Doc58

Actually, I do know OF Crowie - we are in a few different woodwork fora but I don't actually know him personally. Doc from Australia

Hi everybody. I'm Doc from Australia. I make wooden toys for a living so don't do a lot of the intricate scrolling that I see here. Most of my work consists of drawing around a template and cutting said piece out usually on 19mm or 35mm pine and adding wheels or something. Some puzzles and a variety of 'sets' - animal families, dolls house folk and the like. Occasional portrait or commission work. I have a 21" and 30" Excalibur but actually use my 30" jobby for most of my work (it copes nice with long hours at a time cutting), since blade changes are so easy anyway and I don't have to walk to the other end of the workbench to use the 21". Yeah, lazy AND old Anyhoo, I'm hoping to help any new folks because there was so much I didn't know when I first started and I'd love to share it. Also not afraid to learn something new Should also apologize in advance for renewing old posts because I just know it will happen lol

What sort of blades are you using? Just curious because I usually use reverse or double cut blades that leave no frizzies because they cut on the way up and on the way down. I'm way too lazy to sand edges. Doc from Australia

If you don't have gazillions of scroll fonts, you can simply create a word document with the alphabet of each of the most common fonts that you use (I only have about five) and save the doc with a useful name like 'dontlosethesefonts' or something. This also allows for quick and easy copy and paste to a new document with your latest "Love" "Believe" "Leave Me Alone" or whatever. Doc from Australia

Puzzle Level: Zen Master

Something I found useful when I first started checking out blades (because my memory isn't all that good) was to buy a wide range of brands and sizes, then cut a wide range (actually, only the timber I usually use) and cut scraps into a variety of shapes. Note the finish and speed used for each blade. Label each scrap with the blade used. This provides a quick ready reference to which blade to use on what timber. Of course, years later I find I only actually use about four different blades

Now that you have found your font, create a word document and type out the whole alphabet and numbers in that font then save the doc with a name like 'scrollfont' so you can find it easily next time. Regards Doc from Australia