Iguanadon

Sure, a glimpse... here are her hands making me a delicious item called a Bacon Explosion a few years ago...

As always, nicely cut Duke. There are a total of 3 brand new Fairy puzzles that Harvey Byler just sent to me. I haven't had a chance to cut them, so I'll let Duke display them for me and then you can buy the patterns from my site if interested. :-)

Funny, I literally just finished ordering 10 rolls online to be delivered to me. Maybe they'll grab 6 of the rolls from your store.

So... I said I'd never do a 2 day event again unless it's a mega event... and what do I do? I sign up this morning for a THREE day event. LOL This one is 4 blocks from my house and it's a pretty sizable event. Port City Ribfest. This will be the first time our town is hosting it so it's a bit of a crapshoot, but they typically get 10,000-12,000 visitors for it and maybe since it's happening at the beach, maybe it'll draw even more people.

Ha! Good point. Maybe if they word it nicely... "Due to movement during shipping, some settings on your new precision machine may require checking and/or adjusting. This is normal and we encourage you to use this checklist before beginning cutting."

Thanks Dale, I checked that one and it seems to be OK. Now I just need to find the other 82 hidden screws and adjustable things. ;-)

Nice. It was my grand-daughter that got me started scrolling (the kids dinosaurs). Funny story, Mrs. Iggy and I took the little one to lunch one day and we're entertaining her while we wait for our food to be delivered. She was 3 at the time... Grandma is drawing shapes on a piece of paper and asking her what they are... Circle! Square! Diamond! Triangle! Grandma decided then to be a smartass and drew a shape... Wren yells out OCTAGON!!!! She was right... It totally blew us away.

Yeah, a list of "Things to Check and Calibrate" would be nice to have with the saw out of the box. I don't mind adjusting, I just have to know how/what to adjust. There are dozens of little things I wouldn't even know are adjustable. But I've had good luck with my 4 DeWalt's... pull out of the box, bolt onto the stand, slap a blade in it and start cutting.

Update: Using just the set screw in the lower blade holder, I was able to shift the blade over to where it is now plum and my table is accurate at exactly 0 degrees. The set screw was actually rather loose and I think it was working itself out and that's why the blade wobble and my periodic issues with puzzle pieces not sliding in and out was the result. I put a dab of medium strength loctite on the set screw to hold it in place. The blade wobble is now limited to only when the saw is running at full speed. I knock it back a little and there's no wobble. Major improvement. I'll have to give the saw another try in the near future. Now that it's not in my cutting "room" and is just in the garage, I'm going to have to wait for the summer heat to break before I can sit in the main garage and cut. If there are any other adjustments anyone can think of that I should check, let me know.

OK Kevin, and others, you guys may be on to something... I just went out and eyeballed the blade and I can definitely see that it is not perfectly plum. I actually have the table tilted about a full degree to one side. I just figured the scale was off or something when I was setting the blade plum to the table. It appears to be pretty sizable of an angle, now I have to figure out how to compensate for that. I'll look at various set screws etc. Any ideas (along with pictures please) of things to look at or try will be appreciated. SSV is an amazing community. The amount of knowledge and general intelligence is amazing. Thanks for helping poor, dumb Iggy figure out how to fix his saw.

Great news that your Hawk is running well out of the box. I'm very interested in reading your review as you start using it.

Yes, I only have one lower blade holder.

So, here is a section of the layout map from the event. When I received it and reviewed it, I was pretty happy with my location. Near the food trucks and bouncy house... decent foot traffic. But... in reality what happened was I did get some foot traffic from that as expected, however the majority of the shopping foot traffic followed along the red lines, the major rows of vendors, and I got a lot of what I refer to as the "neck crane" passersby... as they're making the turn at the corner, they kind of look over, crane their neck to see "what's down there?" and 90% of the time they turn the corner and just keep walking along the primary row. I think I've also learned a lesson... At some events, on the application, they ask if you want access to electricity and I usually check the box saying yes because I like to be able to shrink wrap any display puzzles that are purchased. But, that then limits the number of places they will place me because only so many vendor spots are near electrical outlets. I need to just say No to that question and be placed in the main vendor area(s). I have other bags that I use with a twist tie for events in which they don't offer electricity and I'd rather have a more prime location.

It was funny Roly, when I received the layout map a few days ahead of the event, I was happy to see 2 food trucks nearby to draw foot traffic over... until I got there yesterday morning and they kicked on their generators. Never again. LOL

I'll be very happy if they decide to stock more puzzles in the gift shop. I hope to hear from them soon saying they sold the ones they bought. :-) No nibbles on the letter names today. I need to figure a way to display them in a way that stands out so they get noticed. I'll experiment over the next few weeks/events.

I cut a 2 day event short by packing up at the end of the day today for a couple of reasons today. Number 1 is that there was supposed to be 2 booths between me and a food vendor, but ended up with nobody between us, which would have been fine, but... he was running a very loud generator for his operations and I had to listen to it for 10 hours and couldn't take it any longer. The venue folks were great, they tried to help by putting bales of hay around it to try to buffer the noise and it helped, but it was still crazy loud and annoying. I told the organizer I wouldn't be back for day 2 and she offered to move me to a new spot, but I kindly declined and she said she'd give me a discount for the booth rental fee at the next event I sign up with them. Sales were "good" today, but not great. If it hadn't been for the director of the plantation house (and stables and farm) where the event was held asking me if I sell wholesale and then buying 8 puzzles to put in her gift shop, today would have been sub-par. And unless it's a mega event... no more 2 day events for Iggy. The 2nd day is always much less in my experience, so it just isn't worth it financially as well as losing an entire weekend. Mrs. Iggy wants to go to it tomorrow to browse and shop, so I'll be a customer for day 2. :-)

Thanks Don, I figure I'll see how much interest there is and adjust pricing as needed. First test, today's event... no interest. :-D

I keep dreaming of that... but my company is foolish enough to pay me way too much so I can't walk away from it. If they get rid of me though... I'll consider it.

She's using Inkscape. She found some You Tube tutorials, watched a few of them the night before last and whipped out these two patterns for me as a test.

It will be all custom orders. I'll display samples and let customers choose their style. If anyone is interested in any, Mrs. Ig can use some practice :-) $5 per name.

Hi Steve, yes, as a matter of fact, that's kind of the next step in the plan is to offer her services to make custom name patterns for $5 each. I really like the JAVIER example with the randomness of the letters. She has a great eye for stuff like that and I think people will be very happy with how she lays out the lettering in each name if they choose that style.

Alright, I'd love everyone's thoughts and feedback. Looking into doing names... my artist for this is... Mrs. Iggy. Orangeman and I were discussing a couple of days ago and I had happened to see a video online recently showing the design being done in Inkscape and Mrs. Iggy is a computer graphic artist so I challenged her to learn how to do it. She watched some tutorial videos and she was off and running. I'm imagining coming up with maybe 6 different style/fonts and offering as a solid piece or as a puzzle. I actually prefer the solid piece option, but since I sell puzzles I figured I'd offer it as an option. I cut these 4 this morning and I plan on displaying them at my 2 day event this weekend and see if there's any interest. Iggy

Yeah Kev, I'm not holding my breath. She's the first one to ever come this far after promising great things. At least she bought 25 puzzles up front. Anything beyond this will be gravy.

Lucky day for Iggy, I came across a bundle of poplar yesterday. I'll be getting some extra cutting done now.

Target shelves... ha! With a little sticker on it that says MADE IN IGGY'S GARAGE I thought about the Hegner and I'd love to test drive one.