meflick

Nice work and different types - a little something for everyone. Really like that bench. Excellent work on all. Thanks for sharing.

Very nice and amazing work. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, the 4th of July is about the USA celebration of establishing its self as a free nation, establishing their own government - one could argue that those who did so, also paid the price for that freedom in many ways - many of whom died in gaining that freedom and that they were in fact the first of the great fighters and precursor to the US Military. Many of those who fought for that freedom knew that the freedom they sought would not be freely obtained and many gave their lives to ensure that it was obtained. The servicemen and women who have served and sacrificed since that time continue to ensure that we can celebrate the 4th of July in freedom so I still consider these plaques worthy of something to think about on the 4th of July (and everyday.)

Welcome to the Village Roman. I am from the Southeastern part of the USA. Nothing more fun then making something for your child and having the love it. You will want to check out and do some puzzles for her perhaps - depending upon her age - don't cut too small of pieces. Look forward to your participation. Good luck on your new saw.

Couldn't agree more Doug. Excellent work and great message. My thanks to all the service men and women and their families for their service and sacrifice. thanks for sharing your work.

Very nice Jim and I am sure your friend will be thrilled to receive it and it will find a place of honor in his office or home. Thanks for sharing.

Another great job cutting Jerry. you are on a roll. Thanks for sharing. I am sure the final recipient of this one will love it just as much as your mail carrier.

Very thoughtful of you Jerry and I am sure you made her week, month and maybe year. I'm glad you could do this for her. I have an excellent UPS guy, Keep thinking I should do his truck for him one day as a thanks. You come to this site for those nice people like me, and ignore the others.

Excellent work by you and your wife. Glad you got a chance to get back to the saw. Looks like a lot of work, thanks for sharing.

Thanks Kris for taking the time to answer my question. As I said, it wasn't a criticism, it was a curiosity question as a relative newbie trying to grasp the why's and how's of decisions in what to include and not include when taking s picture like this and making a pattern. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your thought process in developing this one.

Very nice job Pete. Happy Birthday to Canada by the way. Always good to have such great neighbors.

Paul, @Scrappile - meant to ask was that your Hamsa Box shown on page 6? Looked like the one you shared and name and state matched up as well so thought it was you. If so, congratulations on having it in the magazine and on the fine work. Isn't this one you then got an order for to send out of the country?

Sorry for your troubles Tony. I can imagine that is quite frustrating. I know when I need something, I need it NOW. Not notify me and I don't even sell things. Vent away.

Thanks Scott, @NC Scroller for adding more to the discussion. Especially about a water based finish. We got the hardware cloth wire like you are talking about from the garden center at Lowes. One other question I have for you experts, are you doing any sanding after you cut the puzzles? Running it through a drum sander as a whole? (The Peterson's talk about doing that in their Animal Puzzles book but notes that you can't do them all that way. Use a "mop sander" and round over the edges? If you do that are you just doing the external edges? Something else?

Very nice Kris. Excellent work on the pattern and the cutting. I just have one question if you don't mind - its more of a "why or why not" question to doing the design and cutting. By no means is it a criticism its mainly a learning question for me in doing designs. You chose not to add in the "stage" underneath the drum set and then the larger stage that holds up that "stage" at the feet of the front 3. As a result, you can see the image in perhaps two ways. To me, the drum set and the drummer are sort of "hanging" in air without any anchor to the ground. Now, that may be because I also see the original image that you worked from so I "see" it with the stage to begin with. If I ignore the original photo, and just look at your finished piece, I could make an argument to myself that it is not hanging in space, but is simply further back in the background but still on the "ground". So, I am just wondering from a design concept - how you "saw" it with doing it that way? Did you feel it was too much to add in? too difficult to bother with? Not needed? I guess it really came to my mind because as a former high school art student (way too many years ago), I had drilled into my head that you didn't want anything "floating" in space (short of something that flies or floats naturally of course - but even then - you still had something like a horizon to "ground" it to.) So I was just curious as to why you chose to do it the way you did without the stage if that makes sense.

More excellent work Rob and I agree, should sell well. New Parents, Grandparents, etc. The smaller version, if small enough could be used for a Christmas decoration as well. Thanks for sharing.

Interesting material to work with. Hope you wore your dust mask. That composite decking material is made up of different things depending on the brand as I recall. Some is plastic, some old tires, it seems I forget what all. The sign looks very nice though and I am sure the recipients will love it. Thanks for sharing.

Congratulations Marg. I foresee Marg becoming the next Iggy in the land down under with animal puzzles. Just think, you might have gotten a few bucks more with some finish.

Looks like some nice work there. thanks for sharing.

Thanks Scott and Don for answering my question in regards to dipping the puzzles and how you each do it. That helps. I had hubby help me put a "drying rack" together similar to what Scott shows in his picture and Don explained, I just wasn't "sure" about the dipping part. Whether I needed to pull the pieces apart or not. Sounds like Scott doesn't take them apart and Don does so it sounds like either way works. Hubby's idea when I asked him to help build the drying rack was to put them on the rack, dip the whole rack and then let lift it above the box and let them dry. Sort of like a "dunking booth". That way I could do several puzzles at once. However, even though I have gotten several plastic containers that "say" their measurements are bigger then the drying rack we built, they are all just slightly smaller so the rack won't full go down into the box to try that. I will try to do some soon and figure out how I want to do it. With so many cut out, I need to do something soon!

Interesting and very well done. Is that all painted? Thanks for showing.

Thanks Iggy. you are right - the wood variations can make some of the puzzles really pop. Especially the black for the penguins. I haven't seen that yet at my Lowes, but I will keep my eyes open for it. I do have a question/request for you. I would like to read or "see" how you do the finish part of your puzzles. I think you are now "dipping" them in the finish. Are you taking them apart and dipping them? Can you "show" how you dip either with photos or a quick video perhaps? I am just having problems "seeing" how you guys are doing that part. Thanks for any insight or help you or someone else can provide on that.

First, Edward I agree everyone is entitled to their opinion and I respect yours. I am sure as a seasoned scroller, that it is harder to find projects that come up to your skill level. So, you always hope to find that in the magazine - especially if you are subscribing to it and would be disappointed when it had little to spike your interest. For me, as a newbie - I am still in awe of everything that anyone can do with their saw and love seeing all the different things that can be done. My initial interest in the saw was to do intarsia, then I found the village and saw all the different things people do. That has encouraged me to go outside my intarsia interest and to try other things with the saw as well. Things I wouldn't have tried but for having seen them here and on the magazines forum or in the magazine. That is also what I think they try to do with the magazine articles, and giving different ideas - they want to encourage their readers to get outside their comfort zone and try something new with their saw. Plus, different types of projects can bring new people to the saw as it did with me but then expand their interest. Now, I can see if your primary goal is scroll sawing/fret work type of work then you didn't have a lot in this edition - the chess set and then the Birds of Prey patterns of which there are three. (all of which are stunning I think.) If you didn't like the chess set, you are down to the 3 birds. If you aren't into birds then nothing there. However, there were also only two intarsia articles. Both of which were great articles for teaching you shaping and then using a wood burner to add details. Both of these are items that I know from visiting the forums and others that people had recently asked to see in the magazine. I think that is great. It shows that they do listen to their customers and try to find and provide what customers are asking for. However, they can only do that if you give them that feedback. So, if there is something you would like to see or have shown on a "how to" - give them that feedback. Don't say, I don't want to see X - because even if you don't plenty of people do are it wouldn't be there now. Instead, tell them what you do want to see. What you would like to cut, etc. Plus, several places in the magazines referred us back to their website for additional articles and information (some of which won't be up until August 1 however. ) These include some fretwork pumpkins, a candle holder tray and some others looks like. Possibly the one issue you are talking about that previously had a giraffe family in it was actually one from 8 years ago now believe it or not- Fall, 2009 (which I have because I bought it at the time for the Halloween Designs in it and I was recently looking at it so I have it in front of me.). That was a single puzzle but with a "family" of 3 giraffes together by John Nelson. They also explained why they did the Giraffes now in this one - thanks to the phenom of April and her new calf earlier this year. Plus, puzzles seem to be an "in" thing right now. I think it, and many of the smaller projects are geared towards giving those who sell at craft fairs/famer's markets, etc. some easily cut and smaller objects to add to sale. If you sale, I would think you have to continually update your projects offered in order to not get stagnate in your sales. In looking through the magazine with an open eye, it seems to me that they did probably about as good of a job as they can in trying to meet the desires/wants of a large and diverse group of scrollers who buy their magazine - either by subscription - or by "seeing" it on the newsstand. I have several that I bought over the past years - not as a scroller - but as a general crafter - that appealed to me based on what I "saw" on the cover. However, in trying to meet the needs of everyone, that means that there is only a couple of articles on fretwork, a couple of articles on Intarsia, etc. which unfortunately means that not everyone is going to be happy with everything all the time. I would love to have a magazine dedicated to Intarsia, but I realize that the market is just not there and appreciate what I can find. Finally, I did want to say with everyone noting how many pages of "ads" there were I went and counted - including the inside front cover and the inside back cover I counted at most 15 total pages of ads I think. Most are full page ads, there were a couple of smaller ads at ends of articles or side bars that I figured up to equal about 1 full page. The magazine shows 72 pages total (which does not include the front and back covers so if I take those 2 ad pages out of the equation - that leaves 13 pages of ads in 72 total pages.) I am not a math person, so I can't give you the exact percentage but I figure that leaves about 59 pages of content versus 13 of ads. Not too bad in my opinion. As RJ points out, that is what pays the bills for the magazines not the actual subscription costs I am afraid. I would rather have the ads then no magazine. Unfortunately, this is probably why Creative Woodworking and Crafts is no longer around. If you can't get the ads, you cannot afford to publish. Plus, as someone else pointed out - those ads are what tells me what tools and such are available to help me with my work and places that I can buy those tools and such at that I might not be aware of but for those ads. Sorry for the lengthy response but thought it was worth discussing in some detail. I know it doesn't change that it didn't do much for you and you were disappointed. However, perhaps by looking at it objectively as to what is there and why that might be, we can all better understand the whys.

As Frank said, nice work. Thanks for sharing.

Kevin, good to see you back on the boards and posting. We have been worried about you.