FrankEV

While I live in Florida, my son lives in North Carolina and my daughter lives on Long Island, New York. So, visits, or getting together for Holidays, do not happen often. I will see my son In October for Biketoberfest and my daughter in Joining us on a cruise to the Caribbean this November. I decided I wanted to make them Xmas gifts I could package up for them to take home with them. I thought a version of a ‘Night Light Lamp’, similar to lamps I have made in the past, would be a good gift for both families. My box style construction technique that I have used previously is simple and straight forward. Other than the Scroll pattern, all parts are cut and/or mitered on the Table Saw. The scroll patterns were stack cut using Pegas #3 and #5 MGT R blades as well as Pegas #2/0 and #0 Spiral blades. Rounding corners was done on my bench belt sander while most finish sanding was done using my Palm sanders and hand sanding as needed. The Lamps were finished with multiple coats of Deft Clear Gloss Lacquer. I decided to make these lamps shorter than those I made previously, only 6 inches tall, with a simple scrolled base that is formed by the walls. My design is based on a 5 1/2” square box with mitered corners, since 1/4” Red Oak from Lowes is available this exact width. I did purchase some Bolivian Rosewood (from Ocooch) for the lamp I made for my son as a dark wood lamp will be more appropriate with their bedroom furniture while the Red Oak will work for my daughter. The Bolivian Rosewood is beautiful wood! Both Lamps have a loose, 1/4” thick Matching Top with an underside “stopper” that keeps the top in place. I chose to use 1/4" BB ply, stained to match, as the interior bottom piece for both strength and not wanting to waste the costly hardwood. The plans to make shorter lamps made the task of finding suitable patterns for these lamps a difficult task as, you all know, cutting any kind of intricate pattern at a reduced scale is a challenge. Also, the pattern must be a self-framed positive image that allows the light to glow through the frosted Plexi behind the large open areas of the image. My daughter-in-law is a fanatic about Dragon Flies. I had previously found a very suitable Dragonfly image I had converted into a Scroll Saw Pattern and had saved for a future project. This Pattern became the initial motive to make Night Light Lamps in the first place. Now just I needed to find something that worked for the lamp for my daughter. After a lot of searching on-line, I found a very suitable stock image of a ‘Butterfly in a Garden’ that I purchased. I was able to insert the round images into a the square spaces by adding the cut-out corners. For these (and future) lamps I purchased ‘MakerStock’ two-packs of 1/8” x 12” x 24” Transparent Orange Acrylic sheet and Frosted Lilac Acrylic sheet, from Amazon. For the Transparent Orange, I glue Drawing Velum to the interior face to make it translucent (appears frosted). I think the Orange worked well with the Bolivian Rosewood and the Frosted Lilac worked well with the Red Oak. An important note here. I found if I sized and mitered the Acrylic pieces to fit the interior box dimensions snugly, the pieces held themselves together and did not require any adhesive to keep them in place. And, of course, a lamp requires the electrical lamp parts, which I chose to purchase locally at Lowes. However, for anyone that may choose to make these (or similar) lamps, I might suggest you search on-line (Amazon) to get better pricing. You can find the patterns for these two lamps in Pattern Exchange. I hope you may have enjoyed reading my detailed story above and, hopefully, did not get too bored. Here are the pic of the Lamps and, as always, comments and critiques are welcome. This pic was taken in dark with no extra lighting. Fairly close to what they will look like when use as a night light. If still too bright, the equivalent 7W LEDbulb can be replaced with an equalent 3W LED bulb. As seen, the Orange is brighter than the Lilac. PS: Boy, close up photos reveal things you don't see in person. Although I glued the stopper cross grain, there is still some warp in the Rosewood top. Also, the corner joints of the Red Oak appear to be open slightly, but they realy aren't.

There are a number of ways to fix "oops". You will find AC Glue to be your friend. However, if the "oops" ,is bad enough, what so bad about having to start over. If you can't afford t o throw it away, you might want to find a different hobby. I've completely cut many a pattern that never gets diplayed for many reasons and they wind up in the fire box. It is only wood! I personally like the thinner cut panel with a backer. In your pics I can not really tell a difference in color. If the imsge had more details in the butterflys and girl, then maybe color would be appropriate. If you have seen any of my work, you may know that I will often add color, but for this case I like the simplicity of the B&W effect. Hope you plan to apply a good protective coating like Lacquer or such and find, or make, a nice Frame to realy make it an outstanding piece. BTW, very well done!

Oh oh, you may have opened pandoras box. If other buyers get wind of the gift they will want one if they buy as well. Very nice and very well done.

Yep. That is what it looks like.

A short while ago I received a Steve Good email containing his Butterfly Box (bflybox2023 - good.pdf). Needing another tabletop item in my collection, I thought that this project looked like a nice project that would fill the bill. My solid wood resource is limited, and I was only able to find enough ¼” and ¾” Hard Maple and some ¼” Red Oak to build the box out of. I did enlarge his pattern to 6 ½” x 8”. I feel this made the box size a little more useful. I did stack cut the two ¾” pieces that make up the vertical walls of the box. I did the cutting using Pegas #5 MGT R blade. I should have glued the two boards together before cutting, as he suggested, rather than after. This would have eliminated glue squeeze-out and reduced the amount of sanding needed. I should have also stacked the ¼” thick stopper (his Layer 3) when cutting the inside of the walls, which would have produced a much more precise fit. Stack cutting the two ¾” layers of the Hard Maple was a very slow cut. I did not burn the wood, but the walls did not remain their natural white and became streaky dark. I was able to remove the glue squeeze-out by sanding, but sanding did not eliminate the dark discoloration. I also stack cut the top and bottom Oak Layers. I used the previously cut wall to act as a template to guide the blade while cutting. This was a little tricky, but worked out well so there was minimal sanding required to have all edges flush with the walls. I did darken the Red Oak with Minwax Aged Oak for a better contrast between the walls and the top and Bottom. The ¼” thick Hard Maple Butterfly applique for the top was a very easy cut using Pegas #3 MGT R blades. During the final sanding of the Butterfly, I profiled all the top edges to give it a slightly rounded-over look and feel as the top will be handled during use. And yes, I did have to make the project different by using Artist Acrylic Air Brush Paints to add color to the Butterfly. The assembled Box and Cover was finished with multiple coats of Deft Clear Gloss Lacquer.

I'm happy with my 21" Pegas. If buying today, I might consider the 30". If you buy one definately get the stand also. Great stable setup. Also needs a good separate min 5x mag light as the saw does not come with any attached light like some other saws do. Mount on a separate structure, not the saw, for best ease of use. The Pegas blade clamps and tensioning system work well, although I find the lower clamp a PITA to find the slot when doing it just by feel, especially for the spiral blades I mainly use. From what I've read herein, many use Pegas and are very happy with them.

Not too loose in the stand. Too loose to stand up like a sculpture by itself. Also the pattern does not have a flat bottom to stand on.

I'm not a puzzle maker. However, I found a nice Puzzle of an Elephant that I thought would be nice to make for my soon-to-be-born Great-Grandson. His nursery is all decked out in Elephant's on his crib blankets, a hanging mobile etc. I did not have any nice solid wood, so I decided to cut it in a piece of 3/4" thick premium pine, since I plan to paint the puzzle pieces anyway... Airbrush Elephant Grey of course using Artist Acrylic paint with a Polycrylic protective coating. Thinking I needed a wide kerf I used a Pegas #1 spiral blade. This proved to be the wrong choice. Although it goes together easily it is very loose and the cut edges are not very smooth. I have since found out, from replies to my Q&A, I should have used a standard blade. I had used a drill hole to start the perimeter cut which left a solid boarder. I added a backer to the border, mounted the boarder - tilted back about 12 degrees - to a base and I’m able to use it to display the puzzle that won’t stand up by itself. I stained the Pine stand with Minwax Sedona Red and finished it with multiple coats of Clear Gloss Lacquer. Although I did not do things the best way and the results could have been better, I think the finish project came out OK. Comments and Critiques always welcome.

You should be happy, very well done! Just an FYI, "Bragging Rights" would be the more appropriate forum for this post.

Very well done. Great pattern. I'm curious, would you define many hours? Also, spiral blades I presume?

Dick, Very well done. That image is popular. I'v seen it many times and I think I may have it downloaded it into my patterns library already. The Sky Blue backer color works nicely. You know my style...I would have added color to the cutting itself, but that is just me. OK...here is the big question: Where is the Frame? JFI, when I do a cutting like this I would enlarge the Image and reduce the border to no more than 3/16" all around. When mounted in a frame, with a 1/4" rabbet, the cut frame disapears and it image fills the fulll opening of the actual frame I use. I find that kind of presentation is much more plesant to view. But again, that is just me.

Go to Pattern Exchange

Found this image on-line and just could not resist converting it into a Scroll Saw Pattern. The cut panel is 5/32” x 11” x 17” solid core Birch Ply mounted to a 1/4” x 11” x 17” BB Ply Backer. Both the Backer and cut panel are Hand Painted mainly using an Air Brush and Artist Acrylic Air Brush Paints. A little regular Artist Acrylic Paints and brush work was used for some details and the gold belt buckle. The painting work was quite difficult and time consuming due to the many colors and the necessary drying time between colors so adjacent areas could be masked with tape. I’m feeling good about how well II was able to use the Air Brush. You will notice I was even able to get some light blue shading in the eyes and light gray shading in the white fur of the coat and hat. Pretty close match to the original color image I was attempting to duplicate. Cutting was done with Pegas #2/0 Spiral blades. The assembled panel was protected with multiple coats of Clear Gloss Acrylic Finish. The frame is my typical 1 3/4" wide Premium Pine, primed and painted bright Red (It is a Christmas Piece, you know!). If this fun piece does not sell quickly, it will hang in in my home for the holidays. Comments and Critiques always welcome. I put the Pattern in Pattern Exchange

Nicely done! I like it a lot. At first glance it was a little hard to see the image in the photo (probably more obvious in real life). Took me a little while, after looking more closely, to understand what you had created. To gain a little more contrast, if you do something like this again you might consider beaching the body before finishing. A soft wood like pine will whiten considerably.

Wow. Great work! Old scool Scrolling! How many hours? What Blade? What are yoiu going to do with it - sell, keep, donate? Im not afraid of the number of holes or even of the detailed assenbly, but If I were to make one like this, I would have no place to display it in my small home.

That is some FINE cutting - pun intened but true. Great job on the coloring also.

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Just learning to use it. Was trying to get some very fine lines but couldn't. Had to speak with my son. He said I needed to lower the pressure. Had not tried that. Still lots still to learn.

Wanted to see if I could do a decent job on a Dog portrait. Found a bunch of stencils and images of various breeds. This Pitbull Portrait with a Heart, caught my eye. I converted it to a scroll Saw Pattern and sized it to fit on an 8x10 Panel. The panel is 5/32” solid core Birch Ply. Using my Air Brush, I painted both the 1/4” BB Ply backer and the cut panel with Artist Acrylic Air Brush paints. The Panel was cut using Pegas #2/0 Spiral blades. As usual, after painting and assembly the panel was protected with multiple coats of Krylon Clear Gloss Acrylic Finish. The panel is mounted in a very inexpensive 8x10 frame I purchased in bulk on Amazon. I think it came out fairly nice, if I have to say so myself! Comments and critiques always welcome. EDIT: I posted the pattern in PATTERN EXCHANGE

Very nice woodworking. A tray for wine and cheese would bube better .

Great job. What is a pencil?

The idea for the cutting is wonderful and I'm sure it will be much appreciated. However, the use of MDF for the cut panel and frame, to me, was a poor choice. If cut and framed in nice looking wood and properly finished, the progect would have been something that would be proud to display for many years to come. Painted MDF will collect dust, is easily marred, and can be affected adversely by humidity over a relatively short time.

They are already cut up and on the burn bin!

I posted, in Bragging Rights, the Individual Tree and Moon project a while ago. This set is a commission project I got for a mirrored set of the B&W Tree and Moon. The cutting for this set was a stack cut 5/32” Birch Solid Core Ply. The painted White Backers are 1/4" BB ply. Why, when you take a commission project, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. So read on only if you want to know my sad story. First time, after cutting was complete (with no cutting problems), the double-stick tape I used left residue on what was to be a finished side of one of the panels. No matter how much cleaning and sanding I did, the tape outline was visible through the paint finish. Then, after what seemed like an eternity for the Black paint to dry, when I clamped the glued-up assemblies in my press, when removed from the press the paint surfaces were marred. Obviously, the paint was not fully cured hard enough. Trying to salvage the work, I sanded the surfaces lightly, to make everything uniform, and applied a Clear Gloss Krylon coating. Again, it was immediately obvious that something was wrong with the combination of finishing materials as the painted surface all bubbled up. Both went to the bin of scraps that will be used in my fire pit this fall. On to a second cutting, again this time with no cutting problems. Made sure there was no tape on the finished panel face. Decided to try using a Black Lacquer Finish instead of Paint for this second set. The lacquer dries much more quickly, but again when the glued-up assemblies came out of the press, the surfaces were again marred slightly. I guess it needed to dry even longer. However, Lacquer is more forgiving, and an application of clear Gloss Lacquer returned the surface to the finish desired. Things were looking good at this point. I had made the floating frames earlier and they are designed to have a 1/8” gap between the panel and frame. The dimensions of the panel and frames are never an exact match as intended, so I usually need to slightly trim the panel to make the 1/8” gap uniform all around. Trimming panel number one and then fitting and mounting it in its frame went perfectly. Not so much with the second piece. While trimming the second panel, I took my eyes off the panel momentarily, and the edge of the panel was slightly gouged by the saw blade. CA glue and sawdust came to the rescue and, with a little black Lacquer touch up I was able to repair the damage. However, while installing the mounting hardware clips on the back side, although the face down panel and frame were lying on a protected surface, a small area of the now finished surface got damaged somehow. With careful sanding and applications of both the Black Lacquer and Clear Gloss Lacquer, I was able to repair the damage. Although I should charge double because I had to make them twice, I will be giving the customer a discount on the price I quoted. If there is a moral to my story, I have not figured it out yet, other than "don't look away while timmimg a finished panel on the table saw".

You can get smaller bits from Danny at Artcrafters. I would have been using a #68 bit and #2/0 spiral blade to cut small fretwork like that. BTW, very nice.