Trouble Cutting and Sanding

[Sambo19]

3 hours ago, Bill WIlson said:

Not Kevin, but will add my $.02. 

Depends on what you are wiping it down for.  If it's just to remove sanding dust, I would suggest vacuuming it first.  This removes most of the dust.  Taking it outside and blowing it off with compressed air works as well, but you want to avoid doing it in the shop, because you are just introducing a lot of fine dust into the air that you could do without.

Wiping it off with alcohol or mineral spirits (MS) works to remove the last remnants of dust and gives you a brief glimpse at what the wood may look like with a clear finish applied.  This is good to make sure you've removed all surface defects/scratches and any glue squeeze out.  Alcohol will flash off quicker than the MS and doesn't smell as much.  Wear gloves though, because all of these solvents contain nasty stuff you don't want to absorb into your system, through your skin.  I would recommend against using water, because it may raise the grain of the freshly sanded wood, causing it to need more sanding. 

Thanks for explaining things to me, I'll take it out and blow it off.  Now I need to figure out how to get email alerts on topics and replies....

[Sambo19]

2 hours ago, MrsN said:

In my early years of scrolling I used lots of methods to clean up the edges of my cuts.

My favorites were sanding files by Olson and sanding belts by Olson. Both are things that you put into your scroll saw like a blade and sand the insides of cuts. 

As I spend more and more time with the scroll saw I got better and had to sand less. Now I only have some fuzzies on the back of my pieces, and rarely have to sand an inside cut.

Getting good blades and slowing your cutting down (keep the saw speed in the medium-high range) and lots of practice and you will eventually be in the less sanding group.

 

May I one day get there, I bought the good blades life is too short to spend more time sanding than cutting LoL.  Thanks for giving me hope for the future!  Now time to hunt down some pinless files otherwise my swear jar is gonna get full fast :-)

Edit to add a link to pinless sanding files for future generations http://www.pswood.com/super-sander/

Edited January 29, 2018 by Sam5377

[Sambo19]

I finished it up and added some pictures.  On the left visible edge where I had a lot of sanding, I think I over used the sandpaper and ended up burnishing the wood, inhibiting the stain.  Sadly i didn't realize this till I was done.  The birds head turned out well, but I burnished the beak and could not dye it red as I had hoped.

Thanks for everyone's time and input, I'll do my best to use it :/

https://imgur.com/a/WEptl

Edited February 11, 2018 by Sambo19

[new2woodwrk]

Looks great - I'll be starting that project next week most likely!

[Sambo19]

On 2/11/2018 at 5:46 PM, new2woodwrk said:

Looks great - I'll be starting that project next week most likely!

It's a classic that everyone loves, I have tried a few others but this one turns out the best in my collection so far.  Once I started day dreaming and cut all the way through the long standing branch   tried to fix it by cutting another, got the fit dead on, but the grain never looked right, it's fire wood now.  Have fun on yours!