FrankEV

Back of December 26,2013, Dan posted his attempt at a Carved Fretwork Cat that he had wanted to try for many years after reading an Article in Scroll Saw Woodworking and Crafts, Fall 2008 by Dick Miraglia. Well, his very successful attempt got me thinking about trying to do another carved fretwork piece. I had recently obtained an Eagle head illustration from a stock vector website called Freepik.com that I converted into a scrollable pattern, and I thought it would make a good subject for a carved piece. I was able to use Inkscape to convert the illustration into a scrollable pattern. I made two versions of the pattern, one for printing on 11x17 inch paper and one for printing on Suber B 13x19 inch paper. I’ll post them in Pattern Exchange for anyone who may be interested. As I most frequently create my Art Panels in very thin materials, I do not have a stock of thick - full one inch or greater – materials available. And, since working with a thick panel is well outside my comfort zone, I was reluctant to order some expensive material to experiment with. However, in Lowes, I found some Live Edge rough sawn full 6/4 x >13” x 6’ - unmarked, but I think - Southern Yellow Pine slabs that were on-sale. Unfortunately, the piece I purchased was too wide to fit through my planer or I would have reduced the thickness to a 5/4 or a little less. Because the slab width was greater than 13 inches, I was able to use the larger pattern for this project. Although the pattern is an easy cut, the cutting itself was VERY slow. The SYP is very hard in the heartwood areas, while quite soft elsewhere. I used Pegs #5 MTG R and Pegas #5 skip tooth blades to do most of the cutting. The skip tooth blade seemed to work better of the two. In some small areas I used a Pegas #3 MGT R blade. For cutting such thick wood, it was imperative the blade be perfectly perpendicular to the table, so the cut-out material would slip out easily. In many of the complicated shaped areas the cut-outs were done in sections to make removal easier. In order to lower the bacground I had to use AC glue to attach additional pieces of wood on each side flush to the top surface in order to maintain the base of my Trim router level while lowering the area beyond the image out to the edge of the panel. I had to replace the standard Trim router base with a much larger base to span the lowered area that was wider than half the width of the standard base. I used a 1” diameter Surface Planing Router Bit, in multiple passes, to lower the area about 3/8 of an inch. My only gripe about doing this kind of project is the sawdust mess the router makes when lowering the background area. My router table has dust collection, but the handheld Trim router does not. My shop s small and the sawdust get all over everything - poor me . I decided that, since the cutting was to be an unframed plaque, I would not make it square and I chose to make large radius rounded corners. So it was necesssary to cut the perimeter after all the fretwork and lowering was completed, but before carving. To do so, I had to attach a second pattern to the reverse side so I could flip the panel over to cut the perimeter in order to follow the cut line. After the perimeter cut was completed I used my bench mounted belt sander to smooth the perimeter to the line and then rounded the perimeter top edge on my Router Table using 1/4" round-over router bit. Carving was done using a combination of large sculpturing bits mounted in my Guinivere Wand which take off a lot of material fast but leaves very rough surfaces, and small sculptuing bits mounted in my Dremel Wand for the more detailed work. This required finishing by power sanding using my sanding mop and my small detail sander followed by a lot of hand sanding. The carved image was hand painted with Artist Acrylics, using the original illustration as a guide, and the completed plaque was protected with multiple applications of s spray Clear Gloss Acrylic Coating. This is the original illustration. This is my finished Plque. Sorry for the long narative. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Yes, I think mine is the basic unit. Bought it many moons ago when I had my shop in NC, It is mounted on my rollaround bench sanding station along with my bench belt/disc sander and small ocilating sander. I basicly use it with my sanding mops. I have some large sculptuijg bits but rarely use them. I don't have the sculpturing skills I would like to have in order to put them to good use.

I have been using my adjustable speed plug-in Dremel with a wand accessory for over three years with no problems. Dremel offers the same type bits for sanding or sculptuing. and accepts any other mfg 1/8" shank bits. Dremel products are available at Lowes, many orther retailers and on-line.. Definately more expensive but dremel has been around for a long time.

All look great, very nicely done! The only thing i would do differently is the fish box. Instead of the box over box cover, I would have just made a lid keeper (1/4 inch thick) attached to the bottom side of the top. And, maybe, the bottom could have been inset so the edge does not show. The lid keeper and inset bottom could be stack cut as they would be the same. Just a little edge sanding on the lid keeper would let it drop in easily. No criticism, just suggestions as you requested.

Now that is realy nice!!!!! What are the dims of the squares and thickness of the chess pieces?

Great work, beautifuly done. I'm sure she will love it (next to the string of pearls or dimond ring you also got her.)

Move!

Ya did good! Glad I could help.

Guaranteed you got the worst of that exchange. Realy nice work.

I found a B&W image of a Papercut cutting of a “tree(?)” by a UK artist Lois Cordelia. The image is quite unique and I’m sure not to everyone’s taste. However, it intrigued me, and I wondered how it would look if made as a Scroll Saw Cutting. The original was a European A3 paper size cutting that, using Inkscape, I increased and modified slightly to convert it into an 11” x 17” scroll pattern. No other modifications were necessary to make it scrollable. I cut the pattern in a 5/32” thick solid core Walnut ply panel mainly using Pegas #2/0 Spiral blades and a Pegas #3 MGT R blade for the long straight border cuts. The perimeter border is 1/4" wide so it is hidden under the rebbeted frame rails. I enhanced the Walnut cutting with a quick wipe-on/wipe-off coat of Minwax Dark Walnut stain, mainly to stain all the interior vertical edge cuts but not wanting to lose the visibility of the wood grain. The cut panel was affixed to a 1/4” thick BB Ply Backer that I chose to paint to look somewhat like sky using my Air Brush and Acrylic Artist Air Brush Paints. The Frame is a 3/4” wide rabbeted frame made from Poplar, that was Stained with Minwax Honey and protected with multiple coats of Clear Gloss Wipe-on Polyurethane. Comments and critiques always welcome. A special note here. Cutting this image, whether you care for the image itself or not, would be an excellent opportunity for anyone that may be interested in learning how to use Spiral Blades. I will post the pattern in Pattern Exchange and include a short tutorial under Works in Progress & Tutorials that will provide; ‘My Methods’ that I followed when I cut this image with Spirals.

I limit my time at the saw. When cutting a many hole pattern, my rule is: about two hours or when the 3rd blade breaks, it is time to take a break. Fortunately, I don't suffer from pain, but at my age, my endurance ain't what it use to be. Btw, nice job cutting. Did you wind up using any spirals?

Kinda agree with you. I have seen many of these Sun Faces. Most are smiling.

You did spell that correctly?

I said I would not be posting until next year but, I had a little time and decided to make a Christmas Gift for my grown-up Granddaughter’s apartment. I modified a Steve Good Cat Door Topper Pattern and used it to make a solid wood statue with base. I increased the pattern size to make the statue 7.5” tall by 9.0” long mounted on a 7.5” long x 3” wide oval base that all was cut from 3/4" Maple. The base perimeter was beveled approximately 6 degrees. The statue was cut using a Pegas #3 MGT R blade and the base was cut with a Pegas #5 MGT R Blade. I eased all the sharp edges using a 1/8” round-over bit using my router and did additional sculpturing with my hand held Dremel Tool where the router bit would not reach. Then lots of sanding. The figure is mounted to the base with a mortice and tendon joint using both Titebond and AC Glues. I hand painted the butterfly (as can be seen I did not do a good job on the very small area) with Artist Acrylic Paints and then applied a Clear Gloss Lacquer Finish. I think it looks OK if you don’t get toooooo close. I think she will like it as she is a cat lover. Comments and critiques always welocme. PS: I’ve got another quick project going that I might just get done before we head out on trip to Branson, MO. for Christmas. So, maybe one more post this year.

Thought I had commented earlier. Bettet late thsn never, as they say. Very nice work. Great toolbox.

A non-protected stencil image I found on-line. Nobody’s pet-in-particular. Resized it in Inkscape into an 8”x 10” pattern. Cut the pattern in 5/32” Solid Core Birch Ply and affixed to a 1/4” BB Ply backer. Decided I would color it as a Chocolate Labrador and used a photo of a Chocolate Labrador, with a similar pose, as a coloring guide. The coloring was done with an Air Brush using Artist Air Brush Acrylic Paints. The Brown was easy, but trying to get the highlights correct from an apparent light source shining in from the left side was VERY difficult. After a lot of doing and redoing, I think I finally got it close, and I hope it looks halfway decent. For this 8”x10” panel, the frame is a simple 3/4” wide rabbeted Poplar rail stained Minwax Early American and protected with multiple coats of Deft Clear Gloss Lacquer. Comments and critiques always welcome. PS: This will be the last new posting I put up this year since nothing new is ready for the saw. Edit: Deleted this paragraph due to security concerns. Sufice to say we are busy for the next month. So, it looks like my shop is going dark for the rest of the year but, hopefully, I’ll be back in front of the saw by the New Year. Happy Holidays to all…I'll pesters you all with new posts in 2024!

Now that you mentioned it, I do have his pattern in my files with a title "Honeybee" so it did not register in my scan of my files when I looked for "Bee". When I was looking throug the Website that had all kinds of'"Bee" things I found a couple of images I liked and decided, for the small price, to buy a few. This one sort of jumped out at me because of the rather overly exagerated Bee image. Other than the bridges I had to add between the Honeycomb sections, I also liked the simplicity of the Honeycomb image. I immediately could invision how it would be colored.

Very nice and well done. However, wrong season...Christmas is coming, not Easter.

A purchased SVG file that required some work to make the pattern scrollable. The Bee is a separate layer applied on top of the cut panel. The cut panel is 5/32” x 12” x 12” solid core Maple Ply affixed to a 1/4" x 12” x 12” BB Ply Backer. The Bee is also 5/32” solid core Maple Ply. Coloring was done using my Air Brush with Artist Acrylic Air Brush Paints. The assembled panel was protected with multiple coats of a Clear Gloss Acrylic. The Frame is 1/3/4” wide Poplar rails finished with Black Lacquer. Made this as a Christmas Gift for my, soon-to-be ,Grand-Daughter-in-law, who, besides being the mother of my Great-Grand-son, is a Bee Keeper. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Can't argue with your logic!

Quik question. Looking at the photo I'm curious, did you paint the backer behind the fox Orange? I would have thought you would have used a red or gray?

Very nicely done.

The flip flop black, weed green, water blue and brown footprints are on the backer. The red and blue is on the cut panel. All applied with the air brush.

Sometimes, simple is all it takes. I found the B&W clipart image on-line in an obscure commercial website that allowed free downloads, and I just took a liking to it. I converted it and resized it to a 12" x 18" scrollable pattern by just the addition of a few bridges. I cut the 5/32" thk solid core Maple panel in a little over a hour using Pegas #0 Spiral blades. The backer is 1/4" BB Ply. I added color using my Air Brush and Artist Acrylic Air Brush Paints. After assembly, I finished the cut panel with multiple coats of a Clear Gloss Acrylic protective coating. The frame is a- not my typical - Poplar 3/4" wide rabbeted rail frame with a Black Gloss Lacquer finish. I thought a narrow frame would look good with this image and I think it works. Comments and Critiques always welcome.

I believe I may have posted that pattern in '21 with a bunch of others I did at the same time. I purchased it on line. This was my version. Santa 3.pdf