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RabidAlien

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Everything posted by RabidAlien

  1. RabidAlien
    Awesome!!!
  2. RabidAlien
    Not much of a sportsball kind of guy, but I do enjoy a couple of active pastimes. Archery is the only one I've done any sort of scrolling for, though.
  3. RabidAlien
    No prob! I have Inkscape as well. Thank you sir!!
  4. RabidAlien
    That's in my to-be-cut pile. VERY nicely done!!!
  5. RabidAlien
    This. Is. AWESOME!!!!! If the pattern was posted freely, would it be possible to share it here, as well?
  6. RabidAlien
    Lots of construction going on around us these days (yay, progress...?), so its harder to hear the owls and coyotes at night, but we still have plenty of little critters, and the hummingbirds remember where my wife keeps the feeders. Oh, and let us not forget the Texas springtime thunderstorms....
  7. RabidAlien
    Awesome!!!
  8. RabidAlien
    A couple I recently finished up. Standard 3/8" ply from Lowes, frames are scrap lumber ripped down. Stains are Minwax "Honey" and "Natural". The car came from the pattern library here, and The Shadow was a pic I found online. Filled in his scarf with some red acrylic paint that my daughter wasn't using (she's switched to oils). Wanted to put "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows." but figured out pretty quick that the text would have to be incredibly tiny to fit on there. Maybe if I save up my allowance and am able to get a deeper saw....
  9. RabidAlien
    Absolutely LOVE that angel one! Where'd you get the pattern?
  10. RabidAlien
    Couple I did last year. Springtime, butterflies are starting to visit the wife's garden again.
  11. RabidAlien
    Gave up on my router table, I use a table saw and a miter saw to make frames. I figure out how deep the groove needs to be, and how much overlap of the project, and I set my tablesaw fence and blade height accordingly. To make things easy on myself, I try to give myself enough room to overlap the project by the same length as the project and backer are thick. That way, I set the blade and the fence once. I'll get my frame stock, usually a ripped-down 2x4 or those trash spacers they use between layers of fencing slats at the big box stores (Lowes just throws those away, and welcomes any assistance in getting rid of them....sanded and stained a dark color, they look amazing). I'll run the frame stock down the table saw, then flip and rotate and run it down again to cut out a rectangular chunk. If the two cuts overlap a bit, that's fine, all of the over-cut will be inside the frame. Once I have my frame stock with a square cut out of one side, I set my miter to 45 degrees, and start cutting the sides. I usually use the project/backer to mark a side, cut the next angle, then measure again and mark each piece for top/bottom/left/right. I'll sand the frame, round the edges a bit with an oscillating hand sander, then I glue and nailgun the pieces together. Nothing fancy, just leaning on the piece to keep my body parts out of the way of any errant nails (had one go through my thumbnail.....never again. That hurt.). The nails are mainly there to hold it together while the glue sets. Frame assembled, I'll test for fit, sand the project/backer if I was a little off or there was some warping in the frame that I didn't notice. I measure and center a hanger on the back of the frame, stain it, and let it sit for 24 hours or so, then run a bead of wood glue around the inside corner, drop the project in, flip it right-side up and wipe up any glue that squeezed out. Let dry, and hang up! Your frame looks awesome, nobody's going to be taking it down to critique the back anyway.
  12. RabidAlien
    Go for it, they're fun to make and watch people's reactions when they turn the gears!
  13. RabidAlien
    A couple from recent years.
  14. RabidAlien
    A couple I did last year, can't really decide on a fav. John Wick....cuz.....John Wick. Cant' remember where I found the pattern, pencil holder was added by me because my warped sense of humor found it amusing. All these big bad tough mafia-types, when they talk about John Wick, the thing that scares them the most was his use of a pencil. Jellyfish, if I had to pick one, might be my fav, just because I took a risk on the spraypaint and it paid off. I was going for that blacklight purple you see them bathed in at the aquariums. Two different shades of rattlecan, started close to the project and backed up as I sprayed downward, then picked up the other can, started close at the bottom, and backed up as I moved upwards. Moving away reduced the amount of spray hitting the piece, so the colors tapered off. Starting on opposite ends gave it a gradual blending effect. Flowers and butterfly were papercutting patterns I found. LOTS of little details, and the outside cut took about as long as the interior cuts combined, but they're well worth the effort. Had a lot of fun doing these.
  15. RabidAlien
    A couple of 3-D and gnomeaments I've made for the tree. The dragon ended up being a fridge magnet because the wife didn't want a dragon on the tree.
  16. RabidAlien
    Been a lot of things going on with the family/relationships, so haven't had much time to cut recently. Or desire, if I'm honest with myself. Funny how some things just suck the joy out of other things. But I do try to get out and run the saw every now and then.
  17. RabidAlien
    Very nice! I cut that one and its in my stack of office Christmas decorations, never thought about putting snow in the windows on the left!!! That is EPIC!!!
  18. RabidAlien
    Nicely cut! Definitely a noteworthy piece. [[runs for the exit]]
  19. RabidAlien
    Get close enough to a Monet, and you can find flaws. ....find em fast, though, security doesn't like folks pointing out imperfections. Nicely cut though!!! Where'd the pattern come from?
  20. RabidAlien
    Been a while since I cut anything monster/horror-related (I do have a couple printed out and in the to-cut stack), due to some on-going family crises, but here's a couple I've done over the years. These usually hang around our office area at work during October.
  21. RabidAlien
    US Flag codes are really interesting. Most folks have no idea how to raise (fast) and lower (slow) a US flag, when/how to go to half-mast (raise fully, then lower....same with lowering a half-mast flag), where/how to place it (blue field always to the audience's LEFT, whether on a staff, mounted to a wall, or hung vertically), what to do if it touches the ground (clean it off, then address the issue as to how it ended up on the ground...fix the faulty pole or mount, or clobber the protester), and what to do if its on a pole or next to a pole with another sovereign country's flag (INSIDE the US, US flag is higher. OUTSIDE the US, poles should be the same height, or if sharing a single pole, that country's flag is above the US flag).
  22. RabidAlien
    Any saw can cut master-level patterns, all it takes is a pilot hole small enough to get the blade in. Then, its one-hole-one-cut. Some patterns just have more holes. For a beginner....you're doing INSANELY well. I look back at some of my first projects (been cutting for 8 years or so), and I can follow the blade around corners as I backed out, came in from another direction, and left little scuff marks all over the corners. Do other people see those marks? Or the flattened sides of curves where I lost direction? Mostly....no, they don't. But for those that do, that's what differentiates something hand-cut from something mass-produced. They show heart, soul, and love poured in to the project. Anyone can plug in a saw, hit "print", and then go watch TV while the computer does all the work, but you get the exact same thing as everybody else gets....the same soulless piece (and a little bit dumber from what's on TV these days). Same thing with AI, anyone can tell an AI to write a song or poem or story or generate a picture. But it takes skill, heart, soul, and love to create these yourself. If you're going to watch anything on TV, look for "The Craftsman" on Magnolia Network (on Discovery +, if you have that). Guy's an all-around woodcrafter up in Eureka, CA. He started off one episode answering the question about perfection. "All you can do is the best that you can do with the knowledge and skills that you have at the time. You learn a little bit more each time you create something, and add on to your skills. Perfect? The TREE was perfect. All we can do is the best that we can." (paraphrasing)
  23. RabidAlien
    Flag holder is nice, well cut! The fact that you take time to stop and chat with the cleaning lady.....AWESOME, sir!
  24. RabidAlien
    Last three I cut, kirigami papercutting patterns from https://lightboxgoodman.com/. Cut them for myself, just trying to find places to put them since the wife is getting a bit tired of all the "wood colors" around the house. LOL
  25. RabidAlien
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