FrankEV

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

I have made this bird feeder about 6 times now. Up till now I have used plywood and each has disintegrated in a matter of a year or so. I was looking to purchase a marine grade plywood for this latest one but could not find any locally and to order on-line, the price was too high. I decided to try a different approach. Western Red Cedar. Cedar fences seem to last for many years, so maybe thisbird feeder will last for a while. I obtained the plans for this feeder a number of years ago. This version uses a modified version of the original scrollwork pattern and I have deviated significantly from their plans for the roof construction. I own a 12” planer but not a jointer. The maximum width available is eight inches, and I needed pieces up to 14” wide, so I was forced to edge join pieces to cut the parts from. I planed the rough nominal ¾” stock down to ½” and used biscuits however the joints were not all tight. Used lots of glue and sawdust to fill the joints. I wanted to make better looking sloping roof joints. So, after lots of calculations and some testing I finally got the four triangular roof pieces cut to the right size but unfortunately, I still did not figure out correctly what the bevel cut angle should be, so the pieces meet to form a nice joint, but I had to use scraps to fill the joints from the back side. Fortunately this is hidden by the inside ceiling of the feeder box. The scroll saw cut side walls were easy cutting using a Pegs #5 MGT R blade. I did not try to sand the cedar to a smooth finish. Where needed I used 80 grit paper to sand with, leaving a somewhat rough finish. Also, I was going to keep the cedar natural and let it turn grey/silver over time. However, my lady wanted it to be white, so I stained it white and then applied a coat of Polyurethane. The stain is somewhat transparent, so the grain still shows a little and the “Clear” Poly actually turned the white stain a little yellow. I don’t think the birds will care. Squirrels love to get to the bird seed, so I have two deterrents. First the metal pole is electrified so when the squirrels try to climb the pole, they get a shock. They learn fast not to climb the pole, but they still can jump over to the feeder from a nearby Fig tree. I have added a row of pointy nails facing out to the bottom piece where they land when they jump. Hoping they get stuck by the nails and learn not to jump. Not sure if this will work. They are smart critters. Here is a couple of pics. Aa always, comments and critiques are welcome.

Very nice work. I don't think I've ever seen one. I have done a lot of birds and this one would be nice to add to my collection. Any chance of sharing the pattern in the "New pattern Announcements" Would be much appreciated.

The Butterfly patterns were converted from various free images I found on-line. The Butterflies were cut from 5/32” solid core Birch and are approximately 10” x 7.5” which I primed and then painted with rattle can Krylon Gloss Black. The Backer is 1/4” x 12” x 24” BB Ply that was hand painted with Acrylic Artist paints. I used photos of real Butterflies to get an idea of the colors. The assembled panel was protected with Minwax Clear Gloss Polycrylic. From top to bottom they are: Monarch, Papillio Ulysses, and Papillio Machaon. Lots of other images were available but the wing patterns of most were just too intricate to convert to a Cuttable Scroll Saw Pattern. The frame is 1 3/4” wide premium Pine that was primed and painted Glidden Gloss Black. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Go to Nrw Pattern Announcements. Already posted there. Where you locsted in Florida?

I’ve mentioned before that we have many cube type tissue boxes scattered around our house. Allergy reactions – sniffles, watering eyes, etc. - to everything Florida offers makes handy access to tissues a necessity. These two make a total of seven and I really need to make yet one more for my workshop. The covers are made like the previous, mainly using 5/32” solid core Maple Plywood cut offs, from my previous portrait projects, that I found in my scrap wood bin. All corners are simple miters done on the Table Saw. Of course, I did have to develop two new patterns for these covers that were cut using Pegas #2/0 spiral blades. The pattern for one cover is ‘Cranes and Palm Trees’ while the other is a simple ‘Sunflower’. The interior backers were hand painted with Artist Acrylic paints and, like before, the covers were protected with multiple coats of Clear Gloss Deft Lacquer. I’ll post the pdf’s for the patterns in the New Patters Announcements.

Very well done! Beautiful overall. If you are not going to use a backer, I could visualize seeing the cutouts filled with a colored epoxy/resin like others have used and previously shown herein.

If you apply a light coat of clear spray sealer, polycrylic or even lacquer prior to painting, you can eliminate paint bleed. Another way is to prime the areas to be painted with a acrylic Gesso. This is easier to do when painting a backer.

Very nice. I went to Paul Meisel Woodworking Website and could not find these particular patterns. Do you have a link to where you found them?

Absolutely Beautiful!