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Finished my last two Christmas projects today. All I have left to do on them is sand off the 2018 date on the back and make 2019! Both are Steve Good patterns, the dark wood is Mahogany, the light wood on the Merry Christmas one, I do not know. Came from Ocooch Hardwoods. On the Happy Holidays one it is 1/8" BB

Second real scroll saw project, unfinished as yet. Cut as a gift for in-laws, they love hummingbirds. Steve Good pattern, 1/4" BB, MG #1 blade. Thinking about a brown acrylic paint thinned to a wash consistency for the fretwork, with the backer clear coated. Any other suggestions on finish?

First scroll work, done for a friend's husband who is a lineman. Pattern by Sam Custodio, Pegas MG #1 blade, Jet saw, 1/4" BB. Finish color by customer request, framing design my own. In framing, I wanted to highlight the lineman aspect of the work, plus, I'm not a normal kinda guy anyway, so...

Santa (Wife) brought me a really nice gift. Under the tree was a big box with a California Quiet flow air compressor to drive a Vortex F5 high speed carving tool.( 400,000 RPM) No it is not a typo. It is amazing how this little tool cuts and surprisingly quiet.

My wife is always scrolling on Pinterest, and coming up with projects to add to her 'honey do' list. This Family Birthday Hanger comes from Sue Mey...Scrollsawartist.

I received my new Dewalt about a 3 weeks ago and finally set it up today. The wife told me to open it several days ago, figured that I would wait until Christmas. My daughter got me a lighted magnifier for Christmas, so I set them both up this morning. Out of the box set up was fairly simple but trying to get the blade in brought out some cuss words and some bloody knuckles. Not sure what part of the saw cut my knuckle, Saw 1 Me 0. Finally got the blade in both the top and bottom and not to be beat by the saw, took it back out to see if I could do it again. LOL I was planning on trying to remove the blade from the bottom on this saw as apposed to removing the top of the blade like I have done on my Porter Cable. But I will have to get used to it more before going that route. For now I will stick with removing the top of the blade for interior cuts. I looked around for something to cut out for my first cut and saw some Christmas gift tag pattern laying on the bench. Saw is pretty smooth until about 80%. I was cutting some 3/8" cedar with a #2 Olsen reverse cut so I had the speed around 1/2 maybe. Cut pretty good I thought. Here is a pic of the new set up.

When a person bought an Excaliber from Seyco, it came all tuned up, least mine did. The Kings and the now Excaliburs come from the factory, without going through Seyco to be tuned. I would suspect there is tuning required, such a getting the motor turned to the most optimal position, blade lined up 90' to the table and centered to the hole.... etc.

I know it's very tasteless but was thinking if there was a knot in the wood somewhere in the forehead area. Yes I know, burning in hell for me

Just put this one together......pleased the way it turned out....its 24"T x 23"W.....this is for a good friend of mine opening his new barber shop Jan. 2nd........he had to do a career change after suffering a heart attack in 2017....I wish him great success & I hope this sign welcomes his guests.....has the local HS logo & colors (Red & Black....Fulton Steamers)......the white crackle paint has a yellowish tint to it to make it look more aged I think......comments appreciated as always....ty & Merry Christmas!

Well, the wife was out of town visiting a friend, and took the offspring with her to visit Grandma...so someone had to valiantly stay behind and make sure the dogs didn't get up to any shenanigans. And keep the saw from getting lonely. Finished up a Steve Good pattern (at least, I think its one of his) for my wife, not sure where we're going to stash it Tried an idea I had for some scrap 2x4's I picked up at Lowes (yay free scrap wood!!!). Trimmed off the rounded edge of one side, to give myself a smooth, flat face to work with, then set my table saw fence for 1.5" and was rewarded with two 1.5"x1.5" lengths. Perfect for compound cuts...such as the 3D chess set pattern I just bought from Sue Mey's site. Just wish she'd included a separate page of nothing but pawn patterns. Finally, a nifty little cutting (if I do say so myself) of a pattern I did the other day, because truly, Mondays suck. My wife may have squee'd a bit, she likes the little grumpy guy. We're off to grab dinner, I'll finish cleaning up the feathers and staining it later tonight, maybe tomorrow morning before yet another long drive to visit family 4 hours away so that nobody's feelings get hurt....yay. Seasons greetings and all that humbug.

Nice gifts, if scroll sawing gets slow you can always do dentistry with that power carver, RJ

I'm putting this post in Bragging Rights though I'm certainly not bragging. I'm not happy with it for a number of reasons. One the bright side I learned from each of my errors and my DW likes it. First off it was a difficult cut with the wood so hard. It had 110 years to harden before I repurposed this old Singer Sewing Machine cabinet. There are a few really well cut lines. Otherwise it is comprised of curves with flats or with curved straight lines. Seems like everything I tried to salvage the project and make the letters "pop" didn't work and I had a better idea after I had burned a bridge. The bright white background did help with the letters and features a bit but only if looking straight on from a distance. The photo was taken fairly close and shows how the letters fade away with anything but straight on. I may try to hand paint the inside of the letters white. Would have been easy to spray before I glued the backer on. Could also have made the backer 8 x 10 and put in a frame. Lots of Oh Duh moments and lots to learn. Thank you to those who helped me with my printing problems early on and to those making suggestions on finishing. Tom

Downloaded a picture of a Chicago Bears Logo the other day and thought that I would try to cut it out. It wasn't a scroll saw pattern so I knew that I would have to make changes. It came out ok, but lots of head scratching prior to cutting it out. I also used Pegasus blades for the first time on this piece. The wood was 1/8" BB. I used a #1 blade, not sure what type. I ordered a sample pack from them. My first thoughts,, I don't like the blade. It's too aggressive to me. I turned the saw's speed way down and still did't like it. Maybe if I had stacked 2 pieces of wood it may have been better, but I think I will stay will Olsen for now. It also left more fuzzies on the back than what I get from the Olsen's.

The Big Canoe (GA) Woodworkers Club donated 200+ wooden puzzles and toys to the Pickens County, GA Toys for Tots program for the 2018 Christmas Season. Attached is a photo taken at our packaging event in late October. Pictured from left to right: Claude Drevet, Brian Beals, Malcolm Halls, Cecil Schneider, Grant Grimes, and Ken Kidd. Tags: None

I have had to fine tune all the power tools I own. New out of the box and freshly assembled in my shop. The only exception was my Excalibur Saw. I bought it from Ray at Seyco and it was perfect out of the box. You do have to tune all your equipment up after using it for a while, if nothing else to make sure square is square, 45* is 45* and so forth. Bolting down a scroll saw to a steady heavy base is a must. Makes an amazing difference in everything.

A lot of power tools need some tuning once they are set up. My band saw, table saw and planner did. Not really a quality control issue. I hope I am correct on this......

Nice piece of kit I looked at these then bought a CNC instead . I suppose you'll be engraving eggs then. Roly

I agree 100% .........with John!

I am not on the same page as John. When I first got my Dewalt I bottom fed because that was how my old Dremel saw worked. Fine for some stuff but eventually I started doing more and larger fret work where bottom feeding did not cut it. So I went out and spent 30 minutes learning the feel required to hook the bottom of the blade. To this day I kick myself for waiting so long to switch to top feed.

Nice cutting Pegasus makes several blade "models" The blades labeled modified geometry is the one most of us like the best, and IMO a #1 blade is really small. I use a #3, low speed, to cut 1/8 BB actually a #3 is my go to blade all the time (so far)

Marg. You are looking at things incorrectly.. I is not that you don't get weekends any longer, it is that 'every day is a weekend'. at least that is the way I like to look at things. Dick heppnerguy

Yup, Ray is right. Any scroll saw needs to be mounted preferably to the factory stand, but at least bolted down to a sturdy bench. As far as loading the blade, the DeWALT saw is one of the easiest saws to load and is designed for top feeding.

One of our club members has just bought a new King 16" saw. I have not seen it yet but he tells me that it vibrates a lot. He is new to scrolling and is going from a HF saw to the King. He has no real baseline on what he should expect from this saw. As soon as I have some time I will go check it out for him. Any one have this saw? If so what are your thoughts.?

Thanks Kevin. I knew there had to be a better way.

This is a good place to start.. they play for me in sequence so I just bookmark my last one I watch and go from there... too many for me to watch all in one sitting.. LOL

Iv'e been gaining interest in carving. Will be interesting in seeing how this works out for you. Maybe you could do a report on it ? In your free time of course

I do agree.. only power tool I bought new that didn't really need anything was my DeWalt 788.. I expect to fine tune a saw... Don't expect to have loose bolts that hold the actual saw together etc.. but having to level the saw table and square blade up is something to be expected.. For what it's worth.. my saw was before they moved to a different plant.. so maybe they are better now or mine was just a fluke deal.. I had a lot of issues with mine... not only with the saw but believe mine may have had a defective upper clamp.. Someone brought up a good point about Ray tuning every saw before they left his business.. I know they sold tons of them from places besides Seyco too and have heard a few instances where they had to call Ray to help get their saw running right.. there could have always been a quality issue with them that Ray took care of.. so many people may not have seen any issues like those that may have bought elsewhere.. They are great little saws once they are tuned...

Thanks for the comments. The main piece is cherry, lettering for months and the disc's are rock maple. The printing on the disc's was done with text in Inkscape then flipped horizontally, printed with a laser printer, then ironed on the disc's with a round accessory that goes on my wood burning tool.

I'm not talented enough to be allowed one of those carving tools. I would like the little air compresser, only 56 dB! You should have a lot of fun with those presents. Hope you show what you make with it.

Sam has about a half dozen lineman patterns. Check them all out & let your BF choose his fav! If you get overwhelmed with requests, I'd be happy to help you cut some.

Nice Work!! You did great.. Pattern making does take quite a lot of in the head visualizing that takes quite a learning curve.. I still like to make the centers of O's and e's fall out every now and then

That is certainly and interesting outfit.. My son uses something similar at his work that they use to do engraving on engine parts and marking their work and parts.. He works at a place where they build race car, race boat, plane motors etc.. they don't mickey mouse around.. as they don't mess with anything less than 1200HP.. most are 3000+ HP, LOL.. Anyway.. my son fell in love with the tool and wanted to get one for himself.. that is.. until he was told how much.. LOL

Looks interesting Rolf and look forward to hearing more about it and seeing what you are doing with it. Glad Santa was so good to you.

fantastic job

You did good Paul !

Beautiful cutting. As Dick said, a craftsman at work. Keith

Perfect

I often do the same thing to myself. I guess I just want everything to be perfect but I always seem to get in a rush as I get closer to the end part of my projects. I guess for me it is part of my nature. As far as your plaque goes, it looks really well done. I like to make backer boards on almost all of my pieces whether it call for one or not. That is because I feel it helps make the work stand out much better with a high contrast backer board. If I was making this one with the dark wood you have, I would use a small metal washer and putting the pencil in the hole of the washer, I would trace around the entire outline and make that, the pattern for my backer board. I especially like the entire outline around my plaques because it kind of acts as a frame too. I would paint the backer board White and when glued on, it would help to make those letters and frets stand out really well and it is a whole lot easier then trying to paint the inside of the cuts that you want to make stand out. oh, and keeping the plaque thickness at no more than 1/4 inch also helps everything stand our better too Dick heppnerguy

If you have the link handy I would like to see it. I'm like Les, not very good on learning the software, but I will give it a try. Is Inkscape a free download?

Top feeding is more a touch and feel thing and is harder to do unless you do it since you started or have for a long time. I will never be a top feeder.

Beautiful projects! Thanks for sharing and God Bless! Spirithorse

Here’s some stuff I did today with pallet planks. I sanded them down. I think it is Pine. I read that most pallets are Southern Yellow Pine or Oak. Doesn’t look like Oak to me. Tough as nails to cut too. I think I’ll do a lot more with these since I have a bunch of pallets handy. Only thing is I’m size restricted. I like it better with the crooked BE. It’s creative!

Yeah cutting 1 piece of 1/8" BB Pegas blades might be hard to control. Like has been suggested a stack will help with the aggression of the Pegas blade. What also will help is make sure the blade has reverse teeth. Your piece did turn out real well thanks for showing us.

Now that you have found your font, create a word document and type out the whole alphabet and numbers in that font then save the doc with a name like 'scrollfont' so you can find it easily next time. Regards Doc from Australia

Finished another Christmas gift. This is one of Pedro’s designs from finescrollsaw

Thanks everyone. Guess I needed to vent a little. You'd think that at my age I'd get past that perfectionist curse and accept that it was my best effort at the time. Tom

Today was scrap wood day. Are earrings popular?

My very first .

This was the first project I used a scroll saw for. Made three for Xmas presents back in 1998. Jeff

I grew up around tools, my dad was a machinist. I did some hand fretwork as a kid. but my first use of a scroll saw was making some gingerbread for the gable in the shed that I built. I used an inherited Craftsman saw, and it made me realize how much fun scrolling is and it also the Saw taught me that If I wanted to continue the hobby it was not going to be with this saw. It took minutes to go from one hole to the next and only seconds to do the cut. My wife then bought me a Delta SS350 significantly better saw. and I did the small eagle. Lessons learned, don't use crap wood. I then started stack cutting small ornaments. like the one attached.(4") A year after the Delta I bought a Hawk G4 26. I now do a fair amount of work with SSWWC magazine as a test cutter and other challenging projects. I did a presentation at one of the Fox Chapel open house events on "Advanced Scrolling" . My first comment was that there is no such thing. Once you master the basics. Jerry1939 really said it perfectly "To you nice people that hesitate to start what looks like a challenging/difficult piece, just remember it is always 1 hole & cut at a time. It doesn't make any difference if it takes 7 months (as this did), or you start 1 or more projects per day. The amount of sawdust is the same either way." As soon as you tell your self " Oh I can't do that". In reality you don't know that until you try. It is only wood.