DrPete

I would do as others have suggested and grab something flat and start with higher grits and work your way down till you get a good finish. The surface looks questionable as to why this is happening. It is steel right? If you get stuck and it's not working you can look around for a company that has a blanchard grinder and ask them to refinish it for you. Might not be worth the money thou, probably costs more than the machine. Just a thought.

There should be a timer for the kids and some of the adults. Our daughter who is 40 I swear has the phone 24/7 in her hand. If she doesn't answer my text I know she is up to something no good P.S. The tin can and string DOES work, I know from personal experience. We used to have a land line here until a few years ago, in order to upgrade our security system they had to monitor it with a cellular line instead of the LL. Saves me $5 month Thinking back on the stuff I did as a kid I have no clue why I'm still alive and have all my body parts. Jumping off the roof into the pool isn't quite safe. Having BB gun fights in the back yard was fun and they really do sting, yes I have both eyes still. I remember calling time on a dial phone and you could hear random people talking when I was young. That was entertainment. You should have seen some of the tunnels we dug in the back yard. Great share with the funny photos.

This is my favorite lightweight, no name brand I've used for ~ 20 years.

I've used these all the time. My suggestion is the following: 1. If you can try something on before you buy. 2. Lightweight 3. Nothing with batteries for lights. 4. Maybe just 2 magnifications, something with a simple flip up/down over another magnifier. 5. I have one that uses velcro on the back for adjustment I prefer the best. 6. Since I wear this for quite a bit of time I wrap the area that goes across my forehead with a paper towel and tape in place with masking tape. Helps hold it in place instead of something plastic across my forehead to sweat on. My main one I liked the best did have a built in flip side loupe that went across one eye, don't bother, got in my way and didn't help. Eventually I unscrewed it and removed it to save a bit of weight. And yes, I swear by these instead of my regular readers.

I bought a nice oak piece from Home Depot, it was inexpensive. LOL not now, it's close to firewood. 6" wide X 48" Before I could start my project the wood sat in my garage laying flat on the workbench for a couple of days. It had cupped into a nice C So being the smart person I knew that one side had gotten drier than the other. I lightly sprayed it down on the one side and put it down on the workbench again with weights. The next day I had my flat board back. 2 days later before I could start my project my hard work making it flat was back to a nice C I gave up and used some 3/4" walnut for the project. An exercise in futility!

Sounds good, I retired last year from running an optical shop for a few years 1983 I started I think. Moved some of the "stuff" from a 5,000 sq ft shop into my garage. I have all the toys to make stuff and too many project like most of us. I'm in the process of rebuilding a slider rocking chair my Dad built for us and some of the wood rotted and critters ate other parts. I've got all the pieces re-made from maple and oak, just need to put it back together. I've been holding off trying to figure out a good design to hang the swing. My Dad used large lag screws and after every month I had to re tighten because they unscrew. I have the idea of using a machine bolt from the outside with a blind hole and plug it and connect the swing to the bolt. I think it will work but that's where I'm at with that project. And also I need to find a good way to finish it to protect it from the elements and critters. Grand kids are off for spring break so we are going camping for a week, hopefully it isn't going to rain. Thinking of projects to keep a 7 and 10 year old occupied that we can do in a travel trailer campsite.

Placentia, CA

I'm complaining because the little bit of rain we got and now the sun's out the weeds grow faster than my lawn. I swear I pull a weed and 3 more take their place. Going to be colder tomorrow, supposed to be ONLY 74 the weeds will be going crazy! Only once I actually did what they say about S. California. I drove up to Big Bear in the snow for a couple hours then down the mountain with the a/c running and had shorts on because it was ~100F in Garden Grove for the Strawberry Festival. The rest of this place you can keep, gas is dropping to just above $4 at Sam's club. Only going to cost me $130 to fill up my truck. Good thing I'm retired and I walk out to the garage to make stuff.

I sure hope toys also are on the way up and people start making them. There is nothing but plastic stuff that either breaks or doesn't engage brain. I'll go for the engaging fun stuff made from good old mother nature every time.

First, congratulations on retirement. Don't forget to NOT set the alarm. I still wake up at 5:30 every morning. I was just commenting with my neighbor yesterday how they prepare you for a job/career but never prepare you for retirement. I closed my business last year after 45 years but have not stopped learning and making stuff (scrolling is one of many things to keep me busy) I'll be 70 in a few months, trying to plan for at least 25 years of fun things to do if my body cooperates.

I have tried a few times to have chatgpt generate a pattern for me. Even showing it very explicit examples it failed miserably. The best I do is using inkscape to trace a photo which is faster than I can do by hand. P.S. I used to work on an Air Force Base on the computer simulation trainers. Each corner had a 5MB hard drive that was bigger than a washing machine. It was freezing in that place but after a time you would get used to it. Fun times, I'm not sure if we have advanced for the better. People are dumber and they ask the computer do the work they should be using the computer between their ears to solve.

I appreciate all the feedback, after thinking about this and re-reading my instruction manual for the Delta saw I believe my tension was too loose. I use the fingernail "ping" but looking at some of my cuts the bottom didn't track with the top and was bending the blade as I pushed through. I try to make sure the blade is doing the work instead of me forcing it to cut which would tell me something is wrong. I will order another selection of blades like recommended and try some different wood. I like the look of this pattern. This was certainly a bit of a project. I cut out some comfort birds using the maple and they came out really nice. Then again that is dead simple IMHO to cut. Thanks again for all the feedback. Happy scrolling!

I'm a little frustrated, although I have lots of patience this project took it's toll on me. The material is 1 1/2" square pine from Home Depot. ~ 7" tall The pattern is from Steve Good, Jesus Lives 3D Word Art While it came out sort of okay, being a perfectionist I'm not happy even after I cleaned it up quite a bit. It took me about 4 to 5 hours over the course of 2 days to cut this out. Mainly because I broke so many blades and tried a few that didn't work. It took 6 blades of Olson No.7R 8TPI 6REV which seemed to work the best and 3 blades of Olson double reverse tooth #5R6 12/8R TPI. I tried a couple of others which didn't make sense, a spiral blade ( I broke 2 of these) A #2 fine blade which was just too fine to even cut. My machine is a Delta 40-440 which I rebuilt some years ago. Is this normal to go through this many blades? What is the recommendation cutting something like this out? I was going to use Maple but I figured for a first project I'd go with a soft wood. What do you guy's and gals's think. Maybe I should have tried something simpler?

I have a Delta 40-440 and the blade guard is only there because I haven't taken the time to figure out how to mount the air line, it's integral.

That sure is a challenging photo to scroll. I turned it into an .svg and reduced some of the "stuff" trying to keep the photo intact. I also removed what I called the border around the image to reduce the cuts. Still going to be quite a bit. I attached the .svg and the new photo. Have fun, Pete Angel reduced.svg