BadBob

Depends on your situation. How much ventilation do you have, and how big is the shop?

It does not take much mineral spirits. I brush it on with the same brush I use to paint unless it is a large piece. For large pieces, and sometimes if I have a lot of little ones, I will pour mineral spirits on a cookie sheet or other flat bottom container that is the appropriate size and dip them. This method has a downside. I need to let the mineral spirits evaporate before I can do almost anything else to them. The advantages are: The pattern will come off even the most delicate fretwork piece in one piece. I never tried it, but I am sure you could glue it on another piece of wood and cut it again. No more picking bits of pattern and tape off while worrying about breaking it. No more pieces of wood peeled off and parts ruined. 3M77 will stick tight to just about any wood surface. I don't need to do any sort of surface preparation before I cut the pieces. The advantage here is a lot less sanding. It is much easier and faster to sand the pieces after they are cut out. I recently cut some ornaments from a piece of wood with a lot of tear out. After cutting it, a few swipes on the belt sander with a 60-grit sanding belt, and you are done. What I actually use is labeled paint thinner at my local big orange store. I learned while working in a factory that made vinyl carpet backings that this was the same as mineral spirits but somewhat less refined. We bought it in 55-gallon drums. I never touch anything that says it is odorless.

Yes, we do.

Thanks, I never thought of that. (INTOT)

I need to try this the next time I cut something from wood that I know has issues with this although I would be using a brush on sealer.

I have the same issue with my Hawk and smaller blades. I have to back the tension all the way of and slowly tweak it until I find the sweet spot. That is one of the reasons it is for sale.

I have never bought full-sheet labels, but I keep a stock of half-sheet labels for printing shipping labels and use them to print patterns occasionally. Usually when I need it fast and fast is more important. I don't use them often because I find 3M77 glued directly to the wood and removed by wetting with mineral spirits to be much simpler for my projects.

Things change, and all of the groups disappear sooner or later. I have been online since before there was an internet. I was on BBS using 300baud modems. (Anyone remember fidonet) A few of those made it to the internet but most vanished. In many cases over the years the owner dies and no one takes over and noone pays the bills. Corporate sites are the worst. I was a member of many Yahoo groups and an admin on several. All are all gone when Yahoo decided to not continue groups. Facebook groups could go the same way easy. One thing I have learned from all of this is that if you want it download it for tomorrow it may be gone. Eventuall this forum will disappear. Forums grew out of the old BBS systems and are still the best way for those with special interests to gather on line. This is one of the best I have seen so I just paid for my first month. I'm going to have to do it manually.

I have purchased and cut all of these. Most were cut from poplar, with the birds cut from contrasting woods. I made several of these from Steve Good patterns to get started. These were made from pine 2x4s and glued up little pieces of wood. I like the look of pine the best.

Nails, tape, and glue are the ones I have tried. I like glue. I put a small drop of wood glue in the waste area and clamp it for about 20 minutes. It is cheap and never moves. Be sure to cut the waste off last. Try these.

In my experience, if the wood is jumping I am feeding too fast, the blade is dull, or maybe the blade I am using is not appropriate for the material I am cutting.

If it is not with the paint, look in the cleaning supplies. That is where my local Ace Hardware had it when I stocked up on my Johnsons Paste Wax.

Clean it with mineral spirits and wax it with paste wax. Don't use wax designed for cars. Johnson's Paste wax is my go-to for this, but they stopped making it. Silicon and woodworking tools don't go together well. If the silicon gets on your project, you could have issues with finishes not sticking.

That's a good one. INTOT

That will do it. I forgot about the smoke.

The longer you cut the duller the blade gets and the slower it cuts. When it becomes too slow or hard to control I switch blades. I seldom break blades.

If you are a beginner and don't know what the blade ping sounds like, this could be helpful.

Navy blue is the most popular toy color in my shop.

I like the blue best. Not so much for the color but to my eyes the contrast is better.

Smaller blades are set to the same pitch as the larger ones. Larger blades need more tension to get there. Smaller blades need less tension. My problem when I first used the tuner was that the tension adjustment was so coarse that it was easy to snap a small blade. I used the tuner to determine what a correctly tensioned #5 blade was set for and then backed the tension off, mounted a small blade, and used the tuner's meter to sneak up on the tension. It worked, and the blade did not break. The tension was between C & C#. Out of curiosity, I checked the blades mounted in my Pegas and EX21 saws today. The Pegas with a #2 blade was C#, and the EX21 with a #3 blade was a C#. The arms are set parallel with the table and I never adjust the tension. I used a Korg TM-40 tuner with a meter so I could see what I was doing. Some tuners only have LEDs and might not work for this.

I did it because I kept breaking the #1&#2 blades.

Same here.

I don't see heroes, I see comic book characters and ball players.

Yes, you can use a guitar tuner. You need one that has a microphone in it. Place it next to the blade and pluck away. I used a tuner for setting the tension on some of my previous saws.

Yes, there is. Dremel makes one. It is small and made of plastic. I don't have one. I would not have any issue routing small parts with a 1/8-inch round over or even 1/4-inch, especially the size of a Christmas ornament. There are many ways to hold a small part for routing if you're uncomfortable using your hands. For example, you can mount the small part on a piece of clear acrylic with double-sided tape or build a jig with some toggle clamps to hold the part if it isn't too small. I don't use my Dremel for rounding over small parts often because I can do it with a Japanese finger file or a coarse fingernail file faster than I can set up the router and I almost always need to sand after routing.