FrankEV

The word is: y'all

I "almost" misspelled It, but didn't. If I had, just like my previous misspelling of Bonny, when I cut Boney instead of Bonny. It was noticed and I heard about it.

Could not have my Pirate Art Panel collection with only Female Pirates. I was able to find a B&W image of Black Bart, that was much like the one I used for Mary Read. The conversion was time consuming but resulted in a scrollable pattern. The pattern is quite busy so, as a result, it was necessary to add many bridges after the cutting began. All cutting was done with Pegas #2/0 Spiral blades. The Cut panel is 5/32” Solid Core Maple Ply affixed to a 1/4” thick BB Ply backer painted Black. From my research, Black Bart was a fierce Pirate, but even during battles he would always be dressed in very fancy clothing. He was known to always have worn a large gold cross hanging on a gold chain. The coloration of this cutting, done with Artist Acrylics, is purely out of my imagination of what his clothing may have l looked like. The Frame is 1 3/4” wide Pine, primed and painted Black. While cutting his name, I almost misspelled “Bartholomew”. Did not want to have a repeat of a misspelling like I did with the Anne Bonny Cutting. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Your box is great. Boxes are fun to make and yes, time consuming, but worth it when they come out nice. For that reason, and for as much time and effort you put in to making this box, I feel you could have use a better species of wood. Pine does not take stain well. Alos, if it was me making this box, I would have installed backers on the inside of the box walls, of a contrasting material (like the Cameo), and then added a felt or other type lining. Open lattice type boxes lack practicality, which I think most would prefer to have.

Those holders are very nice...kodo's to your other half. Mine is a little simpler, just a flat piece of 1/4 " thick wood of some kind mounted to the side of my Pegas Saw. Very convienent since I break a lot of blades. Seventeen holes for tubes. Would not know what to do with more tubes. There must be something wrong with me because I could get away with a lot less. Out of the seventeen, five have Sharktoot blades which I haven't used since first starting to scroll, two have Flying Duchmen blades that I have been planning to try but havn't yet, two are empty, and eight have various sizes and types of Pegas Blades I use on a regular basis. For most of the fretwork type of cutting I do, I use mostly small spiral blades, occasionally some midsize MGT R Blades and once in a while a large MGT or Skip tooth blade for thick material or those large thick circular/oval outdoor plaque backers. I'm not a blade aficionado. I stick with mainly with my go-to blades, like #2/0 spiral #1 MGT R and #5 MGT or Skip Tooth. I do go through a lot of the #2/0 spiral so I purchase them by the gross. Others I havn't had to buy more in a long time.

The multi species sides was only because I did not have enough material of one kind. The entire project was an experiment and a learning endevour. Hope what ever is keeping you out of the shop gets better quickly.

First, let me say the overall project is fantastic. But to your comment above, I/m afraid I can't agree with you at all. I predominently cut very detail fretwork in nom 1/8" panels and never have any problems with doing so one thickness at a time. I do use a better grade panel than common BB Ply which does help and I predomintly use spiral blades. I can maintain good control and usualy able to stay withisn the cut out area, but even then I do occasionally cut through and a piece may be cut out. Sometime CA glue is your best friend. When you cut thin material, you really need to use small blades and slow the saw way down in order to be able to maintain control. Don't hurry the cut and let the saw do the work.

As many of you do, I receive daily Email from Steve Good with his Scroll Saw projects. Most of his projects are not my “cup of tea”. However, every now and then one of his projects will grab my interest. Earlier this week I downloaded his pattern for a solid wood Rose Vase which I decided to experiment with and make with a few modifications. The major modification was that I wanted both the front and back to have the rose image cutout and have solid backers that I could use to apply color to the image. I knew I did not have any significant quantity of a specific hardwood in stock that I could use to make it and did not want to purchase any right now. However, I did have a verity of cut offs of Maple and Walnut that were of the correct size that I decided to use. I was able to find six pieces, all of which were 1/4” thick, except one piece was only 3/16” thick. Also, the number of available pieces allowed me to make one face Walnut and the other face Maple, another modification to the design. Since this is a vase, the middle two pieces - the 3/16” and one 1/4” would be cut to form the internal cavity. First, I stack cut the full six layers to the rough outside configuration using a Pegas #5 skip tooth blade. Second, I stack cut the Rose Image in the front and back piece using Pegas #1 MGT R blades. Should have flipped the finished face of the back over so the image would face the same way but I didn’t. So, the Front and back face in opposites directions, but that was OK with me. Third, I stack cut the middle two layers to form the cavity, again using the Pegas #5 skip tooth blade. Here again I did not follow the pattern. I started the cut, following the pattern at the mouth of the vase, but simply cut a straight down rectangle from the inside of bulge near the top. This added significant rigidity and glue surface to the middle pieces. After adding my color with Artist Acrylics to the backers, the glue up was straight forward. First the middle two pieces, the two front pieces, and the two back pieces were individually glued together. Then I glued the three assembly’s together to form the completed vase. Although all the layers were originally stack cut, the final glued up stack was not perfectly lined up and a bit of sanding was needed with both my bench belt sander and my rotary oscillating sander to flush up and smooth all the perimeter sides. Finally, I eased all the sharp corners with sanding sponges and fine hand sanded all surfaces with 220 grit sponges and then 600 grit Wet/Dry Sandpaper. The finish is multiple coats of Clear Gloss Lacquer. This Rose Vase will be given to my Lady and occupy a place in our home. She already loves it!!!!!!! Hoping this lengthy dialog was not too boring. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Very well done. I like it a lot. Wondering what Glue do you use? I guessing CA, if correct...Thick, Medium or Thin? And, do you glue every contact point on every ring?

Re-reading your post, the above sentence jumped out at me. This is something I never do. Not even in this forum, will I show a partialy finished piece. Most of the good artist I know do not ever like to show a work in progress unless they are specifically in "demonstration mode". I most often show a pattern I'm thinking of cutting to my Lady to see if she thinks it would be a good subject or not. This is usually the point where I know if she likes the subject/image or not, and will make me think twice if I going to cut it or not. I have cut a few that she did not much care for but they actually came out well, with much approval in this forum. We all know everyone has different likes and dislikes. When she visits me in the shop and sees a piece I'm cutting it's no big deal, but I don't look for any comments on my progress or how the piece looks at that time. I most often only reveal the finished piece to her when getting ready to take photos to post herein. Of course, I my case, I often need her help when I add color to a piece. She has a better eye as to how it should look, so, at my bequest, will be very honest on my efforts to color a piecce. The subject itself is not so much a concern at that point, but more so as to how the color rendering is working. This is the exception to my rule.

My lady, when looking at a piece I cut, really does not know the difference between a good cutting and a bad cutting. For her it is the image itself and of course, my coloration is up for critique, when I add color to a piece. However, although she rarely says she dislikes a piece, I can just read her face and the tone in her voice that tells me whether or not she realy likes what I'm showing her or not. It is funny, because she is usually in the same place I am about the image.

I'm betting it was not your cutting but the subject she did not like. I agree with Marge, the drips off the snout take away a from the piece somewhat, but that is between you and the pattern maker. You have to be kind of a wild life enthuist to appreciate the image. To me, It definately does not belong in the closet, but the Frame, although very nice, is not appropriatee for the piece. I would make a very rustic, rough, distressed, wide frame out of maybe Pine, Cedar or maybe old pallet wood and then the whole piece would take on an entirely diferent and more apealing appearance...more suitable for maybe a cabin setting or hunters man cave. Not knowing "who" the piece was intended for, it is hard to say if you should gift it to that person. If he/she is a hunter or is found of northern wild life, I would say it could be definately gifted as planned. BTW, the cutting itself looks very well done.

I converted an Image of a metal wall hanging I found on-line into a scrollable 11 x 17 pattern. The conversion did not take much work as the hanging artwork was already very much like a scroll saw product. The only thing I had to do was let Inkscape invert the image to produce the cutout areas in a red outline with gray fill. The metal wall hanging was shown as Black with the contrasting image in White. I liked the way it looked but wondered how it would look in contrasting wood colors as how we, Scrollers, often present our work. I decided to stack cut two 5/32” thick solid core ply panels, one Walnut and the other Birch. The Walnut panel was then left natural (although I did darken it slightly with a quick wipe on/wipe off coat of Walnut stain) and it was affixed to 1/4” thick BB Ply backer that was left Natural. The Birch panel was primed and painted with rattle can Gloss Spray Black and affixed to 1/4” thick BB Ply backer that was primed and painted with rattle can Gloss Spray White. Both assembled panels were further protected with multiple coats of Clear Gloss Lacquer. If these cutting were solid wood, no framing would have been necessary, not unlike the original metal wall hanging which is unframed. However, to hide the plywood edges, I made narrow (1/2” wide) drop-in type frames that match the cut panels. Walnut for the Walnut panel and Pine, primed and painted Gloss Black, for the Black panel. Be warned, you should not let the apparent simplicity of this image fool you. I chose to use a Pegas #1 MGT R blade to cut the pattern to insure the cut edges were sharp. I found the cutting, with all the sharp pointy corners resulted in a LOT of time-consuming Panel spinning. I also found it took much patience and fine touch control to follow the simple, but long, curve pattern lines accurately. The image is a mirror image side to side, so cutting misstates would not be able to be hidden. I think I did OK, but it did require many rest breaks to keep my eyes from getting too crossed. If you have taken the time to read through this far, I have a BIG REQUEST. Even if you have no comments, please reply with a simple vote for the one that you prefer. I’ll number the pics below #1 - Walnut and #2 - Black for simplicity of voting. I’ll let you vote a #3 if you don’t like either. #1 – Walnut #2 – Black Yep, comments and critiques are always welcome and encouraged. You will be able to find the pattern in “New Pattern Announcements” in Pattern Central herein.

I'm betting the thin ply would have been no problem cutting if you used small spiral blades. This pattern looks like it is just made to be cut with Pegas #2/0 spirals in a nom 1/8" thick ply panel. IMHO, cutting a pattern like this in thick wood just destroys the look of the image by seeing all the vertical cut surfaces no matter how perfectly straight on you look at it.

Here is a clock I did for my Lady's young Grandson. He was actually having difficulty using a clock with hands to tell time because of growing up with all digital clocks. Thought this would help and give him a chance to learn about Chinese numbers at the same time (note the simlilariity to Roman Numerals). He also like dragons.

Extremely well done, both pattern and cutting. Got a couple of questions. What is the cut panel size and material? Realy curious why you chose to change from a horizontal landscape format to a vertical portrait fromat? I'm guessing to suit the panel size you had or wanted to use. An application of a finish and, as others said, a nice frame will make it outstanding. I've done some pattern creation from an image using Inkscape. Takes me a lot longer than 2 hours for even simple patterns. Don't know how you did such a complcated scene in just two hours. I would really enjoy cutting that pattern but living in Florida my inclinations is to do a little more "tropical" scenes

Well the title is "ANGRY" I just used the original color image as a guide. I'm improving on blending colors to get shading effect, but still need a lot of practice.

Yes, in Pattern Central. Search "pirates" in Pinterest.

The pattern can be found in New Pattern Announcements

Looking around in the pirate area on-line I came across this Royalty Free cartoon character image that caught my eye and though it would be a good addition to my collection of cartoon cuttings. It took quite a bit of work to convert it into a scrollable 11 x 14 pattern. The cut panel is 5/32” thk. Birch Solid Core Ply affixed to a ¼” thk BB Ply painted black backer. Cutting was done with Pegas #2/0 spiral blades. Mainly large cut outs but a lot of narrow spaced parallel lines and some very small detail areas. The coloring was done with Artist Acrylics and the finish panel protected with multiple coats of spray Polycrylic. The frame is 1 ¾” wide Pine, primed and painted. Comments and critiques always welcome.

I really like it. Extremely well done.

Beautiful! Need some details. Wood? Thickness? Finish? Etc.

Great to have you back. A tall stool to sort of lean against, as opposed to sitting on, may alow your time at the saw to be a little longer. Like others, this brings back memories. My dad had a '59 when I was a teenager and just driving. Took my girlfriend to a Drive-in Movie and trying to reposition the car the right side rear window was yanked out by the speaker that was hanging on it. Yeah, fond memdories!!!!! Great cutting , BTW.

I don’t know if it is just me or if there are others like me out there? I get bored very easily so I’m always looking to find a “something different” subject to develop into a themed collection of Art Panel cuttings. I have done Birds, Flowers, Felines, Horses, and many others. So why not Pirates? While searching through images on-line I ran across an image of a B&W drawing of Mary Read who was an English female pirate in late 1600. The story of her life intrigued me. Most of her life she pretended to be a man using the name Mark Read. Quite awhile ago I had made a special gift cutting of Castlevaina Alucard, for my Grandson which has gotten rave reviews from his friends. The presentation was a full head-to-toe cutting of the character. Looking at the image of Mary Read, I thought I might be able to convert it into a scrollable image not unlike the cutting I had done for my Grandson. I don’t pretend to be a wizard at creating scrollable patterns from an image, but, using Inkscape’s “trace bitmap” function and a lot of cleanup work, I was able to make, what I think is, a reasonable scrollable pattern. However, the pattern is not for the faint-of-heart as there are a lot of very small delicate details areas requiring the use of very small blades. I used Pegas #2/0 Spiral blades, but some areas might have been done better with regular straight # 2/0 blades. Of course, one piece does not make a collection. So, I looked further and found another image, this time a color piece, of Anne Boney who was Irish, and like Mary, a female pirate of the same era. I used the same process to convert the image into a scrollable pattern, but this image proved to be more challenging as Inkscape has more trouble developing the subject lines where color shading is part of the image. I had to do a lot more manual tracing to develop the pattern. Although, not as many actual “holes” as the Mary Read Pattern, this pattern also has a lot of areas of small delicate details. Again, I used Pegas #2/0 Spiral blades. I think both 11” x 17” patterns work as simple B&W cuttings, but, as you all know, I like to add color to my cuttings. Although the Mary Read image was B&W, looking at the multitude of pirate images, I was able to add color which seems appropriate. I use the Anne Boney color image for a guide to the colors I used on the cutting…of course using a lot of artist discretion. Since I use Artist Acrylic Paints, I am now using Clear Gloss Spray Polycrylic’s which, like the paints is water based, as a protective coating after panel assembly. And like usual, the Frames are 1 3/4” wide Poplar primed and painted with Glidden Spray Gloss Black. I will post PDF’s of these patterns in the New Pattern Announcement section. Comments and critiques always welcome. PS: Yes, I'm aware the words Anne Boney is not properly Right Justified. I was too far into cutting before I noticed it. The pattern has been corrected along with a few more bridges that have been added I had found was needed as I cut the piece. EDIT: It was pointed out to me the spelling "Boney" should be "Bonny". Looks like I need to recut this pattern. EDIT 03/09/23: Recut the corrected pattern and replaced pic herein of Anne Bonny. Things went a little better the seconded time around.

Works if your pole is metal. Mine is 1/2" galvanized steel pipe. Using some #14 Romex, I strip abojut 4 feet and use just the white and the bare ground and white wires. The white is cut short and I use a metal screw clamp to attach the stripped back white to the pole. I run a strip of electrical tape up the pole under the bare ground wire, taping the run about every 12 inches with a band of electrical tape to hold it in place. I run an extension cord to the boton of the wires on the pole to energize the white and bare wire. I run mine in conduit below ground from an outlet on the house. Griping the pole touching both the metal pole and the bare wire results in a shock that the squirrels quickly learn to avoid. However, if you touch either just the pole or the bare wire you won't get shocked, so I never have to worry about adding bird feed to the feeder, but I'm careful anyway. Just in case you are wondering how to electrictrafy the pole! run a