FrankEV

Great work...love it. However, the even better work was making it 57 years. Bet you enjoyed cutting the bikini

Great work. Love the pooch! I don't hate cats but like dogs more (not your cuts...real ones!).

No pic, it did not happen!!!

Looking at the pic, I think your problem is not the height of the saw but the fact that you are probably sitting or standing toooooo far awy from the saw causing you to bend over way too much. I would consider redoing the mounting board with a cantelever to allow the saw to move out maybe 4 to 6 inches and you find an ajdustable stool that allows you to sit at the saw comfortably. You might also want to consider rasiing the back of the saw an inch to two making looking down onto the work a little easier with less back/neck bend. Wether you sit or stand, I find your arms (from the wrists to the elbow) should be fairly horizontal and be level with , or slightly above, the level of the saw table.

I've done a couple of stack cuts recenly and just used either double stick tape or just painters tape to wrap an edge. I can see the posible use of a pin nailer if the stack is going to be thicker than 1/2" and fairly large in dimension. I also believe that to use a pin nailer you would need to have perimerter waste area to nail in that gets cut away at the very end. Since I do mostly portraits and presize my panels to fit a frame size I want to use, there is no perimeter waste area. If I wanted to stack cut a portrait it would likely be only two or three 1/8" thick layers anyway and therefore a pin nailer would not be usible. Using double stick tape I can separate the cut panels with a razor blade very easily. Taped edges are even easier to separate. That all being said I personally do not see the value in using a pin nailer to stack cut. However, since a lot of you do, I would like to hear more pro arguments for the use of a pin nailer when stack Cutting. JFYI, I happen to own a number of air nailers from a framing nailer down to a 23GA pin nailer and two air staplers. Most are Porter Cable that are many years old while one stapler is a Harbor Fraight recent addition. Pin nailers are greate for eliminating clamps when doing large progect glue ups, but most scroll saw work is so light that glue up never requires more tha a few clamps or sometimes jjust a heavy weight like a brick or can of paint.

My workshop is an 8X10 shed with a contractors table saw, 5' long work bench, a sanding station, a router table, my scroll saw in the middle and a bunch of hand and portable power tools. All walls are covered with shelves and hanging tools. My home is a small Florida 2 bedroom house with lots of artwork on the walls already, although I have already added a number of pieces I've made for my lady. So, I literally have no walls (to hang anything on that is).

Great assembly of your work. Wish I had walls to hang my work on!

Absolutely love the Dream Catcher. Beautiful job.

Well done. Great way to remember him.

Very nice project. Neat box and very lovely fretwork panel. Hope you dated it somewhere so you and your other half will remember which anniversary you made it for.

NO, wish I was. Just learning enough to make some minor changes when needed.

The pattern for this11X14 portrait is from Dugly Graphics Website. The cut panel was 1/4" solid core Walnut Plywood and afixed to a 1/8" natural BB Plywood backer. The cut panel was selectively colored with various color stains except the leaves which was done with acrylic craft paint. The panel was cut with Pegas 2/0 spiral blades except for the perrimeter border that was cut with a Pegas #5 MGT R. Don't know why, but this seemingly rather simple pattern gave me more fits than the much more complicated patterns I have previously done. The finish panel looks much better in person than the photo shows. When a image is superimposed onto a backer, such as in this case, shadows tend to be more pronounced and distract from the image. An 1/8" cut panel may have been a better choice. The panel is set loose, using framing points, in another simple frame, made form Red Oak that was brightened using Minwax Sadona Red stain. and then protected with spray Polyurethane.

Looks good on the cut and paint work...But...other than some sort of shield I have no idea what it is!

Eagles and Hawks are some of my favorite scroll saw subjects. However, my flat fretwork portraits pales in comparison to your outstanding work.

Very nice. Time consuming font but perfectly cut. Colors make it even better. Nice piece to hang where guests can see it immediately.

Nice job, to bad it will get broken.

Great well done piece that should provide a lot of good memories in the future of a devoted pet.

Sorry, this is a long story. I found this free SVG pattern of this Jaguar on a website called www.craftsmanspace.com and it was specifically stated as a scroll saw pattern. I’m including a photo file of the presented finished product as shown on the website for you to look at very carefully. If you study the photo you will see that there are many parts of the pattern that are “islands” (eyes, whiskers, fuzzy chin, area above the neck and lower right area). I really do not think this should be touted as a scroll saw pattern, but I liked the image and I decided to try to make it usable. The original SVG pattern was positioned within an A4 border,and when printed, a lot of the cut lines were touching. Many of the cut areas were shown with very wiggly edges (I presume to depict fur). Even when resized and repositioned to suit an 11X14 panel, the pattern is filled with extremely small details that were even smaller that the width of a Pegas 2/0 spiral blade, which I used to cut the panel. Before attempting to use the pattern I spent a lot of hours in Inkscape reworking the pattern to add bridges between “islands” where I could and slightly modifying the pattern. I did not try to add bridges to the eyes and had to glue them to the backer individually. I also added a 1/4” wide perimeter frame as part of the cut panel to allow the panel to lay properly when framed. Using the modified pattern, I cut 1/8” BB Plywood and applied it to a 1/4” BB Plywood backer painted black. After cutting the panel is very flimsy and I had to use a lot of painter tape to hold the cut area together while sanding and staining. Boy of boy, those whiskers were not easy to cut!!! So, following the original photo, I selectively bleached and stained the cut panel. I used Minwax Natural stain tinted with a little orange and brown oil based paint. The eyes are painted with Acrylic craft paint. The 1/4” perimeter cut frame was painted black so it would not be seen under the frame. The panel was finished with spray Lacquer. Again, like I have done before, I made a simple poplar frame and painted it with rattle can Black gloss spray to maintain the illusion of the Pretty Kitty emerging from the darkness. Here is my finished product. Anyone wanting my modified pattern, feel free to message me.

Thanks for the comments. So JFYI: Unlike Pine and most other wood, Poplar takes almost any color stain verey well because the grain is very uniform and has very little pitch/sap. It also paints up well also. I'm getting to a point that I do not like using regular straight cutting blades. A lot of portrait work lends itself to the use of Spiral blades and cutting time is significantly reduced using them. A lot of practice is the key. For longer straight or curved cuts it is definately dificult to get a smooth cut with a spiral blade, but I have found if I tend to err on the waste side of the line, I can clean the cut up using a shaving action that is possible with a spiral blade. I actually find this technique is often more forgiving than when using a straight cutting blade for similar cuts.

As always, your work is wonderful. What I realy want to know is, where you found a piece of White Oak 23" x 15" x 1" thick. I live in Central Florida and can not find any place that sells any hardwoods other than Red oak. Purchasing large heavy wood online is really cost prohibitive for a hobby endevour.

This is a H. Botas pattern that I slightly modified to suit a 11X14 panel. The cut panel is 1/8" BB Plywood, left natural, affixed to a 1/4" Mahogny solid core plywood backer that was darkened with Minwax Mahogny stain to improve contrast. Cutting was done with Pegas #0 and #1 spiral Blades. The finished panel was finished with Clear Gloss Spray Lacquer. The panel is set loose in a simple custom made poplar frame that was also stained with the same Minwax Mahogny stain and protected with Clear Gloss spray Polyurethane.

Very nice. Maybe someday I'll try that compound cutting stuff.

That is a very lovely gift. I hope you signed and dated it as it could be a keepsake handed down in the future.

It is very well done. However, you left us out on the perverbial limb. What is the purpose of the sign...residential/commercial? indoor or outdoor? How wide/tall? Material and Font?

Happy Thanksgiving to you and all.