preprius

Hi all I wanted to share an email that Les (Rockytime) sent to me. He was into hobby trains which I just started. Pasted from email... -=-=-=-=-= Thanks for the message. I eventually had thought about a garden railroad. I called it "Mule Muffin & Western." Age and other things sort of got into the way. I modeled mostly in HOn3 but also dabbled in N abs On3 scales. Loved the hobby. Northwest Shortline used to refer people to me to cut custom gears for locomotives that had nylon gears which had broken. Modeling consumed most of my life. I'd love to do it all again. Good luck with your railroad. Yes, for the price of a planer I can purchase a lot of hardwood. I found that Ochooch sells 1/8 and 1/4 inch hardwood so I'm all set.

oh... magnets:) They make small magnet switches. When a magnet gets near them they turn on the switch.

expansion thought.... If you make the pointing part of the wand out of acrylic, round OR square you can have the tip light up with a small tiny flashlight in the wooden handle. If you want to keep the wooden pointer "whic" is still nice, then you can get small diameter "side glow fiber optic" and spiral the fiber around the pointer and use an led built into handle. I am thinking those key fobs lights. Mark

Doesn't a spiral blade make a bigger kerf? It even has more teeth per inch. Wasn't the spiral blade made for making spiral bowls?

ok, i hate the joker. Did not like him in the movie either. It is not your effort. It is the topic. The flower is great. Eagles are always a great topic. The bigger the better.

yep chocolate is a good answer anytime of the day. coffee can be limited on time of day depending on type of person, morning or night owl.

very good.

So i count 6 to 7 squares across. At 2.25 inch that is roughly 0.3 inches. per square. How did you cut these strips?

this is the finished piece. i have to deliver it today.

Hi all, I wanted to try to make a football using the scrollsaw bowl technique. I chose cheap wood to make the first attempt. Poplar is a poor wood to start with due to finishing blemeshes. Also called blotchiness. During this experiment my friend decided to retire. So the clock was ticking. Less than a week to add clear coats and laces and team logo. I wanted to add laces. Like glue shoe laces to the wood. But I did not want to mess up the ball. I did some gluing experiments on other wooden rings. But nothing really worked. So no laces. I wanted to try to print a sticker for the team he likes. But again if it didn't work then I would have nothing for a gift. I also added a bottle stopper Helmet. This made of really pretty wood called brown mallee burl. First pic shows rings from a failed attempt in front. But it shows how the method of stacking rings will make a football. The 2nd pic shows both the footballs the real one, wooden one, and the bottle stopper. 3rd pic shows the bottle stopper is a football helmet outline. Lessons learned: 1) start with a wood you don't need to stain. like Lacewood from Oochee. It has patterns that look like football texture. 2) Poplar staining needs pre stain conditioner. I need to pay attention to water based vs oil based to match the stain type. Or shelac with no wax. 3) Stain color. The stain stores have wood boards that show colors on different woods. These look good but will not be what you get on poplar. Pine should have been close. But not. I bought 3 colors for just in case. And yep the 3rd lighter color was closest. 4) cutting angles.... the more the angle the harder to hold the boards when blade catches cross grain. Poplar seems to have some really hard spots. So 4 spots as you go through each ring. The end piece calculated angle was greater than 45 deg. Another post in Q&A have me this best answer. Think beyond the scrollsaw and use sanders to get the end pieces to look better than mine. Also make sure you don't skip an angle. The football requires every ring to have different angle. My first attempt i accidently skipped an angle. I had to start over. The first angle is like 6 degrees. This only leaves 0.1 inch for wall thickness. Which is used to glue the two halfs together. Drilling 45 angles... The drill bits for smaller blades are not long enough to drill 1.41 times the thickness of 0.75. So i had to use longer drill bits. This leaves bigger notches to sand down. Start with thick pieces to make sure the last angles do not go beyond 45. I used 0.75 in thick. My next football will be 1inch thick and maybe some 0.75 inch . -.-.-.-.-. So I claim success only because I learned these lessons. The overall project looks Ok. But was not suppose to be a gift. Or have a timeline. In the big picture it is really easy cuts. 6 rings x2 , glue sand and finish. Still to do.... figure out a good way to add team logos and laces. I will try Aleens tacky glue next. CA glue (cyan acrylic) did not do well on the laces. the cotton just soaked it up and made the whole piece stiff. 2 part epoxy did not stick well to the raw wood. This is Not a bragging post project. More of a teaching and learning posting.

you combined a bunch of stuff for a great project. Feathers, rose, leaves and dream catcher. and if the dream catcher works it can put the captured items in the bowl. I like it.

Segmentation experiment is a succuss. Looks pretty decent. Better than my first butterfly Intarsia piece. What did you learned from it?

Amazing and it was scaled down a bit. Your Motivation of a blue ribbon and thousands of people to see your scrollsaw art, is very powerful. Beautiful work.

These really cool. LEDs add multi color without the paint. The 2 bottom pics can indicate sunrise and moonrise after dark. Or the bottom left can indicate a smokey sky from California fires. anyway the layered scenes look excellent. good job.

nice chopper.

high contrast really makes this version easy on the eyes. But my brain keeps thinking the light is the holes. But my brain is wrong. That makes a lot of wood cut out. Very pleasant to look at, but hard on the brain. Well executed.

I decided to add more features... laser for hole drilling. 2 inch deep. index circular turn table for clock gears. also an adjustable Threaded pivot point for circles. 20ft of blades in a roll so we can have automatic blade feeding. self clamping and cut from bottom.

all 3 clocks have different time.

Some of the elders of this village told me to watch craigs lists for a good used one. I was watching for the 3 top brands, Hegner, RBI Hawk, Seyco. This was just 3 or 4 months ago. I ended up getting a RBI hawk for 400.00. This was to replace the entry level scroll saw i bought from lowes. I was getting frustrated with cheap saw that could not hold blades. It was good advice to get wait for a good brand. I won't grow out of. In the 4 months, maybe 5 months I purposely tried several projects... Intarsia (butterfly and humming birds, flower), bowls, and I did a couple of handles for can lid openers. I am working on a bowl type project right now. Bowls are fun.

I have been scroll sawing going on 6 months. I need all the help I can find. Welcome to a great place to share ideas, techniques and tips.

Wow. that looks pretty large. Im estimating 20in x 20in. Have super straight lines you must have a decent size scrollsaw. Okay you could be a expert at spirals. Nicely done.

it does capture his eyes just right. The eyebrows, and the hat just say John Wayne.

i see some characteristics og Hegner. 3 leg stand. Then put a flywheel on it to help power thru the hard spots in the wood. put a crank handle on it to work your arms. You could get a tesla car battery and make it a hybrid. Charge your battery at the same time you scroll saw. Great work out.

I like how the bare feet emphasizes the family roots. Wow the curly maple give the dragon a glowing aura. Nice choice of wood.

That cat has some paws to fill. Oh that job is for the human. It is nice a functional scroll saw project.