'Blue Tits on Hawthorn' designed by Fiona Kingdon

[Frank Pellow]

I first learned of this pattern when Richard (heppnerguy) showed us his creation from the pattern here last October.  He cut his in an evening but it took me much longer (17 hours).

I cut this from 3 centimetre thick Splated maple mostly using #0 Pegas spiral blades (and breaking about 40 of them in the process).  In a few places, I utilized Flying Dutchman Ultra Reverse #3 and #1 blades (without any breakage)

I found that I could not cut all the lines in Fiona's pattern without ruining the integrity of the work.  The photo below shows a segment of the pattern with lines marked in red in places where I decided to leave a gap:

Once cut and sealed, I backed the piece with pale blue glass:

It is now hanging in the window of our main bathroom so that the Blue Tits can greet us every morning much like they did back in our typical English garden.  Great Memories!

My family and I have have fond memories of these little birds when we lived in England throughout most of the 1970s.  They did, indeed spend a lot of their time in Hawthorn shrubs in our front garden.  Here is a photo of the real thing:

Fiona has captured both the birds and the shrubs perfectly in her pattern.

I 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Frank Pellow

[Ken Lotts]

Wow!  That is impressive! It looks like an intensive amount of work.  

[Rockytime]

Beautiful work! The blue glass makes it very unique.

[trackman]

How in the world do you break 40 blades?  Been scrolling for 11 years an maybe had 5 break. Due to coming loose from clamp an bending then break at bend. Good project though. 

[Frank Pellow]

2 hours ago, trackman said:

How in the world do you break 40 blades?  Been scrolling for 11 years an maybe had 5 break. Due to coming loose from clamp an bending then break at bend. Good project though. 

Spiral blades are very brittle, particularly those sized #0 and thinner.  That coupled with the very thick wood meant that I broke most of them while getting them through the holes and attempting to clamp them rather than when sawing.

[wombatie]

Oh wow you did an amazing job and I love the blue glass backer.  Well done.

Marg

[preprius]

really nice details.  

It seems like a bird flew away the first picture to the 3rd picture shows 1 less bird.  

oh 3cm is pretty thick no wonder it took a while.

[trackman]

7 hours ago, Frank Pellow said:

Spiral blades are very brittle, particularly those sized #0 and thinner.  That coupled with the very thick wood meant that I broke most of them while getting them through the holes and attempting to clamp them rather than when sawing.

Right that’s a very small spiral blade using in thick hard wood. I never use anything under #1 in spirals. 

[FrankEV]

7 hours ago, Frank Pellow said:

Spiral blades are very brittle, particularly those sized #0 and thinner.  That coupled with the very thick wood meant that I broke most of them while getting them through the holes and attempting to clamp them rather than when sawing.

I hear you!!!!!  Somebody else somewhere herein said to grab the blade with a pair of pliers pulling the blade straight before letting it slide down to the table to prevent kinking the blade and allowing it to break.  This does work and you may have only broken 20 blades.     I'm in the process of cutting some 3/4" Poplar with #0 and #1 Pegas spiral blades in a many hole pattern.  I still break some blades but because most get dull real quick and when I tend to push tooooo hard, they break.

[Paladin]

Love all the veining in the leaves.  Very nice detail on this one.  Well done.

[Tomanydogs]

Beautiful.

[daveww1]

that's beautiful, fantastic job

[Frank Pellow]

5 hours ago, trackman said:

Right that’s a very small spiral blade using in thick hard wood. I never use anything under #1 in spirals. 

I tried using #1 but they were too thick.  

It's likely that I will cut this again and, if I do, the wood will be thinner and I will increase the size of the pattern by at least 10%.  I think that such an increase will allow me to use #1 spiral blades.

[Bill WIlson]

Very nicely done Frank.

I've used 2/0 and 3/0 spirals.  I love the degree of detail you can cut with a 3/0, but they are ever so fragile that I tend to save them for the most delicate of cuts.

[kmmcrafts]

Very nice work!! 

My experience with spirals is that the Pegas brand are more brittle and break a lot easier than the FD brand.. Also I think the Pegas # system runs a bit smaller than the FD.. ie a #1 Pegas is like a 2/0 FD

 

[Frank Pellow]

42 minutes ago, kmmcrafts said:

Very nice work!! 

My experience with spirals is that the Pegas brand are more brittle and break a lot easier than the FD brand.. Also I think the Pegas # system runs a bit smaller than the FD.. ie a #1 Pegas is like a 2/0 FD

 

My experience is the same as yours.  I not only think that the Pegas # system runs a bit smaller than Flying Dutchman, I know that it does.  I also agree that Pegas are more brittle than FD, but I find that I can be more accurate with Pegas blades and that is why I use them. 

[spirithorse]

Very pretty project, Frank!
Thanks for sharing and God Bless! Spirithorse

[Charlie E]

Very nicely done. I cut mostly hardwoods and break plenty of blades myself.  

[amazingkevin]

On 1/5/2021 at 10:51 PM, Frank Pellow said:

Spiral blades are very brittle, particularly those sized #0 and thinner.  That coupled with the very thick wood meant that I broke most of them while getting them through the holes and attempting to clamp them rather than when sawing.

Threading thin spirals in wood is a lot like pulling barbed wire thru a sock. Beautiful work!!!