Iguanadon

Harvey sometimes comes up with new designs and in the package I received from him yesterday there were 3 new Troll patterns. I just finished cutting 1. Too cute. The patterns are available on my site. This one is "Troll3". For the sharp eyed ones of you out there that get it, see if you can spot the couple of minor modifications I made to it.

Hey Jim, yes, solar panels but they just supplement our power usage, not a separate power source unfortunately. Now looking at a whole house generator as some friends here have. With the frequency of storms picking up, just make life more tolerable.

Hey Gang, Thank you so much for thinking of me... We had quite a wild night last night as we had a direct hit from Hurricane Isaias. He decided to spin up a little extra just before landfall and hit the area hard. We're fine, minimal damage in our area with trees down. No damage to the house. We lost power but had it back this morning but about 1/3 of the town still without power unfortunately. I'm in Carolina Beach, you can see it on the right side of the eye as it came ashore.

Yeah Kevin, I agree, I love various grain, colors and variations normally... This one just stood out at me. I debated it for a while but chose to toss this one. Probably the first time that's happened, but I'd hate for a client to open the package and be disappointed.

Even us "veterans" of scrolling have bad weeks. I thought the beginners would appreciate knowing that. I had 2 pieces become trash this week... I was engraving the cat wall hook and I bumped the table and it threw everything off... TRASH #1. Then yesterday I was cutting a custom piece with the dog's name and after I finished and removed the pattern, a minor blemish on the wood that I would never have paid attention to while laying out the patterns, made it look like he had a black eye... TRASH #2. No way I could send that to the customer so I cut another one.

Hey Dragon, be sure to check out all of Harvey's patterns. I sell them for him on my site. Scroll down to the PATTERNS area, $3 each with free download immediately. www.WoodcraftByScott.com

Harvey apparently had too much time on his hands... His newest design was very detailed. I kept the stand as a single piece whereas he drew it to be 3 pieces. I chose to keep it a little more stable. This may be a one of a kind cutting from me, like the Octopus was. LOL

Well done and I had someone recently ask for just the outline without the internal lettering. There's definitely a market for them.

Hey Gary, all is well. Sad that all major craft events cancelled, but my local weekly market is going so at least I have something to do on Saturdays and get to replenish my stock to keep me making sawdust. I hope all is well your way.

For any of my puzzle zombies that aren't subscribed to my You Tube channel, I just did this quick video about minor modifications to Harvey Byler's patterns. https://youtu.be/JKbhJq-Dkvw

Hey Mel, it's the 3500 priced at $190. https://nmclasers.com/shop/ols/categories/laser-engraver I'm still very happy with it for what little I use it for, it can do so much more.

Hey Ralph, I'll just be around home during that time, a good ways south of you unfortunately. I used to vacation in Atlantic Beach a lifetime ago. I hear my ex-wife lives there. If you bump into her... run away.

Yep, overwhelmingly voted for pegs here... Darn purists.

The one with pegs you see above is the first request for pegs. Every customer the past 3 weeks that I've taken an order for, I show them the hooks and the pegs... So far it's about 15 for hooks and 1 for pegs. At this point I hope to use the 600 pegs I bought before I die of old age.

All of my major events may be cancelled, but my local market is up and running and this past Saturday I received 7 custom orders. Here are 5 of them... Engraved names starting to get some traction...

I keep some of mine and take them to events to show to customers... I have a photo of my saw on a banner and then I can show them the blade. It's good for a few ooh's and aah's about how thin it is.

Hey Rolf, in some ways it's a bit worrisome that things are almost back to "normal". Our state (North Carolina) has actually been behind many other states as we just allowed restaurants to open at 50% occupancy 2 days ago. Bars still closed. The weekly craft market opened on time last week but I waited to see how it was going to go. Yesterday went well, I had wipes and used one any time I touched anything I know anyone else had touched. I stayed towards the back of my tent and talked to potential customers from there, giving my "pitch". If I had to step up to the tables I put a mask on. So, you saw from the drone the lake is just a block from the beach. I live a few blocks from the lake. We are 6 blocks from the ocean. Been here coming up on 6 years now and still love it as much as we did the day we arrived.

It's working fine for me if I click on PLAY symbol or on the video itself. Anyone else?

I kind of lost sight of that fact til I watched that video. I sure can't complain.

A friend of mine flew his drone over my local weekly market today and started this video clip at my booth. I definitely need one of these drones. My first event of the year. It was so-so, nothing fabulous and below what I had hoped for a holiday weekend, but hey at least I'm doing markets again. DJI_0028_3.mp4

Hey Kevin, this is why I skipped the first week of the market, I wanted to see how it went. The organizers mandated gloves, but masks were optional, which quite honestly was pretty interesting as gloves don't do a thing unless you change them every time you touch something. However, when I went out there as a shopper the first day, none of the vendors were wearing gloves... very few wore masks. I have come up with how I plan on doing things in the new environment. I will ask that folks not touch any of the puzzles, I'll stand them up, etc if they'd like. I'll stand near the back of my tent at first with my mask down so that I can speak to them, give my "pitch", then I'll slide it on if/when I need to approach any closer. As to payments, I can hold the credit card reader, they can slide their card in. No cross-touching of anything, no signature required. If paying cash, i will have 2 small boxes, one for them to place their money in and if they need change, I'll have another box with 5's and 10's that they can get their change from (with me supervising of course). I'll have sanitizer and wipes for anyone to use as I hand them their purchase. When I get home I will strip down in the garage and drop my clothes in the washing machine and step right into the shower to avoid bringing any cooties home to the wife. Or screw it, I'll just go with this option...

So, I posted side by side pictures of one with the wood pegs and one with the metal hooks and said "Personal preference, which do you prefer, Wood pegs or Metal hooks?" My fellow scroll saw friends leaned towards the pegs but all of my friends/customers said they prefer the metal hooks. LOL We'll see how many people choose the wood pegs when given the option starting this Saturday at my first craft event of the year.

That one shown in the photo is the only one I've done as a test and I hadn't drilled the holes for mounting which I plan on doing same as with the metal hooks.

Hey RJ, just been cutting as all events had been cancelled. My weekly local market started up today but I waited to see how it went, but I'll be there next week. I'll offer both metal and wood options and I'll report back on the results after a few events.

I'm with Kevin I like the look of the metal hooks. The pegs do "blend in" nicer though for sure. Of the dozens of pieces I've sold so far, nobody had asked about a wooden peg option, so I know the metal hooks are liked. It will be interesting when I offer the option now what folks will lean towards. I just ordered 600 pegs so I'm counting on a few people wanting them. I don't even want to think about painting or staining them. I'm too lazy for stuff like that. LOL