CharleyL

Normal Weather changes should not affect them, but rust can. Keep them in a container like a 5 1/2" high pill bottle and/or spray them with WD-40. If you are breaking blades quickly, look closely at your blade grips and the tension setting of your saw. I have had bundles of bad blades, but it's been years since then. It is possible to find a few blades in a batch that break quickly or won't cut straight though. Just try some from a different bundle and chalk the problem up to mass production with inadequate quality control. At $3.65 a dozen, they can't afford much QC on the production line. Charley

Very nice work, Bill. Charley

You put the piece with the row of hols on the two bolts sticking out of the hex shaped piece. Their positions determine the size and The space determines the shape of the oval. A router mounted on the back side of where the three pieces are attached. The pieces act as skids to hold the router base level with the top of the hex piece, which is attached to the center of the board to be cut. The two slots in the hex piece are dovetailed and have mating pieces that slide in these dovetails. The bolts are mounted to these sliding pieces. Clear as mud, huh!II If you see one in motion it explains a lot. There are toys available made like this with a crank handle installed where the router would be. The kids love to crank them and watch the movement of the two dovetailed sliding pieces. Here is a video to watch. He only makes a 1/2 oval, but making the vertical slot twice as long and putting the two slots so they cross in the center of your stock will allow you to make a complete oval. Notice how the two rollers in the separate slots work as he moves the router. There are other Youtube examples. Just do a search for "router oval jig" and you should find them. Charley

Most standard shaped pallets are safe. Just look closely for stamps indicating a treatment or evidence of chemical stains before deciding to use them. Imported pallets should be avoided if you will be sanding the wood from them, but I managed to get several very large machinery crates from Europe that I made a 9' X 12' bicycle barn for my kids from. Only a few pieces of that barn was made from locally sourced lumber. That was about 45 years ago and the last time that I went past my old house it is still being used as a garden tool storage shed. The framing isn't standard 16 or 24 on center, because the framing on the crates wasn't and I used most pieces uncut, but it was a cheap storage place for the bicycles. I bought a small discontinued lot of shingles for it for about 1/3 of what they were normally selling for and had two bundles left. Two gallons of paint on special sale and it was finished,. for less than $50. The kids did the painting. If you want some really good wood from very heavily made pallets, make friends with someone at a printing shop. They get 3' X 4' but sometimes about 2' X 3' pallets with stacks of cut sheets of paper on them, and the pallet wood is all American, usually rough sawn 5 or 6/4 for the tops, but easier to pull the nails out of. The vertical support pieces are frequently 4" X 6" rough sawn red or white oak or pine and the tops can be almost anything domesticly grown. I got some great looking figured cherry, ash, and even black walnut from some of these pallets. You will be doing them a favor by keeping the wood out of their dumpster, but they won't store them for you for very long. Plan on stopping by for the pallets at least two times per week, thank them each time, and take whatever they have saved for you. You can later discard or burn anything that isn't quite up to your standards. You have to be willing to help them get rid of all they have, or they will start putting them in the dumpster again. I once worked for a printing press importer and I brought home every one of these pallets that they emptied. That was 18 years ago and I'm still sometimes using some of the wood from those pallets. As an importer, the company that I worked for only used enough paper to test and demonstrate the presses, so they used much less paper than most printing shops, but I still got 1-2 pallets per week most weeks. Charley

Two of my projects come to mind. Both were made many years ago. The Cross was cut from a single piece of 3/4" Mahogany. Then I carved the vines and leaves back below the surface of the cross. I use a "dentist drill" air powered carver and 1/16" shank bits that I usually use for relief carving. Then I gave the Cross two coats of tung oil, and then applied antique gold Rub N Buff to the leaves. I made this cross almost 20 years ago I've made 16 more since then, but the extended family has consumed every one of them except for this original one and one other that I gave to a very special minister friend. The pattern is from Wildwood Designs. I now have four more of these Crosses in process. They are cut out, but only partially carved. Each one takes me about 14 hours to complete. The dragon "The Keeper Of Time" was also made a long time ago from red oak "pallet wood". There is a horizontal seam running through the clock to make a board wide enough to be able to make him. He took me almost 50 hours to cut, since every line and scale is a saw cut. He is about 3/8" thick and the base for him was made from 3/4"Mahogany. This one is the only one that I have ever made. The pattern came from a Scroll Saw Woodworking and Crafts Magazine. Charley

I also frequently apply wax to my blades. I usually use an old candle or Paraffin wax block and just hold it briefly against each side of the blade while the saw is running and just before cutting. I do it again every few minutes. Paraffin wax is available in grocery stores in 1 lb boxes about the size of a 1 lb block of butter. I think the last box cost me less than $2.00, but it's been a while since I needed to buy any. You will find it where baking and canning supplies are located. Each box contains about 10 blocks. I usually saw each block in half as I need them, to make it easier to use. A box full probably lasts me 4 or more years, and I usually loose the smaller pieces before actually using them up. I have never found that it caused any project finishing problems, so I have never worried about that. I also frequently apply paste wax to my saw table and the bottom of my clamping fixtures to make the work and the clamps slide easier, again with no finishing problems on my projects. Applying it to the cast iron tables of my tools also prevents rust. Charley

I'm not a spiral blade lover, but I do use them occasionally when cutting very small detail areas in fretwork. The new spiral reverse is what I've been using lately, and they are a definite improvement over earlier spirals that I've used. Charley

I've done that with band saw blades, but never tried it on scroll saw blades. I just use smaller blades on the scroll saw. With the band saw, doing this let me cut tighter arcs and I could back the blade out of a stopped cut much easier. Charley

You will do best using Pegas or Flying Dutchman blades, but these have to be ordered. You will likely find Olson blades locally. Most are OK, but you will notice a difference after you have used the Olson blades for a while and then try some of these other two brands. Keep the blades tight and run at a moderate speed.. Scroll saw blades don't last long. You should notice them not cutting so good after about 10 minutes to 1/2 hour. Blades are the cheapest part of scroll sawing, so don't push them past their useful life. A dull blade will over heat and burn your wood. Slow the saw speed down if you experience burning, but if you have been cutting for a while, saw speed isn't likely the problem. It's usually a dull blade. Learning to follow the lines of your pattern accurately, and making smooth curves takes practice. Don't expect perfect results in the beginning. You will get better at it with more experience. Scrolling is a slow process. Don't try to force the wood through the saw. Just give the wood enough pressure to keep it moving forward. Scroll saw blase teeth are tiny and can only hold small amounts of sawdust.. Try to keep light pressure while feeding the wood into the saw and concentrate on using your fingers to feed and steer the wood, and not your arms. Scroll sawing a project is a journey, not a race or destination. Work slowly and concentrate on following the pattern lines. Stopping and changing direction 90 degrees or more is something else that takes practice, and the right saw blade. . Don't get frustrated. You have one of the best saws, so all you need to do now is to learn how to drive it. I usually run 3.5 - 4 on the tension setting, but when replacing the blade, put slight downward pressure of a couple of pounds with one hand on the upper saw arm as you tighten the second blade clamp with the other hand. Doing this will remove any play in the saw mechanism, allowing you to get very repeatable tension settings each time you replace a blade. Always return the tension setting to zero when replacing the blade. Then set the tension after the blade has been locked in place. Patience and accepting the slow speed of scroll sawing is probably the most difficult things for new scroll sawyers to get used to. Let the project be completed whenever it is, instead of trying to meet a time goal. Concentrate on quality rather than speed. We will help you as you progress. The only dumb question is the one that doesn't get asked. If you can post pictures of your work it will help us give you hints for improvement. Charley

Zero clearance inserts wear out quickly on a scroll saw. Playing cards or very thin but rigid plastic work best. Attach them to the saw table with packing tape. The glue cleans off with paint thinner, but wax your table again after cleaning it. Keep your choice thin, so there is no significant "bump" to catch your work on, and make whatever you choose easy to peel off and replace easily, because you will, and quite often.. I've made tops from high pressure laminate, thin Baltic Birch, sheet plastic, etc. and none has worked any better than, or lived much longer than, playing cards. They're cheap too, especially if you have a friend in a casino or someone who plays "Bridge" with the friends or neighbors every week... They don't use cards long before discarding them, even sometimes after just one high dollar poker game. A deck will last you a very long time. One ZCI per week = one deck. = one deck per year (not counting the jokers). Charley

There are many things that can cause blade breakage. We need to know more. 1. How fast are you running the saw? - overheating the blade causes loss of temper and/or brittle spots in the blades. 2. Is the blade too large for the turns you are trying to make? - Binding the blade can break the blade. 3. Adjustment of the blade clamp - a miss adjusted set screw in the blade clamp or clamping the blade while the clamp is tilted front/back angle will result in bending the blade as you increase the tension 4 Poor quality blade - not all blades or brands are equal. There are sometimes defects in even blade bundles from the best manufacturers. Expect to occasionally break blades, for no apparent reason. Sometimes you just find one with a defect in it. 5. Being too aggressive - scroll sawing is a slow process. Only very tiny amounts are being removed with each stroke of the saw. Let the saw do the work and just feed the wood forward enough that it keeps making progress. This is a hobby that takes great patience. Trying to go faster makes errors and breaks blades. Strive for quality and let the project end whenever it's finished, today, tomorrow, or next week. Scroll sawing is a Journey, not a Destination. Do it as good as you possibly can and you will be very proud of it when you finish. I hope this helps. Charley.

Saw setup is very important for this. Be certain that the blade is exactly 90 deg to the table, not just about 90 deg. The easiest way to do this is to cut into a piece of square scrap part way, then pull it back off the blade, keeping the bottom down against the table. Now, slide it around to the back side of the blade so the saw cut that you made is facing toward you, and see if the blade fits easily into the saw cut. On a scroll saw with blade grips similar to a DeWalt 788 (Delta, Porter Cable, Jet) make certain that the blade clamps are holding the blade exactly one end above the other and adjust them by turning the set screw in and out a little bit at a time and then clamping the blade again and again until you can run the saw and not see any side to side movement as it moves up and down. You also want the blade adjusted to be pretty close to the center of the table hole. You also need the blade to be perfectly square with the table in the front to back direction. The DeWalt 788's seem to have an error in their design that puts the lower blade clamp just slightly forward of the upper blade clamp. DeWalt hasn't provided an adjustment for this, but carefully elongating the holes in the end of the lower blade arm (yellow part) will allow you to mount the lower blade mechanism just a little further back. For me, the movement was about 1/16", but it was sufficient. The blade will move slightly forward and back during it's motion and this is normal, but the blade itself needs to be exactly 90 deg front to back with the table as well as being 90 deg side to side with the table. All of this improves your flat cutting quality some, but it makes a huge difference when you are cutting thick pieces and even more improvement when doing compound cutting (3D) like chess pieces. When compound cutting I've found it best to make a clamp from two identical pieces of 3/4 cabinet birch plywood about 3" longer than the object blank that you will be cutting. Clamp or double stick these two pieces together and then drill two clearance holes for 10-32 screws through both at the same time, one near each end. Then use some 10-32 stainless steel all thread ,washers, hex nuts, and wing nuts to assemble these two pieces into a clamp. I place a nut on both sides of one piece of plywood with one piece of all thread through it and tighten the nuts near one end of the all thread. Then I do the same at the hole at the other end of this piece of plywood. The second piece of plywood then just slides onto the long ends of the all thread (may need to enlarge the holes in this piece of wood, but only 1 drill size larger). To the ends of the all thread sticking through this second piece of plywood I then add a washer and a wing nut. The result is an adjustable width clamp to hold opposite sides of your chess piece together as you cut the first side of your chess piece, and then hold all of the loose pieces together after you turn your work 90 degrees and reclamp it to make the second side cuts. When I apply this clamp to my work it's necessary to tighten the wing nuts about as tight as I can make them. Then, as I complete each cut the length of the block, I again tighten the wing nuts, because just removing the thin blade thickness of material will tend to loosen the clamp. Each time that I install this clamp, I make certain that both the clamp and the work bottom side both rest flat against the saw's table top with no rocking due to a miss alignment. Both the work and the clamp must sit flat against the saw table during the cutting. Any rocking will produce errors in the cuts and the meeting points of the cuts in two adjacent sides of your work will not line up. You also have to keep the blade very tight. On the DeWalt 788, this means a setting of 4-4.5 on the blade tension adjustment. You won't need a zero clearance hole in the table, since the clamp holds all of the pieces together and in perfect alignment during the cutting. You can't hold them together accurately enough using just your fingers to keep the pieces together. Of course, it's absolutely necessary to follow the pattern lines very closely too. If you can't follow the pattern lines exactly, your chess piece or other compound cutting will not turn out well. Well, it looks like I've given away all of my secrets to successful compound (3D) cutting. If you do everything that I've just posted, your chess pieces should turn out perfect. I want to see pictures. Good luck, Charley

I don't hold the upper arm down on my DeWalt 788 when tensioning, but I do put some downward pressure on it when tightening the blade clamp, just to get all of the slack out of the mechanism. For tensioning,Before locking in the blade, the tension lever needs to be set to zero. After tightening the blade clamps then tension the blade. I almost always set it to 3.5 - 4 Anything less, and the blade doesn't stay straight enough for what I do, which is mostly compound (3D) cutting. Charley

Most hobby shops sell 18" long brass, copper, and aluminum tubing in many sizes up to about 3/8" Charley

We weren't talking about applying feet, but covering the whole back side with felt.. Applying foot pads is easy. Cutting and applying a cut-to-fit sheet of felt is a whole different problem. Charley

My understanding of copywrite laws tells me not to use any product name or manufacturer name in anything that I make, and not to make images of products without making some small changes in my design that make them different in some way from a photograph or image of the, sort of, copied item. For a car, changing the headlights or slightly elongating the hood lines would be an easy change. It would still look like that car, but would be different enough to be considered an artist rendering of a similar car, and not be a violation of the copywrite, although how much needs to be changed to make a court happy might be a little more. A patented product can also be copied for use by the one making the copy and many copies of it can be made, if it is never sold. A company that I once worked for made copies of a certain piece of test equipment for use within the company and the patent owner could never collect from them, because they never sold the equipment. If you take your product off the market when you receive one of those cease orders, you can send a letter back and try to argue on how much different it is than their company name or product image. You might easily win if you can show the differences, but it's usually not worth the hassle. Just keep the item for your personal use and send them an apology note. Artists are forever copying things in our everyday lives, but changing their image enough to make it just different enough to get past these laws. It's usually referred to as "artist's license" and they get away with it all the time. Charley

I do the same as Scrolling Steve. I don't buy much, but usually buy it from Hobby Lobby with their coupon when I do need some. I have a Hobby Lobby store about a mile (3 miles by road) from me. If you are placing it into a box bottom, dealing with the sticky part and it's desire to stick everywhere except where I wants it to, I cut the piece of felt to size and then just remove about 1/4" of the backer along one edge. Then I position this edge in the box and get it stuck where I want it. Then I fold the felt back and remove the rest of the backer and then slowly and carefully lay the felt down on the box bottom, taking the time to make certain that there are no wrinkles or air bubbles under it as I do. This takes a bit of practice. It doesn't stretch while the backing is on it, but can stretch a little with the backer removed. For the cross, I would carefully cut the shape about an 1/8" smaller than the cross all the way around, and then apply it in a similar manor to the box bottom above, keeping as much of the backer on it as possible as you go. Remove just a little at the top end first, then get it stuck to the cross back side and aligned the way it needs to be, and then slowly work your way down the cross, peeling the backer off from under the felt just before you stick that area to the cross. You will be able to distort the felt slightly in the area between the part that is stuck and the part with the backer still on it, so you will be able to make small position adjustments as you go, but you will not be able to make bigger adjustments. Get it started in position and angled as close to perfect as you can when you start, It will be very difficult to get the felt off if you have to do it over. Charley

Statin drugs don't do this to everyone, but both my sister and I seem to be very sensitive to them. I can only suggest that if you are taking a statin drug and your fingers or other joints seem to be getting stiff or locking up, that you try stopping the drug for a few days to see if your stiffness is relieved any. If it is, stay off of the drug a little longer, like a month, and see if it continues to improve. Then go back on the drug and see if your symptoms gradually get worse again. For me, this has been my absolute best way to be certain that the drug was causing the problem. I went through this each time they tried me on a different drug and each of the statin drugs had the same effect on me with Lipitor being the worst, and Crestor the least hard on me. Like I said before, I am now taking 1/2 of a Crestor pill each evening. If I take a whole pill, I begin to have problems in about 2 months. Cutting back to 1/2 pill is so far keeping my cholesterol levels where they want them and not giving me the side effects. This is also working for my sister. Bruce, The word "Paisy" is a new one on me. I've never heard this word used to describe this symptom before. Charley

I've had trouble with those set screws backing out very slowly over time from heavy use. I now have Blue Loc-Tite on them and haven't had a problem with them since going with the Blue Lok-Tite. Just a simple suggestion to consider. Charley

Bruce, Are you taking any cholesterol controlling drugs like Lipitor, Crestor, etc? I have had problems with all of these drugs to varying extents. In fact, back 14 years ago when I had been on Lipitor for just over a year I began getting very stiff, beginning with the finger problems, but then going though most of the joints in my body. I reached the point where I needed 2 canes to be able to get around. The doctors had no clue what was wrong with me. Then my wife saw where someone on TV had been having similar problems, and they had discovered that Lipitor was causing it. I stopped taking Lipitor and 2 days later I was significantly improved. It took months for me to get back the flexibility in my joints. Since then, the doctors have tried me on almost every available cholesterol lowering drug with similar results (locking fingers, etc.). I'm now taking 1/2 of a Crestor pill every night along with a 400 milligram CO Q 10 (over-the-counter pill) and my cholesterol numbers are about where they want them, with no stiffness in my joints. I'm not a doctor, but I have learned a lot about cholesterol lowering drugs the hard way and what side effects they have. Stiff fingers that seem to lock up sometimes have always been at the beginning of my problems each time they have put me on a new drug for this, but it comes on very slowly over months, so it's difficult to realize what's causing it. For me, just stopping taking the pills for a few days has always been my test to see if this was the cause, and each time it has been. If you are taking any of these "statin" drugs, just try stopping it for a few days to see if .your fingers begin to work well again. If they do, you need to talk to your doctor about it. Charley

I also bought an I-Box jig and haven't looked back. The Freud SBOX8 box joint blade set makes nice clean 1/4 and 3/8" box joint cuts too. I've made and tried a lot of ways to make box joints in the last 50+ years, and this is, by far, the best method that I've ever used. I make a lot of boxes, frequently from Baltic Birch plywood, using this jig and blade combination. It's possible to set the I-Box jig up to make 1/8" box joints, using an 1/8" router bit or saw blade, so very small boxes can be made with it too. The I-Box inventor also created the Lock Miter Master, a gauge that makes it easy to set up a lock miter bit in a router table. I know him personally, but have no connection to him, Incra, or Infinity Tools, other than being a happy customer. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next. Charley

I like that a lot. You put a lot of time into that one, but the result was worth it. I'm kind of partial to trains though, especially steam engines I drive one (see my avatar) :-)) Charley

I like it too, but maybe it would be better to put the light in the star shining down. Just a suggestion to try. It might be better, or not. Charley

Not so easy come, but very quick and easy go. It's a common problem with money. I hope it's nothing serious Ike, but it could be. Good luck with it. Charley

I like to copy and paste into a text file and then save it into a woodworking tips folder. There are several ways to save URL links, but I have discovered that these sometimes fail to bring back the information that you saved the link to. Websites frequently delete posts after a period of inactivity. I lost information from this website that I posted back when I first joined because of this. I tried to reference it in a newer post, but couldn't find or link to it. I'll stick with copying and pasting. It's the safest way. Charley