Iguanadon

A busy week for Iggy. I worked hard last week cutting a ton of extra dogs for a dog focused event this past Saturday. The good news is I had my best day of sales ever. The bad news, it was only about half of what I had hoped for. We got slammed by a hurricane a week ago and I think a lot of folks are still recovering from it and attendance at the event was less than usual. But that's OK, like I said, it was a new record for me selling 45 pieces. Last night I started goofing around and looking into ecommerce websites and before I knew it, I had one setup... Just in time for the holiday shopping season. Now folks have a way to actually buy and order from me rather than just emailing me. The site is very basic and needs some work but it's a decent start I think. Let me know your thoughts. #1 on my list of things to do is create drop down boxes within each of the puzzle categories so you can actually order a specific breed or animal rather than having to type it in the NOTES field in the cart. www.WoodcraftByScott.com Iggy

Very very nice. I look at beautiful pieces like that and say to myself "I don't have the patience for that." And it's a shame since I like them so much. Thanks for sharing.

Hi Len, Thanks for looking. This was my first summer selling items and in 13 Saturdays at my local Farmers Market I sold a total of 318 puzzles. 155 of them were dogs, almost exactly half. Next best seller were the simple colored dinosaur puzzles, 73 of those. Zoo animals and sea critters combined were another 80. Keep in mind that I live in a tourist/beach community so I have the good fortune to have a fresh batch of potential customers roaming around the market every Saturday. Although I was happy to learn that a good portion of the weekly shoppers were local residents. I'll report back after my big dog rescue fundraiser event this Saturday.

Feel free to check out my Facebook page. http://facebook.com/woodcraftbyscott And attached are a handful of pics. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

I'm a weather geek and two days later I'm still baffled by how my little town, on an island (Carolina Beach, NC), in the path of Matthew, came out virtually unscathed. Go 10 miles inland and the entire eastern half of North Carolina had major flooding with upwards of 10-18" and here I sit, on the coast and we received only 2 1/2 inches with winds under 50mph. Since I didn't even lose power, I was able to devote the entire weekend to cutting dog puzzles in preparation for my long awaited big event, a dog rescue festival coming up this Saturday. At last count I have 55 different breeds that will be available and on display and I currently have 60 duplicates of the more popular breeds cut and shrink wrapped ready to sell. I can only base popularity based on my sales this past summer and I'm sure I'll get flooded with requests for some oddball breed that I would have never thought to stockpile. :-) My most recent task was gathering the pictures of each individual item I've ever made and printing them out and placing them in a photo album to have on hand to show when someone asks for a particular breed of dog that I currently don't have on hand to show/sell them. Wish me luck. I'm still cutting and hope to have a bunch of orders to fulfill next week. Iggy

Well, the Seafood, Jazz and Blues Festival has been postponed til April due to Hurricane Matthew. The good news is that 24 hours ago it looked like the eye of Matthew was going to come directly over my house but as of this morning he is expected to take a sharp right turn at South Carolina and reduce the impact on us dramatically. Still lots of rain and some wind, but nothing like what it was looking like. Now I get to focus on stockpiling for my next event on Oct 15, a dog rescue fundraising event... Iggy Heaven... hundreds of dog enthusiasts getting excited when they see their dog breed on my table. I can't wait.

Thanks everyone for the great information.

I have a vendor friend at the farmers market who makes copper bracelets and he'd like to try cutting some designs in the copper. Here is a similar image of what he makes. http://www.billythetree.com/altJewelryCollection/22842l.jpg What blade is recommended for this? Standard skip tooth blade? #5? I told him I'd be happy to help him test trying this before he invests in a scroll saw, etc. Any suggestions and recommendations are appreciated. Iggy

Harbor Freight has inexpensive tools and for light usage, they're pretty good. I bought one of these with a 20% off coupon and have been happy with it. http://www.harborfreight.com/8-in-5-speed-bench-drill-press-60238.html

Well... it's still several days away, but as of right now it looks like Hurricane Matthew may ruin the festival, for me anyway. Rain forecast for Friday, Saturday and Sunday as Matthew approaches and brushes past us. I can't even set up and try to sell in the rain since water would ruin my items. I keep a tarp with me in the event of a passing shower during the course of an event to cover everything for a period of time, but a total rain-out/washout means I won't even bother setting up. I won't risk having 100 pieces ruined. A lot can change in 5 days when it comes to tracking hurricanes, so I'll continue to watch and will hope I don't get rained out.

Hi Kevin, They're about 9 or 10 inches long and the width varies based on the instrument but roughly 4-7 inches. The patterns fit on a standard sheet of paper, same as the dogs and other animals I make.

The sax is going to be the death of me... what do you want to bet I have 20 people order them... The ultimate happy and sad at the same time. LOL

Thank you. You can get the guitar from Wooden Teddy Bear. Click on SEARCH and type in GUITAR, it'll be on the 2nd page. Two versions, electric or acoustic. All of my items are done by Harvey Byler. I had to contact him directly for a couple of them such as the saxophone and banjo. http://www.woodenteddybearonline.com/x/home.php

Thank you. If I get a chance to make extras next week, I will, but not sure if I'll take them with me. It's a music festival and all day both days and my fear is that these pieces are very delicate and could easily get broken (even though I shrink wrap them) and if someone snapped a piece I'd feel bad and offer to replace it which would mean having to make even more of them. I'll continue to ponder and will decide next week. My big event is the following Saturday the 15th, a dog rescue fundraiser. It's a big thing here with dozens of vendors and dog lovers from all around come. If I don't sell 100 dogs that day I'll be disappointed. :-)

As folks know I focus 100% on animal puzzles and enjoy it very much. I have an event coming up the weekend of Oct 8 and 9, Seafood Jazz and Blues Festival just down the road. Two days of music and food with a "crafters village" for folks like myself. This is my first time doing any event other than the farmers market and I've heard mixed reviews from other vendors that I've spoken with as far as how sales are, but I figure the worst case is that my wife and I get to enjoy a couple days of good music and fun. Anyway, Along with my usual setup I have 5 specialty items that I'm going to display as "Limited Edition" that will need to be ordered and will be at a premium price ($35 each instead of my normal $25). Honestly, a couple of them are a pain in the rump to make due to the detail. The SAXOPHONE being the most intricate and takes me about double the time it does to make any of the animals. Take a peek.

Granted, my work is animals, so variations in colors is somewhat expected, but I personally like that look Paul. You have to get past the "perfect symmetry" idea in your head and let the wood do whatever it does. Just my 2 cents.

I just looked at my spreadsheet... Looks like the Black Lab (7), Dachshund (9) and Shepherd (9) were the best selling dogs, but the Shark (12), Giraffe (12) and Elephant (11) beat them out slightly. So, those are my top 6 selling items and they only account for about 60 of the 300... a VERY broad spectrum of sales obviously with a lot of 1's and 2's of various breeds of dogs. This past Saturday I took the time to count what I had on display and I had 47 different breeds of dogs for folks to see.

Thanks, Heck, I'm doing this along with my full time job. I have another decade or so before I get to enjoy doing this for fun without having to deal with conference calls interrupting my cutting time. ;-)

As the month of September comes to an end along with the end of summer I'm reflecting on what a wild 4 months I've had. Yesterday was my 13th Saturday at the local Farmers Market (my only venue for selling, 5 hours in duration each Saturday) and I sold my 300th animal puzzle. I say it's a bit mind boggling because it was just 4 months ago that I found the patterns for the dog puzzles online and started cutting some for fun and next thing I know I have a booth and am averaging selling 24 each Saturday. The farmers market comes to an end next Saturday but I have events lined up in October and November that should keep me busy thru Christmas and then I'll spend the winter months cutting and stockpiling my top 15 selling items. As I always like to mention, I wouldn't have been nearly as successful without the support, ideas, recommendations and broad knowledge from everyone here on this board. Thank you all. I look forward to wherever my scroll saw takes me in the coming year. Iggy

I found Mr. Byler's patterns in May and absolutely fell in love with them and that's all I do now, focusing on the dogs but also doing the sea animals and what I call the zoo animals. You can see my work here... www.facebook.com/woodcraftbyscott As long as your blade is at a perfect 90 degree angle with your table, the puzzle pieces will slide together well. However, if you're using a dense or hard wood, you have to be careful about putting pressure on the blade as you're feeding the wood in order to avoid flexing the blade which could cause issues. As you practice, you'll get the feel for it.

HI Stella, those patterns are by Harvey Byler and he only sells them through Wooden Teddy Bear online and unfortunately they only distribute them by mailing a hard copy.

Hi Gang, An update: Moved into the new house almost 2 weeks ago (the day tropical storm Hermine was passing overhead) and the shop is taking shape although a lot of work still to do. I got back to cutting this past Sunday and I had ordered a gallon of mineral oil so that I could try dipping/dunking the finished pieces rather than brushing on the butcher block conditioner/oil as I had been doing. It's FANTASTIC! Wow, what a huge time saver. I did my first batch yesterday and let them sit overnight and this morning I didn't even have to bother wiping off any excess residue. What used to take me 10 minutes per animal now takes me 10 seconds. Dunk it, sit it, leave it. I'm even able to dip the entire animal, assembled. Shake off the excess oil, then set it aside to dry/soak in overnight. This is a huge improvement in my process. I'm now down to 30 minutes per puzzle from layout to completion. I'm going to keep track of how many animals I get per gallon of oil. It should be at least 200, maybe even 300 if I had to guess, which means the cost per puzzle would be as low as 8 cents. PS, my plastic enclosed cutting area is working well so far. I haven't even hooked up the Shopvac/Dust Deputy. The dust is piling up in the enclosed area, which is fine, but I don't see that any of it is escaping into the rest of the garage. Yet. We'll see. Iggy

Hi Troy, mine does that on occasion, only raising about 1/2 way and as you mentioned, I simply tap my foot pedal for a second and then it will raise up all the way. Not sure what causes it though.

As already stated, blade needs to be perpendicular, exactly 90 degrees and try not to put any pressure (flex) on the blade as you're cutting or your pieces will only slide out in one direction if using thick stock. I use 3/4" poplar with a #3 blade for my animal puzzles which I then coat with mineral oil and I use 3/4" pine with a #7 blade for my dinosaurs because I dip them in watered down paint to add color and it makes the wood swell slightly.

I just received mine and will be getting it rigged up this week. Glad to hear it's working well for you.