BadBob

I try to stay under the 16oz limit so I can ship first class. I ship priority mail rarely. I have never had a customer choose priority mail. I reuse packing material and boxes, so measuring and weighing is something I always do. Sometimes I will repack or cut down a box to get it under 16oz or fit in my mailbox. I have stopped going to the post office and changed my processing time to 2 days to allow for postal pick up when things don't fit in the mailbox. If it fits in the box, they get same-day shipping. If it doesn't fit in the box it goes out the next day. I purchased a set of weights for testing my scale and found that it weighed a tiny bit high, which is fine. I like having the weights to test if something seems a little off.

I would bet that they already have it in digital form and they do have some downloadable patterns on their website and sell CDs with the magazines on them.

3M 77 Adhesive is not available in my area and the only one I found on Amazon was a 55 Gallon drum.

I try every method I find. I use shelf liner for larger projects or where I need to see through it to avoid some defect in the wood. Otherwise, it sits on the shelf because I find it to be a pain to use. Gluing the pattern directly on the wood and removing it with mineral spirits works well, except that the adhesive gets into the wood, and there is no way to get it out. It can take a day or two for the mineral spirits to evaporate from the wood. I can't do anything with the piece until it's done. I use this method for delicate pieces where the extra time and the adhesive residue aren't a problem. Clear packing tape I don't like to use. I find the shiny surface to be annoying, and I have issues with it lifting. I used a lot of it when I first began using paper patterns. I tried taping the wood patterns and applying the tape first, and gluing the pattern to it. Neither method was satisfactory. When I tape the pattern to the wood, the glare from the shiny tape was a problem. When gluing patterns to the tape, I found that adhesives do not stick to the smooth surface well. I use it for taping pieces together for compound cuts and sealing boxes for shipping. Carbon paper and tracing are unpleasant to use and produce inferior results. I stopped using this method as soon as I had access to a scanner. I like the idea of printing patterns on labels. I have purchased a box of labels for this but haven't tried it yet. I keep forgetting I have them. Blue tape is by far my favorite method. It's fast, sticks well even in dusty environments. Blue tape does not leave any residue, and I find it easy to remove from most of my projects. When I use blue tape, I can sand, finish or glue the piece as soon as I rename the tape. The only downside I have found is that it will lift wood fibers from some pieces. It sticks too well. In these cases, I use the glue and mineral spirits method. As for the cost, Steve Good posted in a recent blog post that blue painter's tape was his favorite method, and he calculated that it cost him about $1.50 per month. I don't know what it costs me, but I know it takes a long time for me to use a six-pack of tape.

Not fancy or complicated, but my grandson loves animal cutouts.

+1 for the French cleat.

USPS has always done well for me. I use them exclusively. They pick up my packages at my door if need be, and I have never had one get lost or broken. I ship 1st class most of the time with only an occasional priority mail. I'm not too fond of their boxes because they are rarely the right size I need. If they don't fit in my mailbox, I have to schedule a pickup or take it to the post office. I pack in my boxes and put USPS-provided Priority Mail Labels on the box. My most expensive box costs me $0.71, also paid by the buyer. I include packaging costs in my pricing. I saw a lot of complaints about the proposal to get rid of the free boxes. I did a little math and decided that it didn't matter to me since I rarely use them. I shipped packages today 1st Class. It cost $3.58 and was paid for by the customer.

I rebuilt mine fall 2020. I didn't use any new grease.

I have two scroll saws for the same reason. I don't feel like I can afford the downtime. Some of my toys are made to order, and when the scroll saw is working, I can make them. At one time, I had three saws.

Backup, Backup, Backup! I am sympathetic. I've been there, done that, and watched many other people go through it. In 35 years of working with computers and disaster recovery, I have heard this sort of story repeatedly. If it is important to you, back it up. My business and photos get backed up off-site as soon as I make a change. They get backed up to a system that does versioning. If I change a document it now has two versions that are both offsite. If your backup isn't offsite, you don't have a backup. If you haven't successfully restored a backup, you don't have a backup. Backups are a thankless boring job that no one cares about until disaster strikes. Suddenly, the guy with the backups becomes the most important person in the room. Monitor your backups. I have been given a stack of tapes to restore when a server failed to discover that all the tapes were blank. They had been changing the tapes every day, but no one had monitored the be sure the scheduled backup was running.

I keep my spray nozzles in a jar of solvent. Mineral spirits works well for 3M 77.

3M77 Works for everything, but it is getting very expensive.

Pegas blades last longer for me.

For plywood, I glue the pattern directly to the wood with 3M77 and soak the paper with mineral spirits to remove. If you wet it well enough, the pattern will come right off and leave little residue. The downside is that you may need to clean some of the adhesive off of the wood. If you don't get it all off, it could interfere with any finish you apply. They do make a low-tack tape, but I have not used it.

Bird houses do not require perches. Quote from "The Definitive Guide to Building Your Own Birdhouses" "DO NOT put perches on any birdhouse. Only house sparrows and European starlings prefer perches. If you have a house with a perch, remove the perch."

Try these: https://toymakingplans.com/free-toy-plans/

I would not get a loan. If you owe someone money, they own you. Free money isn't free. It's coming out of your neighbors pocket. The only money I owe is a 0% interest car loan.

I don't see how they can slow it down without changing the way they deliver mail. I think they will just increase the number of days to deliver but still send it the same way.

I made these yesterday. I keep patterns of small toys in the shop for this. I'm currently making a batch of dragon toys. Everything except the body is made from cut-offs.

For resawing bigger is better.

If you buy cheap, you are likely to spend a lot more time and effort tweaking and tuning the saw to get it to work well. I would not buy a saw that did not have a fence or at least an aftermarket fence available. Even if it has a fence, it might be junk. I would not buy a benchtop saw or a saw with three wheels. They are not powerful enough, and the small wheels are hard on the blades. If you do go this route, Makes sure that good quality resaw blades are available for the saw before you buy it. As with other types of saws, the blades are one of the most critical parts. The blade that comes with your saw is unlikely to be suitable for resawing, and it may not be good enough for anything. If you have a planer smoothing the cut side of the wood is easy. If you do not have any way to plane the wood and want to sand it smooth, you will need excellent blades and a well set up saw to make this possible. If it were me, I would look for a used brand name bandsaw 14-inch or larger. It might need some TLC, but your chances of getting a good saw for less money is excellent. They don't wear out. I would check and grease or replace bearings and replace the tires if they need it. Then make sure everything is aligned as per the manufactures instructions. Even if you buy a new saw, you will need to do most of this.

I looked at a lot of these tools yesterday and watched many video reviews about them. The measuring tools are almost all metric. I live in the US, and I don't own any metric woodworking tools. These are mostly useless to me. However, I did find a few tools that I am going to buy at some point.

It is usually some spelling issue. The post office loves to abbreviate things. I've had them fail several times due to road vs. rd for example. The first thing I try is to search for the address in google maps. Google maps are very good at sorting out miss spellings. My street address is 131A. Where I live, it is not uncommon to have letters in street addresses. However, this causes some software to go off the deep end. In a county near where I live, they have addresses based on GPS coordinates to make it easy for emergency responders to find you, but I'll bet it gives the software a fit.

None of the things we make are genuinely made by hand. We use tools to make things. Lasers (and CNC) are tools that require a different skill set. I would love to have a laser for engraving, but I don't have room for it right now. The same is true for a CNC router, with the only difference being that I can use the CNC router to make toys many of the toys that I make now.