Back in the 80's my neighbor was a shop teacher. He'd go to shows and come home with a fist full of dollars. Didn't take long for me to get interested in doing the same.
I did okay some days, but never reached his level. I didn't like scroll saw anyway. I'd rather take a piece of walnut, plane it down, slice it up and make a child's chair than scroll saw letters and numbers. Eventually I lost interest.
Back around mid 2000's I found a Craftsman 113.207650 18" scroll saw at an estate sale. 90's model with the tube type arms with strange looking blade holders inserted in the tubes. The saving grace is that it accepts pin type and plain end 5" and 6". Bought it for $65, brought it home, set it in the shed, broke a few blades.
It never got a lot of use, and soon it got less when we started a father son project called CNC. The son soon started a project of his own called girlfriend which left dad to finish the original.
In 2013 I had kidney failure. They put me on dialysis. May 9th will be 4 years. Leaves me some time when I feel good to play with my toys.
I've used the CNC to cut little things here and there. A year ago I got a chance to do signs to be sold in a shop. Not rushing to do more since I haven't seen any money for the last batch of 72.
February a new shop opened so I rented a 5X7 booth for March thinking I'd have more control over what I made, sold, and got to keep. I put some whirligigs and lathe turned canes in for the annual festival. They texted to say two of my whirligigs sold within a couple of hours of opening.
I texted, "How much did we make?"
They responded, "Will you be keeping your booth in April?"
"No promises," I replied.
Everything went silent. But I figured come April 1st, they would tell me my rent was due or I needed to come pick up my stuff. So far no word, no money. And I'm not the type to run over and cause a scene over a bit of money, even if I do have a $340 Lowes bill.
After reading a few posts here, I'm leaning to renting an outdoor spot at a four day monthly farmers market ($25 for a 10X20) and seeing how that does.
