Rolf

Thank you Travis!

Somthing is very wrong if you are breaking a #9 blade in Pine. You did not say what saw you are using. Also if the clamp is not set correctly or the screw has an edge it may be nicking the blade. Lots of possibilities.

I get all of my sanding supplies from Klingspore. Now that I am using a Festool RO, their disks are insane and have a different hole pattern. I have been very pleased with Klingspore disks that fit the Festool for a reasonable price.

Can you clarify the movement? A picture would help.

Ike, did you mean EX-21?

I agree with the direct shipments from China. Besides the quality issues I hate the long delivery times. I did however order a replacement print head for my large format printer through Alibaba It came direct from the factory where they are made for many printers. It worked beautifully and restored an expensive printer.

Cedar toxicity information https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-allergies-and-toxicity/

Rapid resizer, it will then break up the pattern into several 8.5 x 11 sheets that you can then stitch together.

What is your top layer? Paper or do you have packing tape on top of the pattern?

For those of us that do intarsia we all know how all wood with rare exception change color. One of my favorites, Lignum Vitea, actually returns to green when exposed to sunlight. yellow heart and Holly don't change much.

Is the lower clamp the barrel style?

Nice find and a very good deal.!

Regarding sanding. I would normally use a 240 grit MAC mop. But You would have to be very careful not to take the corner details off. Best would be hand sanding. What wood is the brown streaker.? It will probably go black when you put a finish on it. Wenge looks brown streaky until I put a gel varnish on it, it then goes black. I am impressed that you cut 3D chess pieces out of Ebony.

Barb, Thank you for the link the designs have a simplicity that I like. There are many designers that seem to put in holes just for the sake of having more holes. I want to look at a cutting and immediately recognize what I am looking at.

If folks want I can start a different thread about this. I know the talk of lasers was deadly not so long ago. But here is the thing, some of us bought expensive custom irons or wood burning sets to brand our logo or name on things we sell. The irons are consistent but custom engraving with a wood burner takes some real skill. Iggy is doing some beautiful work and personalizing it. With a laser engraver you can use any font and scale that you want. All of the information bellow is things that I have found in my digging. I should have done this before buying the laser that I have. I am no expert by any means, but I did use an industrial laser for many years to precisely cut Silicone wafers into custom shapes. First all of these smaller laser power ratings are misleading. the 3.5 , 7, 20 watt are in reality the power consumed by the entire unit, NOT the power of the laser. The actual power of a 7w (7000mw) laser is only 2.5watts. the 20w laser is only 5.5w. Most of these NEJE lasers with their controller and software only turn the laser on and off, If you want o burn gray scale images you want a laser with Puls width modulation. In english that means it has to capability to vary the laser intensity as it goes along. LaserGrbl is a control software http://lasergrbl.com/ that will do this as long as the laser is compatible. As far as cutting goes,these lasers have a very narrow focal point so these small lasers even the 5.5W (advertised as 20) will only cut "The 5.6 watt laser easily cuts plywood and acrylic 3-5 mm (0,1-0,2″) thick, and it even cuts plywood 8 mm (1/3″) thick with many passes (requires Z axes for that)." The "z" axis will move the laser up and down to maintain the focus. The cheaper laser have to be focused manually. If you want to primarily cut you will need a more powerful laser, that will require, water cooling etc.

Mel I bought a KKMoon 7W , it is a NEJE laser, If I were to do it again I would buy the Orture brand, mainly because it gives you greater flexibility in what control software you can use. The NEJE line uses a proprietary software. It is very easy to use. Orture allows you to use a more generic Laser GRBL. The benefits are that should you decide to engrave images it gives more control over the laser power for things like gray scale. I Know "too much technical information" but do a little research and you will get a better idea. The prices are about the same.

I have been using the tightbond Hide glue recently on projects where I needed a longer open time. I have not done any frames with it.

I really like that design! The backers and framing make them pop. Is it your own design? Is the pattern available for purchase?

Ray, WOW things have changed out there since I owned a mobile home in Merced, worst financial mistake I ever made in my life. Space charge of 13K a year, that is in our local taxes range. I know we have gone way off topic, sorry, but a beat house in my neighborhood is 400K +

Ray, living in NY, I am curious what the average taxes are where you live now in CA and where you plan to go in TN. We have some friends that just had a house built near Asheville NC. Your idea of investigating different areas in your motor home is brilliant! most people go somewhere on vacation for a week or two, fall in love buy house ,move , and then find it is not as great as they thought it was. Good luck in your search. I did live in Merced CA for a few years. I live in an incorporated village so it has its own taxes. My wife and I love being near the water (3/4 mile from the bay and 2 miles by boat to the Ocean) I rented down the street from my current home for 16 years. always wanted the house that we now own. I swore I would never go back to Long Island after 11 years in the AF, I will be here for the duration, everywhere that I lived around the country had some thing special to offer, but this is home. Our combined county and village taxes are less than 1K a month. We could not rent an apartment for that. Just as an eye opener A magnificent house on the bay just south of us has county taxes of 56K a year plus village tax which ads at least another 2K.

I am blessed to have a significant scroll saw club locally, of which I was the president for many years. When Fox Chapel had an open house three ears in a row, I got to meet and have dinner with many SSWWC forum members. It is a lot of fun to meet folks in person.

Kevin To solve that problem on my Hawk I plug the foot switch into power the other end is connected to a small outlet strip that has my saw, and vacuum and hour meter plugged into it. For the EX I plug the foot switch into the outlet on my Festool vac. The EX seems to draw more current and activates the vacuum, the Hawk does not trigger the vac automatically? Getting back to the original ? of how many use a HF foot switch. I don't, but They are probably fine, not much to go wrong. Most of the foot switches have a simple micro switch as the active component. I have been using the same one for 15 years. I also prefer being in total control of my work by using two hands. To have to reach down to turn my Hawk on and off or up for the EX, would be very annoying and I feel asking for trouble especially when doing delicate fretwork. JMO

I guess you don't do much fretwork, or you have a vast amount of patience.

Don I will check out that site.

We all have this moment. It seems that I spend a lot of time looking for things I just had in my hands. Most frustrating was many years ago working on my Brit sports car. ll of the bolts on the car are American standard except for one metric screw on the carburetor I was rebuilding. That was in the days before the local hardware stores had metric hardware. I could not find that screw. I did scavenge one from another carburetor. Years later I was doing a purge and general cleanup on my work bench, picked up a cap from a spray can and there was the screw.