Iguanadon

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.

Nicely done Rob. Speaking as a first year newbie at having a booth, you will learn something or realize something each week as you get familiar with how people shop, etc. My 2 cents to you... have a nice variety of items. People enjoy stopping and looking and the more they have to look at, the more likely they are to spot something that clicks for them. I know what my top 10 dog breeds are that I sell, but I put out 45-50 different breeds just because people like to see the wide variety and they challenge me "I bet you don't have a Great Dane!" I bet I do. :-) Same with the zoo animals... I could simply put out the Giraffe and Elephant and sell them all day long, but I have a dozen other animals on display and you never know what will sell as Gordie said... I had someone buy a Piglet this past Saturday... "Oh look at that, my girlfriend absolutely adores pigs, I have to get this for her..." Good luck and have fun. Oh, and P.S. - If I had a dollar for every time someone raved about my items and how amazing they are, but then turn and walk away without buying something, I'd be RICH!!! It's all part of the game. Iggy

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.

Thanks for the input. I had my contractor quote me a price to build a wall to separate my entire shop area from the 2 car bays... I didn't want to go that route, but I have a feeling I'll have to do it. I knew there was a bunch of dust in my shed, but it was amazing how it spread everywhere, covering everything... I simply can't have that occur in the garage.

Closed on the new house Friday and started moving the workshop Saturday. Big step up for Iggy from a hotbox oven (garden shed) to a sizable area in a 2 1/2 car garage. My biggest concern is dust... after seeing how much dust was on EVERYTHING in the shed it really reinforced the need to do everything I can so as not to make a total mess in the garage. So, step one was creating a "cutting area" and I did this by setting my saw up in a corner and hanging plastic around it. This achieves two things actually... it gets rather hot in the garage and this way I can run my portable AC in the enclosed area and keep myself cool while also containing the dust. Last night I ordered a Dust Deputy from Amazon and look forward to setting it up to hopefully suck in a large portion of the dust created from cutting 35-40 of my animal puzzles each week. Here's a snapshot of the enclosure I quickly setup as an initial test yesterday. I call it my Dexter Kill Room. Today's chore was moving everything from the shed into the garage. (The new house is only 3 blocks from the old house). We move in officially this coming Friday after a crew builds a fence for the dogs and paints the interior of the house for us. Any ideas or thoughts are appreciated. Iggy

Here you go, just to totally confuse you even more. I personally like Olson blades. The PGT's are the best but they don't make them in a #3 so I use the Mach Speed. As already mentioned, it's a personal preference and since they're so inexpensive you can try out several varieties until you find what you like best. http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/yhst-16765698503918/2015-scrollchart.pdf

Very nice. I look at intricate items like that and think "There's no way in the world I'd have the patience to finish that."

No magic, I use the bags 8"x11" purchased from Amazon. I have access to power at the farmers market and use a heat gun. I'm about to purchase this so that I will be sure to have power at any and all venues that I'm scheduled to work in the coming months. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EIAADG/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Thanks everyone. I posted this for 2 reasons... to share what I've learned as I've geared up doing these puzzles and to hear suggestions, recommendations and ideas from our village. I'm excited about trying to dip the pieces into mineral oil instead of brushing it on. I'll try that in a couple of weeks after we move into a new house next week. Keep the suggestions coming if anyone sees anywhere that I could improve my process.

Excellent question... transporting was a bit of a challenge at first. I tried standing each one in a box and lining them up like soldiers... but because of the varying body shapes, parts would fall off into the bottom and I had quite a mess and a real big puzzle jumble. Then I came up with this idea, see picture... large plastic tub with "layers" using rigid cardboard as stacking dividers. No more problems. I even had the tub fall over one time and I was amazed there were no broken pieces and everything stayed where it was. Thanks for the info about the oil based finishes... I'd love to be able to dunk the pieces instead of brushing on the oil. I'll definitely give that a try in the near future.

Thanks Rob. With the repositionable adhesive, don't you have to use something to clean/remove the adhesive after removing the pattern? By using the shelf liner paper and gluing the pattern to that, I don't have any residue to remove/clean. Thanks for the idea of the small compressor. I'll look into those... after I use the 12 cans of compressed air I just bought. LOL

Along the same lines as Mr. Ford, one of my favorite books growing up was "Cheaper By The Dozen" A great, fun, true story about an efficiency expert with 12 children. My favorite saying is "If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person, they will find an easier way." I'm the ultimate lazy person. ;-)

Yes, only cutting one at a time due to thickness of wood and using a #3 blade. Stacking wouldn't work in this case. I sell them for $25 each and I donate $5 of that to a dog rescue that my wife and I are members of. I live in a beach/vacation town so I have the luxury of having a fresh, new batch of customers every week.