FrankEV

Cute - Subjects, that is. Cutting, very well done with the spiral!

Love your themed projecs. The Bison on the Slab of Maple (I think) is great. However, I really love the other pieces done in the cross cut slabs. Cutting a pattern in endgrain is really difficult and you have done them extreamly well. The natural frame created by the bark of the cross cut slabs are just great.

You are correct, the spiral blade does leave a rougher vertical surface cut. This roughness can be minmized if the movement of the work is kept steady. Stoping and restarting can make the roughness signigficantly worse, although the prudent use of the blade to shave cuts can also minimise this visable roughness. Although the cut by spirals is rougher the cuts do not show start and stop, or change in direction, marks, that are often very noticible with with flat blade cuts. Panel thickness can also make the roughness more visible. In my opinion, spirals are more appropriate for thin panel fretwork although they do well cutting thicker panels if care is taken to minimize stopping and restarting. Pattern design and subject can also result in the roughness being more or less visable. The roughness is not very easily seen in subjects like feathered or furry creatures and can sometimes even enhance the cutting. Roughness or wobbles in smooth long cut line patterns will definately be more visable. For the smooth long line patterns I have found there is sometimes the need to clean up cut lines with rotary tool (Dremel) burrs to smooth out the roughness/wobbles. Now, the real question is, where are you viewing the cut roughness from. Under the mag light? An arms length away? Or from the recommended 4 or more feet away, properly backed and displayed in a appropriate maner. In my opinion, if you are observing the roughness of the cuts in any than the final viewing location, you are doing a diservice to the scroller and blaming the the blades for something that has no real negative impact on the final product.

Very Very nice. Well cut. The live edge plank makes for a great presentation of a very appropriate subject.

Have not cut it yet, but agree it is one of Steves best and a real classic that would look good standing on anyones desk or book case. Any and all choices of wood make each quite unique. Your choice of Red Oak was perfect. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

Those damn 2/0 spiral blades do such a good job once mastered. And I think you have done just that. Very well done. The frame does a great job making it a very well done finished piece. Just something to think about. I have gone to using predominately 1/8 or 5/32 thick ply for the cut panel which I mount onto a 1/4 thick backer. I find this to be visually more appealing as the viewer dose not see as much of the vertical cut surfaces. The 3/8 assembled panel is very stable and mounts nicely in a custom frame.

Wow....just wonderful. Will be greatly loved by the buyer.

There is a significan learning curve for using spiral blades. However, once "mastered" you won't go back to flat blades for most fretwork. The PP has nothing to do with my knee. Just wanted to do a quick, easy, fun cut within the short time I had left before I'm off the saw for some time after surgery.

This is another free downloadable stencil I found and converted to a scroll saw pattern having only 31 holes. The pattern was sized to fit a 9” x 17” cut panel. The cut panel is 5/32” Solid Core Birch Ply (not BB Ply), cut using Pegas #2/0 Spiral Blades. The backer is 1/4” x 11” x 19” Solid Core Mahogany. The backer is hand painted under the cut area using Acrylic Artist Paints. The cut panel also has some areas hand painted with the contrasting light Pink Acrylic Paints. The panel was protected with multiple coats of Deft Clear Gloss Spray Lacquer. The stencil was in B&W but I was able to find many similar images of the Pink Panther that showed me the colors to use in this presentation. The Frame is 1 3/4” wide Poplar that was stained with Minwax Natural stain and then coated with two coats of Minwax Clear Gloss Wipe-On Poly. Decided to leave it Natural since the grain in this piece of Poplar was very nice, without the typical dark greenish coloration often found in Poplar. Was able to get this completed in only two days before having my knee surgery tomorrow (7/29). Comment and critique is always welcome and appreciated. I'm thinking this piece will be part of a wimsicle series, along with my previous "Cockerel", if I find some more to do.

Well I guess you just need the practice of makeing new side and end walls. If the second attempt is a nice as the first, it is a beautiful piece and great cutting. Those though mortisis are clean and neat. Great work.

National - Miniature Narrow Solid Brass Hinge 3/4" L x 5/8" Open w/screws 2 Pair (woodcraft.com) Cheaper from Amazon (after shipping cost added to Woodcraft price) if you have Amazon Prime free shipping.

Applying shipping costs to your sales on Ebay is the pits. I pulled out of attemps to set up sales pages on Amazon Home Made, Ebay and Etsy. Unless you are really serious and a real business it is a lot of work and a pain to keep tabs on everything. I lost patience real quick. And, BTW, if you want to take payments using Paypal, you need to have a Business EIN Number from the IRS. If you want to shoot photos of your "stuff" that is appropriate for use in on-line sales, you might want to consider purchaing a small table top photo box that includes lights and smooth continuous backdrops in various colors, but White, Black and Dark Grey are the best to use. Images need to be crisp and bright. These Photo Boxes are available on Amazon for under a $100. The newer smart phone cameras work well but a digital camera offers better control and adjustments. Shadows are your worse enemy when taking photos of the "Stuff". A Ring Light (by Neewer or similar) can also be used to almost eliminate shadows and are designed to work with smart phones as well as digital cameras. Please don't take this as expert advice, just what I have encountered. Others may be be able to provide better information. A query in Business Side might get you more accurate information and help.

I did not reply to the original because I would have been accused of beeing too negative as I did not care for the presentation. For me, and me alone, this is what I think it should look like. Great Job by the better half to make it an outstanding piece. How are you handleing the perimeter edges. Is the MDF exposed? If it is, I hope you sealed it well. A length of 3/4" "L" moulding from Lowes or HD can be made into a simple frame that would hide the MDF edges. They also sell some iron- n banding material that can be used to hide exposed MDF edges.

This Rose pattern was quite simple to cut and fairly easy to paint. I've included the pattern below. For those who would like to try adding color to your work, this would be a good one to use. A couple of very inexpensive bottles of acrylic paint and some cheap brushes would be all needed. I would suggest along with what ever color you use, get a bottle of white to be able to mix for some lighter shades where needed. Hobbie Lobby, Michaels and even Walmart are sources for paints and brushes. I would love to throw out a challenge to any and all who migt like to experiment with color...download the pattern, cut it and then try addding the coloring. Then come back and post your work. It would be great fun to see a group of postings of the same piece to see how you all did. Roses a Bunch.pdf

OK, got things done a little quicker than expected before we leave on our trip, so I get to post this last, at least for the foreseeable future, completed piece. This was again a free stencil image I found On-line and converted to a Scroll Saw pattern. Really, not very much conversion was needed other than adjusting the size to fit a 9” x 12” cut panel. The cut panel is 5/32” Solid Core Maple Ply and the cutting was done with Pegas#2/0 spiral blades. Just about 100 holes and used only two blades. My ratio of holes to broken blades is getting better . The Backer is a ¼” x 11” x 14” BB ply that was hand painted. Of course, the 1” border was just spray painted with Krylon All-in-one paint and primer Coffee Bean. The area under the cutting was first coated with Gesso (a White Acrylic art paint primer) and then hand painted with Acrylic Artist Paints. As the pattern is relatively simple, I was able to use a couple of copies of the cutting pattern to use as general area painting stencils. Made life a little easier for this step. I also painted some additional areas on the cut panel to help enhance the image. And, once again the assembled panel was protected with multiple coats of Deft Lacquer. In my previous post “Love Stem Roses – A different Version”, Fab4 replied that the Roses should have been Yellow or white, but we all know that Love and Red Roses go together. So, since this piece has nothing to do specifically with Love, I took his suggestion and painted these Roses Yellow. The custom frame is once again made from 1¾" wide poplar, stained with Minwax Cherry and finished with two coats of Minwax Gloss Wipe-on Poly. Don’t forget, critique of my work is always welcomed and appreciated. If you haven’t already, please check out my recent post "Gonna be gone for a while." in the Coffee House Forum.

I did good using ony 15 blades for that many holes. It is the rethreading that tends to kink the small blades and then they break even if not dull yet. If I 'm real carefull and make sure I pull up on the blade each time I rethread the blade, I can get a lot more cuts done before it breaks. I have also found I don't need to tioghten the thumb screw toooo tight so the blade does not bend at the clamp. Also helps keep the blades from breaking.

I know I have seen the work of others who have done this 810+/- hole pattern called “Two Wolves by R. Beard, but this is my enhanced hand painted version. It was slightly modified to fit on a 11” x 14” backer with a 1” border. It took me 7½ hours of machine run time which equates to about 16 hours of sitting behind the saw. In addition it took at least an hour to just drill all the holes. The pattern was cut in 1/8” BB ply using about a total of fifteen Pegas #2/0 spiral blades. The cut panel was hand painted using Acrylic Art paints. Approximately another 10 hours of painting time in between drying times. About an overall three week project while doing other projects in between. The cut panel is affixed to a ¼" BB Ply backer painted with Krylon All-in-one paint and primer spray Flat Black. And, like always, the assembled panel was protected with multiple coats of Deft Clear Gloss Spray Lacquer. (Deft vs. Minwax and others - possibly a subject for a future discussion post in General Scroll Sawing.) The custom frame is once again made from 1¾" wide poplar and finished with three coats of Minwax Pecan Poly/Stain. Wanted a light color frame for contrast with this very dark piece. Don’t forget critique of my work is always welcomed and appreciated. PS: You might be inclined to ask what happened to the cut frame that is part of the pattern. Suffice to say, things happen, but it was not cutting related. If you get a chance check out my recent post "Gonna be gone for a while." in the Coffee House Forum.

Really nice work Grandpa!

Nice job. Back when I had my shop in NC and used to turn bowls and such, I often used to use superglue as a finish. Easy to do when the work was turning, Never thought of using to finish a small piece like your pendant. I suspect you have to work very quickly and it must be difficult not to glue your fingers to the piece .

I have, and have used a few time in the past, Deft Sanding Sealer for that same purpose. However, It has a silight tendency to add a little yelowish darkening of the wood, more so than just using straight Lacquer. When wood like Maple, or even BB, is left un- stained, I want the wood color to remain as natural as possible through the final finish. I do most of my sanding pre-cutting and only do a little touch up sanding if absolutely necessary, so the need for a sanding sealer in my opinion is not as important for scroll saw panels as it is for wnen making furniture or other large projects that require extensive finish sanding afer assenbly. Thanks for the reply. I'm always egar to learn what other processes people do and why.

Always have used shelf liner. Much cheaper than painters tape. As others have said, the trick to keep from lifiting wood fibers is too sand well just before applying the liner. I use 220 followed by eithe 600 or 1500 grit to get a VERY smooth surface. I have two palm sanders fitted with these grits and it only takes a few minutes with each to get that really smooth surface and follow with a clean tack cloth to remove all dust before applying the liner. I also agree that it is not a good idea to leave the liner on too long and keep it out of the sun and high heat. I use a lot of BB Ply and the solid core project panels from HD. For projects with the natural wood exposed, I prefer the Maple or Walnut Solid Core product as it is a little harder and much less like to have any fiber lift. I mostly use BB ply for backers and cut panels that I will paint. Nothing to do with fiber lift, but I do prefer Maple Solid Core Ply to the BB Ply for it's nicer color and prettier grain for many of my projects.

I considered yellow, white, purple and even Black Roses but Red Roses are commonly associated with LOVE. so.... But not to fret, I'm in the process of cutting another Rose Piece... and seriously considering Yellow. Roses.

I converted a free stencil version of this image I found on-line into a scroll saw pattern for mounting on an 8” x 10” backer. I cut the image using Pegas 2/0 spiral blades in some scrap 1/8” BB ply. I positioned the cut image on the 1/4” BB Ply backer on a diagonal for a more pleasing visual effect. After deciding how I wanted it to align on the backer, the cutting and the exposed cut out areas of the backer was hand painted using Artist Acrylic Paints. Again the painting of the cut piece was tedious and time consuming. And again as usual, after the cutting was affixed to the backer, the panel was finished with multiple coats of Clear Glossy Spray Lacquer. The frame is 3/4” wide Polpar finished with Minwax Classic Black Poly/Stain (I see in the photo I have to clean a few fuzzies off the frame that went undetected until you get up close with the camera.) This piece uses an additional leftover cardboard kick stand backer from a cheap frame I had purchased way back when for another project, making it a Table Standing Piece. I decided to do this piece to replace a similar but different piece, that I had previously made, which has been sold. Critique of my work is always appreciated.

Very well done, but have to ask: What is the reason for not using smaller drill bits and bldes? I would never consider doing a complicated piece like that with a large blade. I own a few # 5 blades but hardly ever use them.

Very nice and well done. Quick question. I've seen you mention this before but never asked: Why do you use the diluted Shallac, prior to spraying with the Lacquer? I recently bought a can of Shallac to try this process, but just haven't gotten around to trying it. I have finished many wood working projects, both prior to getting into scrolling and now for my scrolling projects, just with Lacquer