BadBob

I made a bunch of these three years ago from various pieces of wood I had laying around. The body on many of them was right at the maximum I could cut on my scroll saw. I ruined quite a few before I got good enough at cutting thick hardwood, and I got my finger mashed a couple of times before I learned to keep them out from under the scroll saw arm. This one is my favorite. After cutting these I discovered that cutting toys form 2x Southern Yellow Pine wasn't near as challenging

I'm planning on adding a few more.

Yes, I know this is an old thread but since I just ordered two of these right before I saw this and could not resist. I needed two more random orbital sanders because changing sandpaper wears out the loops on the back of my sandpaper before the grit wears out. Price was one of the reasons I purchased this one. I can buy two of these for the price of one of the sanders I was considering and three in some cases. However, the big deal for me was the dust port. It's round and fits my existing system. I'm getting rid of sanders that either don't have a dust port or they have some weird shape that I can't hook up to my shop vac. Most of my corded tools are Hitachi, and I would have liked to have two more, but I was sitting on a waiting list to get Hitachi sanders at a reasonable price for months. I usually buy refurbished. A coupon turned up for the Bauer sanders for $25, so I'm going to give them a try. I also purchased one of these for $20. I have several hundred 1/4-Sheets of sandpaper leftover from a project that didn't use near as much paper as I bought. I want to use it up, and the 1/4-sheet sanders I have either do not have a dust collection port or have ports with weird shapes that I can't connect to my vac. https://www.harborfreight.com/22-Amp-14-Sheet-Heavy-Duty-Palm-Finishing-Sander-64146.html I've used Harbor Freight sanders in the past that cost less than $10. The cost was so low that I could have done the project and thrown them in the trash and still come out ahead. The sandpaper was more expensive than the sander. I never had an issue with any Harbor Freight sander other than dust collection, which is why I am getting rid of them now.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N1MK51J/

I recently purchased two magnetic sewing machine lights to use on my scroll saw. I have been quite pleased with them. Bright white light, and they don't move. I highly recommend these. They come with steel disks that you can stick on to any smooth surface so the magnet mount will work even on aluminum, plastic, or glass or another smooth surface. These cost me $12 US each. Well worth the money. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N1MK51J/

I have my scroll saws mounted on a 2x4 frame with swivel double locking casters on all four corners. Other than testing the locking mechanism, I have never locked them. The saw stays put.

I was thinking the same thing. The only toys I have made that have broken were made from red oak.

Maybe it is my imagination, but with the Pegas Clamps, my EX21 seems to cut better and faster, and the blades last longer.

Metal dust usually aluminum, but other metals are used. I don't want metal dust floating around anywhere. I have open motors in my shop and electronics. Tiny bits of metal so small you can't see them can cause malfunctions. Health, no matter how good your dust collection, you can't get it all. I don't want to breathe metal, polycarbonate, and dust from whatever they happen to decide makes a good label. CDs & DVDs have BPA in polycarbonate. Dealing with wood dust is bad enough. I got all this from searching for "What are compact discs made of?" on Google. I should have posted that instead of the link.

All this made me curious about what CD/DVDs were made from. I found this: After reading this and folowing some of the links I don't think I'll be cutting an CDs.

Double post.

Yes, it will hold a #72 bit. However, is near the bottom end. a .025 (#75) diameter bit works, but the next smaller size I have .023 diameter will not work. If I close the chuck all the way it slide right in. That was much harder than I had expected. I spent an hour hunting for and measuring bits. I have some so tiny that if I ever dropped them they would be gone for ever. I almost needed tweezers to pick them up.

To use tiny drill bits, you might want to consider changing the chuck on your drill press to a chuck that can handle smaller bits. I changed mine to one of these. https://www.grizzly.com/products/South-Bend-Drill-Chuck-1-32-1-2-JT33/SB1370 I can drill holes in a tooth pick.

Sheet Metal Shears for Thin Metal Foils: are Harbor Freight Scissors. https://www.harborfreight.com/multipurpose-scissors-47877.html?_br_psugg_q=scissors These are great and cheap. I have a lot of them. They cut very well and hold there edge well. The plastic parts will sometimes break or chip off. I have never had them break, but I have lost a few.

I make toys, mostly. When making toys, I find that the better I can stay on the line, the less work I have to do later — sanding things to fit or to get the shape just right, so it is pleasing to my eye and touch. If a curve has ripples, I can feel or see, I will sand them smooth. On the rare occasion that I get to deliver a toy in person, almost the first thing they do is feel the surface of the toy. Yes, I'm very anal about this.

I started with a Dremel drill press and a Craftsman rotary tool. The Dremel drill press worked great for me until I started making larger projects where I could not drill holes where I needed them. I purchased a Grizzly G7943 - 14" Heavy-Duty Benchtop Drill Press used that worked but needed some TLC. I refurbished the drill press and swapped out the chuck for one that would hold my tiny wire gauge size bits. I am happy with this setup, and it will be my goto for drilling my scroll saw projects. When I got it all set up as a test loaded up my smallest bit and drilled holes in a toothpick. When I reach the point, if I ever do, where the 14-inch drill press will not work, I will use a router base with a Dremel. One of these: Stewart MacDonald Precision Router Base Veritas Plunge Base for Rotary Tools I lean heavily toward the Lee Valley tool due to its versatility.

You might want to try Aniline Dyes mixed with alcohol. Denatured alcohol does not raise the grain like water. I make painted tray puzzles and only paint the top of the pieces.

The first thing I do with a new project is what ever it takes to get it into SVG format in the computer. Using Inkscape I can print patterns any size I want with sharp clear lines.

This is what I use. It's cheap and folds down into a small package. I wish I had bought a larger one but this works great for 95% of what I do.

I received a takedown notice for one of my Etsy listings. A Company in Germany owned a word that I used in my description. It was a pain, and I had to redo the listing. It cost me twenty cents and the hours to find and correct backlinks. After that, I went through all my listings and removed any words that look like they might be trademarks. When I emailed other toymakers, I know a warning about what happened to me I found that the same law firm had hit several of them. I sell internationally, and this happened after Etsy staged one of my listings on a server in Europe.

That is the wheel size I use.

I use 3M77 and keep my tips in mineral spirits. It keeps then clean and unclogged without any spiting. If the one I'm using gets gummed up I install a another clean one. I like 3M77 because it sticks and stays stuck. I get mine from amazon $9.98 for 16.75oz can.

I've made a lot of these and sell some. I shipped this one to Michigan a few days ago.

Inkscape is free open source software. https://inkscape.org. If you print patterns and you don't have this you need to install it learn to use it. Why anyone would want a pattern in a PDF or a bitmap format like jpg is beyond me. You can use Inkscape and svg to resize to any size you want and print sharp clear patterns no matter what size they are. You don't need to convert to another format to print them. Almost every new project I do starts with cleaning up the image and converting to svg.

In the beginning, I started with a little AMT cast iron scroll saw made in Taiwan. I cut out hundreds of animal shapes, reasoning that not only would I get practice with the saw, but I would have toys for the kids. I still have a lot of these. My grandson plays with them. It didn't take to long until I had modified the saw to use pinless blades and moved into cutting fretwork. I made a lot of shelves from pallet wood. I could get all the pallets I wanted for free, and it was the only hardwood I had access to at the time. I started making toys for my girls, nieces, and nephews. Not always using the scroll saw but incorporating it where it made sense. I sold a few and bough more tools. After a long dry spell, mostly due to my job, you don't do much woodworking when you're working 60 hour weeks. My grandson was born, and as soon as he started pushing things around the floor. I made him a car. I just sketched it out on a board and cut it. Odin, my grandson, was fascinated with helicopters, so I made one for him. He called them wop-wops. A progression of toys followed. I made small toys mostly and a rocking horse. Then one day, someone said, "You should sell these." I thought about it and decided that was what I wanted to do after my upcoming retirement from my job as a Linux Systems Programmer/Administrator. Today my shop is my fulltime job. I'm not making a profit yet, but It's coming.