful removing the scrap pieces from around the antlers. They usually don't fall away without coaxing. I made a special, but simple, tool to help with the removal of the scrap between the reindeer's legs and his antlers. It's just a 6" long piece of 1/8" dowel rod that I sharpened to nearly a fine point in a pencil sharpener. A pencil will also work, but it leaves marks on the reindeer. I also use this dowel rod stick to hold down pieces of the pattern while cutting it if the glue fails and a part of the pattern becomes loose. I use Stationery Store rubber cement when compound cutting. Although I occasionally the paper pattern lifts off around the antlers and feet, I can usually hold it down with the dowel rod until I can cut past the loose area. When you cut the same pattern over and over, you can almost see the lines without the pattern anyway. Making these reindeer is quite a challenge when you first start. You may need to make a few before you learn the technique, even if you can cut patterns very accurately.. If you are still having trouble following pattern lines very accurately, you may need to wait until you can, before attempting a compound cut pattern. If it isn't cut nearly perfect, it will very likely be a failure. A side benefit, when doing compound cutting, is that all of the paper pattern ends up attached to the scrap, so you don't need to remove any of it from your reindeer. I've been taking still pictures as I work. Right now I'm making a batch of my smallest 1" high reindeer. They are quite a challenge, even for me., and I make fire wood out of about 1 in every 8 that I cut. My pictures will be of these, because these are what I am cutting now. I cut for about 4 hours total today, and a few hours on Wednesday. Just before I quit for the day I put a wire through the hole that I had drilled through their heads and sprayed them ll with clear gloss lacquer. When they dried I removed them from the wire and added two black eyes and a red nose using black and red marking pens. Then I began the jewelry making part of this, putting rings through their heads and attaching pierced ear hooks. I orient the hooks to make left and right pairs, so that when worn, both reindeer face forward. Then I put each pair on ear ring cards and then into small white cardboard boxes that I bought from Hobby Lobby. All of the rings and ear hooks also came from Hobby Lobby. A 12 mm ring spread open and inserted through the hole in their head and then closed back together, will fit over and around their antlers. Then a small ring, about 4 mm is looped through the hole in the ear hook as well as the 12 mm ring, connecting them all together. Unfortunately, this makes the jewelry hardware almost as long as the reindeer is tall, but it seems to look fine at this length on most adult women and larger teens. I'll be making batches of my larger sizes of reindeer this coming week, but I have a dozen Baltic Birch boxes to make too. I'm also supposed to make some wine gift boxes (kind of a longer than usual shaker candle box) to be given to relatives at Christmas. These have to be made from solid wood and stained, so I've got plenty of work to do beside making reindeer. So I'm quite certain that my record of 426 total reindeer in one Christmas Season will not be broken this year. Charley

When I have a new pattern and want to fill a sheet with multiples of them, I use Adobe Photoshop, because I have it. Any photo processing software should be able to do this. The layers function makes it relatively easy. Layers is a way of putting one image on a kind of clear sheet above your image. If you open a blank 8 1/2 X 11 sheet and also open the image that you want to put on the sheet in the same dots per inch resolution you can click on the image and drag a copy of it onto the blank sheet using the icon with the arrows (the move tool. The program actually puts this image on a clear layer so you can move it around once it's there. Moving the image to the upper left of the page (not too close because there are printing margins to avoid) you can place this image where you want to. There are blue line guides available, both horizontal and vertical, that you can use by dragging them from the top and side ruler scales to wherever you want them. These show on the screen, but don't print out and you can drag as many as you want onto the page and place them anywhere you want to. I usually position these guides on each side, and top and bottom of the first image, then go back to the original pattern thats also still open, click on it again and drag another copy of it onto my page screen and position it next to the first image. Again, each one of these patterns is on a separate invisible layer, so I can go back and move any one of them if I choose to, without affecting any of the others simply by checking the layer that I want to move in the "Layers" toolbox window. I repeat this, adding guides as necessary and adding more copies of the original pattern, until I've filled the page with pattern images. Then I save a copy of this multi layered page image, naming it after the original pattern followed by a space and then X16 or however many of the patterns there are on the page. Photoshops puts up a warning window asking if you really want to save the page with all of the layers. You can flatten the page, putting all of the patterns on one screen and eliminating the layers, but if you do, it will be very difficult to work on or move just one of the patterns on the page without affecting the other. Until you are certain that you won't be making any changes, save the page image with all of the layers. Also remember to save your original pattern image too. Now print out as many pages of your multi layered image as you want. This "layers" thing is a bit mind blowing when you see it or try to use it the first time. Just think about each layer as being an invisible clear sheetr of plastic lying on top of your page, that you can add or change pictures on, or move it around without it affecting any other image layer. The magic of all this is in the software and the computer. If I could make a video of me doing this or if you could look over my shoulder as I did it, you would be doing it yourself in 10 minutes. It's really that easy, once you can see it done. My larger reindeer, the 3" plus size, will only allow me to fit 9 patterns on one 8 1/2 X 11 sheet with quite a bit of waste paper on the right side, but it isn't large enough to get another reindeer pattern on it. My smaller reindeer fit more to a page and are more efficient for page use. I have sheets with compound cut Christmas Ornaments on them where I can fit only 2 ornaments per page. Remember, with compound cutting you always need two images connected side by side, a face image and a side image. You fold this pattern at a right angle between the two images and apply it to two sides of your block of wood. With most ornaments, both images are identical. With the reindeer, you have a face view and a side view. Always keep the two views connected together at this fold line. It's what keeps the two images in alignment with each other. Cut one image with a clamp holding all of the cut pieces together in their original positions. When finished with that view, loosen the clamp carefully, keeping all of the pieces from separating, turn the block so the second image is facing up, and tighten the clamp. Then cut the second side of your pattern. Since the reindeer is inside the middle of the block of wood, you never have to remove the pattern, It all goes in the trash along with the scrap wood, so use any glue that works good. I use Stationery Store Rubber Cement. Sometimes I have a portion of the pattern lift while cutting it, but it's quite infrequent. When it happens I hold it in place with a pencil eraser, my finger, etc. Since I've cut so many reindeer, I can usually do well even if the pattern tears off by just using the image in my head to replace the missing pattern piece and finish the cut without a problem.. Charley

Melanie, Since the end result of compound cutting is actually inside and in the middle of your block of wood that you are compound cutting, you have kind of a "zero clearance insert" in that there is wood all around your final project . Any tear-out from the blade teeth results as the blade exits the wood block and not as it exits your "keeper piece". What you are making when compound cutting is a kind of chicken in an egg, protected on all sides by a kind of shell. What you keep when you are finished is this inside piece, and everything else "the shell" is scrap. You do need to follow your pattern lines very accurately, but with experience you will learn where it isn't so necessary, along with where it must be very accurately cut. Long sweeping curves can be off a little, so long as sharp curves and turning points are kept very accurately cut. In my reindeer pattern, his neck lines and his body sides can be off a little (about 1 blade thickness) as long as the curve is smooth. His antlers too, can be off a little, but his legs must be cut very accurately. When installing the pattern on the wood block, it must be placed so his feet touch the end of the block of wood or he won't stand correctly when he is completed. You must remember to keep the clamp tight and all pieces together in their original positions until the reindeer is completely cut out. The only time that the clamp should be loosened is when it is necessary to rotate the block of wood to cut the side view, but even here, you must keep all of the pieces together and aligned with each other while the clamp is re-tightened. Also, make certain that the clamp as well as the wood being cut is flat against the table as the clamp is tightened. You can cut out a reindeer any way that seems best for you, but I always start at the tip of his right antler on his face view and work clockwise, When I reach the bottom of his foot and exit the wood block, I then tighten the clamp (because even the .009" saw cut is narrowing the block of wood and loosening the clamps). I then cut up, around, and then back down to cut away the wood from between his legs. I then start at his right foot and cut up his right side to the top of his antler and out of the top end of the wood. Again, I tighten the clamp. Then I start at one antler and cut down to his head and back to the tip of the other antler. For the side view I do the same thing and continue around clockwise the same way. I continue around his nose but then around each antler until I reach the starting point at the tip of his right antler before exiting the block of wood, roughly following the original cut line. Once both the face and the side view have been completely cut, you can loosen the clamp and discard the shell pieces, keeping the reindeer in the middle. The pieces of scrap between his antlers are sometimes difficult to remove, so I have created a special tool to help with this. I sharpened the end of a 6" piece of 1/8" diameter dowel rod in my pencil sharpener and use this pointed stick to push these pieces of scrap out from between his antlers. Pushing from the back of his head usually works best. The pieces of scrap between his legs sometimes need a push with this stick too. OK, now I want to see some compound cutting. The same process is followed for each compound cut pattern. Just substitute the name of your pattern for wherever I used the word "Reindeer" above. There are several books out with "compound cutting" or "3D" cutting in the titles. All that I have tried have been good except for one by Frank Pozgai. In his book, several patterns cut OK, but some are woefully incorrect, and I don't think he ever cut them before publishing them. However, patterns that I've tried in any book by Diana Thompson have been great. Her rural mailbox on a stand with the flag up and the door part way open is quite a challenge. Stick to the easier ones before trying this one. It's fun to do, but just wait until you can do good compound cutting on simpler patterns before trying this one. I have made 14 mailboxes so far. Charley

Thanks for all your positive comments, but since I work completely alone, running a camera as well as a scroll saw or other woodworking tools at the same time is quite difficult, My video camera died it's last death several years ago (repaired several times) and I haven't, yet, replaced it. I'll try to take a few still shots showing various stages of the reindeer production process and post them soon. If you try compound cutting and have problems, please post your questions and I'll do my best to answer them. My original reindeer pattern came from www.woodgears.com, because of all of the reindeer patterns that I could find, I like this one best, but I have cleaned up the original pattern a bit to make them easier for me to cut, and came up with four different sizes, the largest being a little over 3 1/4" tall (close to the original pattern size) and the smallest just a little over 1" tall. I also occasionally cut two middle sizes (the Mrs. and teen daughter). The middle sized ones usually get a brooch pin glued to one side of their body so they can be worn. The smallest get a hole drilled through their head just below their antlers and I install a ring and an ear hook, making a pierced ear ring from them. I make them in left/right pairs, so when used, both reindeer face forward. These tiny ones are made from hard maple, because making them from softer woods usually results in them falling apart before I finish cutting them. The other three larger sizes cut Ok using pine or poplar, but I have made some from soft maple and ambrosia maple too. I am making reindeer again for this coming Christmas Season, and I have already given away a few, with my present total count for this year of all sizes being 127. I've lost count, but I am certain that I've made well over 3,000 reindeer since I began making them annually. I never sell anything that I make, so my usual rule for giving one to someone is that they need to help me in some small way during the Christmas Season in order to receive one. Any waitress, cashier, sales person, nurse, doctor, etc. is offered one after they help me in some way. They mostly go to girls and women, because most men want no part of them, unless they too are woodworkers and can appreciate what it takes to make them. Most people have never even seen any compound cut scroll saw work before and think that I carve them. Charley

That was likely my post. I make them every year and give them away during the Christmas Season. My pattern is a cleaned up version of the one on the woodgears.ca website and I make 4 sizes with the smallest about 1" tall, which become ear rings with added jewelry hardware. The middle sizes frequently have pins attached so they can be worn too., I've been doing this for 12 years now. Last year I made and gave away 426 of them. Charley

Look at Steve Good's catalog. He has quite a few relatively easy to make scroll saw projects for first time scrollers. I teach and demonstrate scroll sawing, and quite often start new students on some of his patterns. The "Oven Rack handle is one, this Pot Lid Ducky is another (I usually have them stack cut 2 of these for their first time stacked cuts. But Steve has a bunch of easy patterns that don't take long to make and are perfect for first time students. If the first project turns out OK, then pick one a little harder for the next. Teach her to use her fingers to hold down as well as steer the project, with the heels of her hands resting on the front of the saw table. Most students try to use their elbows and shoulders, which makes it more difficult to make tighter turns and follow curves. Also, she will need to learn that the blade only has teeth on the front and will not cut sideways, no matter how much pressure she applies. Almost every student that I've had seems to want to cut with the side of the blade when they get off the pattern line. Don't just give her a pattern and piece of wood. Show her how to cut by demonstrating how to do it, telling her exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. Even use the same pattern as she will cut, but don't cut any part of the pattern for her. Just use another copy to demonstrate how to do it and only do part of it. Then give her the new piece and set her free. When my students first start cutting, I make them use the power switch on the saw, and I take posession of the foot switch., so I can stop the saw if I see anything wrong or dangerous happening. After their first piece is cut, I usually, but not always, turn the foot switch over to them. It will depend on how comfortable you are about how well they have learned the basics and are working safely. If she has run a sewing machine before, she will become comfortable with the scroll saw very quickly. I would save her first project, then let her cut a few more slightly more difficult and larger pieces and save the last of these. Then, after cutting a few more pieces even more involved, save the last piece. These are the three that she should submit. Scroll sawing takes practice, and you don't become proficient in on day or even one year. Keep the pattern choices relatively simple with only slightly increased difficulty between each one. Don't give her anything with inside cuts until she can follow outside lines and curves fairly well. I had one student that could not make curves well at all. Time after time, she would steer the wrong way when she reached a curve, especially the more gradual curves. She spent about 6 hours cutting, with several time out breaks, before she got past this problem, but she finally did and can now cut simple patterns quite well, but hasn't stayed with scroll sawing, so she will likely need to start over again if she ever decides to continue. Another problem that new scrollers have is that they expect the saw to cut faster, and they push the work into the blade faster than the blade can cut it. It takes them several broken blades before they stop pushing the work so hard. Even my constant coaching about easing up and letting the tiny teeth on the blade do the work. I watch these students, and the one that turns the work backwards very closely, almost 1 on 1, and they don't get the foot peddle until I'm certain that they have changed their ways. Learning to keep their fingers away from the front, cutting side of the blade is another reason why I stay in control, until they stop doing it. Good luck with your training session. Some pick up the techniques very quickly, and some make you wonder how they got their drivers license. My grand daughter was the fastest learner that I've taught yet. She was 7 when I first taught her to use the scroll saw. She is 18 now, and uses every tool in my shop any time she wants to, with the exception of my jointer and table saw. I let her run them, but only while I watch. She does it safely, but grandpa still isn't comfortable. Charley

My shop is heated and cooled with a window mount style heat pump mounted high and through the North wall of my shop. I discovered that 12 X 20 X 1 furnace filters will fit behind the plastic front grille and completely cover the evaporator coil, so now I buy the best quality pleated furnace filters for it and my heat pump now performs well as my shop air filter too. I change this filter about once per month and just looking at it after a month shows that it's doing a very good job. It's trapping some really fine stuff that just changes the color of the filter material. My re-purposed whole house central vacuum with a Dust Deputy ahead of it is vented outside, so anything that gets past the Dust Deputy and the fabric filter inside the central vacuum gets blown outside the shop so I never have to breathe that dust either. This vacuum system is mounted in the attic of my shop because there is no room for it in my crowded shop. It has the central vacuum pipe and inlets in the shop walls so it's all completely out of the shop space. I really have no room for a larger dust collector. I use the central vacuum for every tool except for the Unisaw, Jointer, and planer. My DeWalt 735 planer is never used inside the shop and I have the hose and fabric barrel cover for it that I attach to a plastic 55 gallon barrel (to keep the chips out of the neighbors pool). It works great, if the fabric cover stays on the barrel. The jointer has a chute under it that drops the chips into a small waste container, and the Unisaw collects most of it's sawdust in it's lower cabinet and I shovel it out every couple of months. I added an inlet port to the outside of my shop next to the passage door, so I can vacuum my cars and trucks with it too. The original long hose gets hung from large hooks strategically placed in the shop ceiling when routed from distant tools to one of the shop inlet connections, so it's usually completely out of the way, and only on the floor when I'm vacuuming the shop floor. I think this arrangement is about the best that I can do in my very small 14 X 26' shop. I'm certainly not suffering from "sawdust nose" any more. Charley

When you buy the locking casters, make certain that the lock controls not only the wheel but also the swivel. If you don't lock the swivel the tool will move on you as the caster rotates. BTDT. Buy the right casters the first time and save some money. Charley

I sometimes use a flap sander on larger work, but much of what I make is too small for even that. To deburr/defuzz edges, I frequently use fingernail files, sometimes trimmed narrower to fit in tiny places. A few strokes with the fine grit is usually all that is necessary, if you learn to follow the pattern lines well. Charley

Unless the noise bothers you, I would leave it on. My vacuum is a re-purposed whole house Central Vacuum that came from my neighbor's house when they remodeled.It had a bad control transformer and I replaced it. The vacuum unit is mounted to the wall of the attic above my shop and has an Oneida Dust Deputy separator sitting on the shop made lid of a 20 gallon re-purposed metal grease barrel that my son found for me. I used the central vacuum pipe when I installed it, in the shop walls and shop ceiling, putting an inlet on each side of my shop, one in the attic, and one through my shop wall near the passage door, so I can vacuum my cars and trucks with it too. I have placed hooks along the shop ceiling to let me route the 25' vacuum hose across the ceiling to anywhere that I frequently use it, to my scroll saws, work benches, scroll saws, drill presses, sanders, etc. This system has been so quiet that I've had to add an orange light to the shop ceiling to remind me that it's on. It remains on as long as I am using the tool that it is connected to, and sometimes is on for several hours at a time. The Dust Deputy ahead of the vacuum unit has separated almost all (about 99.9%) of the dust from the air stream, leaving nothing really visible in the collection container of the vacuum unit after 10 or more gallons of dust has been separated by the Dust Deputy. I have to rub the wall of the vacuum's container in order to see my finger mark in the dust, just so I can see how little is left. The exhaust of the vacuum goes to the outdoors, so not even the micro fine dust that may get past the Dust Deputy and the Central Vacuum's internal fabric filter ever gets back into my shop or my lungs.This system is not a true wood shop dust collector, but my shop is small, so this system handles most of my needs except for my table saw, jointer,, planer, chop saw, and routers. If I will be using the the chop saw, routers or sanders for any amount of time I'll hook the hose to them too, but the collection methods on them are not very good. My table saw is a Unisaw, so most of the saw dust from it collects in the base cabinet. The jointer has a chute for the chips that slide out into a small waste container. The planer never gets used inside the shop and has an exhaust hose that empties into a 55 gallon barrel. I always use it outdoors in the parking area of the driveway. The biggest dust problem in my shop are my routers. Even though I connect them to the vacuum system, it is usually only partially effective, but the chips and dust do get cleaned up off the shop floor afterward using the Central Vacuum and Dust Deputy. Charley

When I make ear rings, the wood pieces are never more than about 1" tall and about 1/4" thick and made from hard woods like maple. I finish them with thinned stains sprayed on with an air brush. A piece of wire is threaded through the drilled attachment hole at the top to hold them while spraying, and I usually put about 4 on the same wire, spaced several inches apart so I can completely spray coat each one. After spraying, I place these wires across two boards standing on edge and spaced apart, enough to hold the wires by their ends and keep the parts from touching anything. After the stain is dry, I usually apply a clear lacquer from a rattle can and then let it dry. Sometimes two coats of lacquer is necessary. When completely finished, I remove them from the wires and then attach a small gold or silver ring by spreading it open and inserting he ends into the hole in the wood piece, then close the ring with jewelers pliers. I then attach an ear ring hook of gold or silver to this ring. Since most of the ear rings that I make are directional, I orient them correctly when applying the hooks so that they are in pairs and facing forward when used. It's been amazing how many I can make oriented the wrong way and need to take back apart and turn before re-assembly. Some day I'll develop a method to keep this from happening as I assemble them, but nothing so far has been completely successful. If I was making more than just a few at a time, it would probably become easy to get right the first time. So far, all of the jewelry hardware that I use has come from Hobby Lobby and I have been quite satisfied with it. Charley

You should also make certain that your saw is adjusted so that the blade is truly vertical in both the side to side as well as front to back direction for accurate stack cutting. Side to side adjustment by moving the table is easy. The front to back adjustment is much more difficult on many saws and may not be possible on some saws. The thicker your material, the more important that these adjustments become necessary. On a DeWalt 788 the front to back blade angle requires filing the mounting holes of either the top or bottom yellow arms where the silver blade mechanisms attach. Most often, this is needed on the lower blade arm. Filing the holes so that the silver mechanism can be moved toward the motor by about 1/2 the diameter of the existing hole is usually all that is required. Then re-attach the blade mechanism, slide it back and test the saw for the blade to be at 90 degrees front to back to the table with the blade tensioned using with a small machinists square or 1-2-3 block (a machinists tool consisting of a block of metal that is very accurately ground to be 1" X 2" X 3" in size) You can buy a pair of these blocks on Amazon for less than $20 plus shipping, and they are handy for many kinds of machine adjustments or measurements. You may need to loosen the lower blade mechanism, move it slightly and tighten the bolts several times to get the right position, but the trouble is very worthwhile if you will be stack cutting or compound cutting on the saw. Setting the side to side angle can also be done with a small machinists square or 1-2-3 block and moving the table tilt adjustment until the table is at a perfect 90 degrees to the blade. Don't trust the table tilt scale to get this right. It can be off by several degrees and you need it about as perfect as you can get it. Once the blade is at a perfect 90 degrees to the saw table in both directions you should have no trouble at all sliding your cut pattern out of the waste in either direction. This is the true final test, but it can also fail if the blade tension isn't high enough or you push the work into the blade too hard when cutting, causing the blade to bend under the pressure. Keep the blade tension high and let the blade do the cutting. The tiny blade teeth can only remove a small amount of wood at a time. Feed the work into the blade to keep it cutting but don't force it. Scroll sawing is one of the slowest ways of wood cutting, but it can be very precise and rewarding once you learn the basics, and patience is one of those basics. Charley

Check the eccentric bearing on the end of the motor shaft, and the pivot bolt of the rocker arm. That whole section is a frequent source of vibration problems. The pivot bolt through the rocker arm frequently loosens if not assembled with Blue Loctite. on the bolt threads. On two occasions that I know of, this bolt broke in half. One of these saws was my type 1. The other was someone's saw on this forum, but I don't remember who's saw that it was. Any play at all in the bearings and mechanical connections in this area will cause vibration problems at higher speeds, but this area of the saw seems to be where I have traced my heavy vibration problems to every time . I've only used speeds above 5 for cutting non ferrous metal. I turn the speed down when cutting wood to avoid overheating the blade and burning the cut edge of the wood. When cutting metal, the metal seems to absorb much of the heat and won't burn, so the higher speeds is possible. I have had my 788 apart 5 times since I've owned it and I bought it used, so it may have been apart before I got it. When properly done, this should not be a cause for saw deterioration. That Delta service guy was trying to get more business out of you or sell you a Delta saw.. Charley

I always start cutting the pattern from the middle and work out too, but if cutting something like a circle or oval out of a larger square piece, I will rough cut the outside on my band saw or even on the scroll saw to make manipulating the piece in the scroll saw much easier. It's been a very long time since I made something with an outside oval shape, but I can see where leaving some outer "teeth" to help with gripping an oval or round the part would help. Kudos to you for the idea Jerry. Charley

I have a Collins Coping Foot for my Milwaukee Sabre type saw and have been quite happy with the results that I can get with it. https://collinstool.com/tools/coping-foot/ . When used with a fine tooth blade and a little practice it does a better job than anything else that I've tried and much faster than using a coping saw. I also found that darkening the edge of the mitered cut by just rubbing the side of a pencil lead along the cut line to darken it makes it easier to see exactly where you should be cutting. You wouldn't think that a foot shaped like this would work so well, but it does. You also need to learn to use your miter saw with a jig or fence that holds the crown molding at the correct rrect spring angle (as it would sit on the wall, but upside down, or if cutting it flat, with the 45 miter and head angles set correctly. I prefer to just use a temporary fence to hold the molding at the correct spring angle (but upside down) on the miter saw and just set the saw for the 45 degree, or other angle to match the wall corner. If doing any crown molding for the first time, plan on adding extra length or two of molding into the job, so you can practice, because you will make a few mistakes before getting the miter as well as the cope cuts right. It will also help to watch a few Youtube videos before starting as well. My biggest problem, when first starting, was to remember to treat the table part of the miter saw as if it was the ceiling, basically learning to work upside down to make the cuts. Learning to cope was easy for me, but I've seen others have a tough time learning to do it. For me, darkening the edge with the pencil lead made it much easier. The coping angle isn't important, as long as it removes enough wood so the facing edge matches the abutting molding and the wood behind this edge is removed enough so that none of it prevents the face profile from touching the face profile of the mating piece of molding. Once you understand what a coped joint looks like, learning to cut it becomes much easier. Charley

My biggest complaint with Olsen blades is that they rarely cut straight or anywhere near it. Their "precision ground" blades are better, but even they dull quicker than Flying Dutchman or Pegas blades. I've mostly been buying Flying Dutchman for the past few years. Charley

Leave the vacuum unit on the garage shelf. Just pipe the vacuum line from your saws into the Dust Deputy, even locate the Dust Deputy down on the garage floor or wherever it will be convenient to empty when it is needed, and then run the line from the top of the Dust Deputy up to the vacuum unit, wherever it is. It will then be so much easier and cleaner to empty the bucket under the Dust Deputy than it is to clean the filter bag on your vacuum unit. You will likely never have to clean this filter bag again if you do this. Charley

My previous post was directed to member "rockytime" and his decision to sell his Dust Deputy before even trying to use it. My Dust Deputy was bought used from a commercial wood shop that was closing down. It cost me $35. I had been planning to buy a new Dust Deputy when this one became available, so this was just a cost saving for me. Before getting the Dust Deputy, I had been using the same re-purposed Whole House Vacuum System, but I was having to clean the cloth filter and container of the vacuum unit about once an hour when I was scroll sawing. These Dust Deputy's really work, and are surprising in how efficient they are at separating the dust from the vacuum air stream. Even if you don't vent your vacuum system to the outside, you will see a major improvement in how well your vacuum keeps working at it's peak, long after your filter bag in your vacuum would have been plugged up. I know several people who have Shop Vacs running for hours at a time in their shops and they have done this for several years. The motors in Shop Vacs are a very similar design to the motor in my Central Vacuum System, hand drills, circular saws, etc. except for size. They are all brush type universal motors, and eventually the brushes will wear out in all of them. The bearings may go bad in them too, but most of these motors will last many years before this happens. If you service these motors by cleaning and changing their bearings and brushes before they wear out, they will most likely last a a lifetime. If you fail to do this maintenance, you will be eventually be replacing the motor. Shop Vacs are now designed so that the cooling air for the motor is from the outside of the case and not part of the vacuum / dust air stream. Years ago when vacuum cleaners and shop vacs passed the dirty air stream through the motor to cool it the motors didn't last anywhere near as long as they do now. I know one woodworker who presently has several shop vacs installed under his shop, one for each source of sawdust, and all of them have no filters in them. He vents these shop vacs through over size pipes into the wooded area next to his shop. He can get away with this, but most of us, including me, have close neighbors who wouldn't approve of us doing this with all of our sawdust. The air coming out of my Central Vacuum that I vent outdoors is cleaner than the exhaust from most central vacuums in houses, because the Dust Deputy is removing more than the fabric filter in my vacuum ever did without the Dust Deputy. Since most central vacuums in homes also vent to the outdoors, their micro fine household dust is getting blown outside, where most of mine is not. Charley

I am indeed jealous! How about I trade you a Ryobi with extra sleeves and $100 for it. Actually, I use a Jet it one of the museum shops that I frequently work in, and I love it. Some day, maybe sooner than later, I will kick that Ryobi down the road and get one of these for myself. What a super deal you got. Charley

I made the modification in the video to correct the front to back angle of the blade in my 788, and not to change the aggressiveness of the cut, although it may also help slightly with this. I do mostly compound cutting, so any side to side or front to back blade angle causes problems for me. Ideally, I would like the blade to be exactly 90 degrees to the table in all directions. Because the upper and lower blade arms of a DeWalt 788 and similar designed saws actually move in a slight arc, you can adjust the motor position to move the blade movement range slightly up or down, which may reduce the front to back shifting of the blade slightly , but you can't completely eliminate it in any saw that uses pivoting arms to move the blade. I would own an Eclipse saw, if it was still available, because the blade in it moved perfectly straight up and down. No saw with a swinging arm blade movement can move the blade perfectly straight up and down. There will always be a slight forward - back movement. of the blade as it moves, which is larger in saws with longer blade arms. The Delta Q3 has a "rocking C" blade arm where the blade is attached between the two ends of the C frame and the pivot point of the C is at the back end of the saw. As the C frame pivots up and down, the blade tips forward on the down stroke and backward on the up stroke, making for a very aggressive cut, but this rocking motion also makes it very difficult to do compound cutting in thick materials. However, it is great and much faster cutting than most saws when cutting materials up to about 3/8". Above this thickness, the forward - backward movement at both ends of the blade motion begin to interfere when doing compound cutting So there are saws that do one type of cutting better than others, and it will depend on the type of cutting as to which is best for you and what you make. It will also depend on how well the saw is adjusted. When following the video, all he is doing is adjusting the front-to-back angle of the blade very slightly. If it solves your need...great! Turning the motor slightly will make the blade up and down movement range a little higher or lower. In it's center, the blade movement forward and back will be the least. Move it significantly up or down and you will get more front-to-back blade movement. Again, it depends on what you are cutting as to which setting will be best for you. Charley

I have my Dust Deputy in the attic of my shop. It separates the sawdust from the air just before my re-purposed Whole House Central Vacuum unit that is also in my shop attic next to the Dust Deputy. It would seem like you could mount your Dust Deputy in your garage next to your vacuum in a similar manor. I have emptied the container under my Dust Deputy 4 times since installing it about 2 years ago, and there has never been anything in the central vacuum's container or the fabric filter in the vacuum when I checked them. Most of the sawdust collected is from my two scroll saws, but I also vacuum my drill presses and the smaller debris and sawdust off my shop floor, as well as vacuum my cars and trucks using the original long vacuum hose connected to an outside mounted vacuum port that connects into the line running up to the Dust Deputy. The real plus of having the Dust Deputy in the line ahead of the vacuum is that you never loose suction as the sawdust is collected, because the fabric filter never sees any of the dust. Before adding the Dust Deputy to my system, I could lose 70% of my vacuum flow in just a few hours of scroll sawing because the fabric filter was plugging up. Now, with the Dust Deputy in place I can go months before even checking the vacuum filter and dumping the sawdust from the Dust Deputy container, which I have now replaced with a 20 gallon steel drum. With this steel drum in place, I probably won't need to dump it for a year or more at a time. The exhaust from my vacuum goes outdoors, so even the micro fine dust that might get past the Dust Deputy and the fabric filter in the vacuum never gets back into my shop, and having the vacuum in the attic made it so quiet that I had to mount a light in the shop ceiling to tell me when the vacuum was running. I left it on a few times. Since you already own a Dust Deputy, using it just seems like a no-brainer to me. It's a whole lot easier and less messy to dump a bucket of sawdust than to remove a fabric bag filter, dump it out, and then have to turn it inside out and shake it or blow it out with compressed air to clean it. In your case, the micro fine dust that gets through the filter bag is going to get all over your garage and the cars in the garage. Why not let the Dust Deputy remove most or all of it before it can even get through the filter bag. Charley

I built the box for someone else, who owns the gun. She brought the gun, tried it in the box, and then took the gun and the box with her. I didn't even get the chance to take a photo of the gun in the box. I've been told that the box has received considerable attention when it is taken to the range, though I haven't even seen the box since it left my shop.. Charley

There are quite a few decisions that you need to make before building a box. First decision is "what is the exact size of the largest picture", Second is " how accessible do I want each picture to be"? Third is "how many pictures will need to be stored in the box" and "will space need to be added for more pictures, if so, how many" ? The next decision is " will this box need to be a fine finished box to be put on display in a family area, or just a storage box for safe keeping the photos"? Would you like scroll sawn patterns on the outside of the box? It would be fairly easy to make a Shaker Style Candle Box with a sliding lid almost any size that you might need from Baltic Birch or thin pine boards, but "will this type of box hold the pictures in the way that you want them held and would a plain Baltic Birch or pine box be suitable" ? A photo album is the way most people keep their photos, so they can be shown frequently to friends and family, yet keep them together well protected yet easily displayed without gaining damage or finger marks. Put some deep thought into these questions before deciding on the kind of box and it's size. I make a lot of boxes for keeping my tools and their accessories together. Also quite a few for family needs, and I like to use Baltic Birch because it is so stable. I also like box jointed or dovetail corners, but the box jointed corners work best when making boxes from Baltic Birch. The finished boxes are very strong and can be finished and lined to make them attractive, but the surface wood grain of the Baltic Birch is not very attractive if you are looking to fancy up the appearance. A made from solid wood with interesting grain would be a better choice. A search for photos of wooden boxes on Google will bring up pages of box photos if you need some ideas. Then the size needs to be decided on. Attached are photos of a simple box that I made to hold a 9mm pistol. It is padded well, so when the box is closed the pistol is held in place. I was planning to add a recess in the shape of the pistol, but the customer is always right and wanted it this way. The box was made from 1/2" Baltic Birch with a 1/4" Baltic Birch top and bottom. It has a finish comprised of 1 coat of linseed oil, one coat of clear shellac, two thin coats of Zar Cherry stain, and 3 coats of wipe on polyurethane. All of the hardware came from the local Lowes. This box was a "quickie" and not very fancy. The box, before finishing, probably took me less than 1/2 hour to make, but it's difficult to say exactly because I was making 5 other different size boxes at the time, all were built the same way, but in different sizes. PM me if you have questions, but I'll probably be asking you a bunch of questions too. Think about exactly what you want and look at the Google Images for help deciding. Save copies of the ones that you like or have questions about so you can ask me questions about them and how they are built. But first, figure out how big the box needs to be. Charley