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After 50 years of marriage, I have bought a lot of gifts for her. I think this is the first time I have made one for Valentines. Cut from 1/2" Red Oak using Pegas MGT #3 blades.

Good day to all. In Malta we have a sort of thing during wedding receptions to display a photo of the bride and groom which they took a short while before they got married. Not being one to ever back down from a challenge and because I love cutting portraits I decided to do a cutting of our own pre-wed photo. Measuring 60 cm x 42 cm (about 24 x 17 inches) with a thickness of 6mm (1/4 inch) it is cut in solid steamed beach. Having about 1100 entry holes this is by far the largest and most complex piece that I have ever cut and i truly doubt that I will cut another to this detail. All in all it took me about 120 hours to complete as usual using my hand fret saw, (not scroll saw). The last three photos are of me working on the cutting and holding the finished portrait to give an idea of the size. The saw I am using is my larger one which has a depth of about 45 cm (18 inches) because my regular one was way too small. Thanks for having a look and great day to all. Tony

Ok, let's have some more compound cutting fun. This is a simple project and produces a little holder for your toothpicks, assuming you have any that need holding. This requires a block 1.5 x 1.5 x 6". Don't actually need 6" but I like to have enough to hold onto at each end when I'm cutting. You'll need a hole down the center of this block, and you can do this with a 1/2" forstner bit, before you make any cuts. I went down about 2/3 rds of the way. Use a skip tooth or crown tooth blade to cut this. I also used a piece of wood cut from a 2 x 4 (nothing fancy). I like the variety of grains that pop out of the center of a 2 x 4. Free Pattern

I originally started this as just a sign, then changed it to a wall hanging, and then saw the value of it as a key rack or holder. If you are in and out a lot and want to keep your keys readily available, something like this might come in handy, placed by the exit door. This can be hung by using a couple of small screws through the top of each lock plate on the sides. I cut mine from 1/4" birch plywood, sanded it and painted it black. I had some small gold brads, so I used those as the hangers. Alternately you could put some pegs in their places. Hope you like working with this simple project. Free Pattern

The older we get the farther away the floor seems to get.

Scrappile I like your blade pick up tool

I have my Seyco mounted on an enclosed cabinet. I have never noticed anything rattling inside the cabinet. I can't say about vibration, I have never had it on another cabinet so nothing to compare it with. One thing I do have is a 60 lb. bag of concrete mix in the very bottom of the cabinet. My Hegner is mounted on a Hegner stand and it has sweet spots that it likes to run. Fortunately for me, those sweet spots are right at the speeds I like to cut. Every saw I has had had "sweet" spots that they ran the smoothest.

Okay, let's knock off the beard comments. What is wrong with a beard?? All men had them until some dumba** invented a razor. I have had a beard since 1967 with no regets.... I suppose you shave your arm pits also.....

Hi Guys, This is Sonja and yes... I´m from Germany, Bavaria. Half a year ago I got a Scrollsaw from my Boyfriend, who is due to his job (carpenter - hope this is the right description) very familiar to woodworks, but of course in a different league After trying it out the first time, I was a little dissapointed. It did not work as I expected, so I did not spend a lot of time anymore. After searching for some help, I found a forum in Germany, where I found out, that maybe the saw blades I was using, were not the right once. Surprise... I bought others and was directly in love with this kind of work. Meanwhile I got a more high-grade saw (Proxxon was my first one, no I have a Hegner) and already did some work. Sometimes I combine it with pyrography, which was my preceding hobby in combination with wood. I´m sure it is a pleassure to have the chance to chat with experts and hope to get some inspiration for my next projects. Here 2 of my last presents I made. Pattern from Saburo Oguro. Kind regards Sonja

Started early today at 7 A.M. and went to thep store for stain too.Elvis is a great tire man my friend introduced me to a couple of days ago so I liked his work and said I,d make this for him and his wife . She changes tires too, amazing!!!

made a small bird house for my friend

I think if I had enough wood to do this full size, it might be easier, the back board for this is 8x10. Tried some things I thought would work, some did; but, many did not, raising my frustration level with this aspect of scrolling. I think I will file a law suit against my ophthalmologist, when he did cataract surgery he must have removed what little artistic ability I had. BB backer with gunstock stain, mahogany, aspen, and mahogany with ebony stain

Interesting as neither of my two Hegners vibrate. I run them at all speeds including full speed without vibration. If yours vibrates furiously as you say there must be something wrong. I'd check that out before abandoning the original stand.

A unique way to display a puzzle!

From a pattern by Botas Helder

New Welcome sign - I wanted to make something with classic ornaments. I think this font and classic ornament looks great together Video of making Welcome sign Welcome pattern

I still use blades from all the major brands and once in a while switch things up on purpose just to give myself a challenge and also to remind myself what blades are really my favorite, LOL.. I have several gross of FD blades that was my go to blade for years.. I'm slowly trying to use them up.. Have considered using those instead of placing an order soon for the Pegas.. Several hundred $$ in stock of FD blades that just sitting there.. Also a few gross of Olsen blades... certainly enough blades to last me another year+ if I decide to use them up, LOL I also have many sample packs of the Pegas that are not the MG blades that I should use up.. so I may just run through these blades for the year and save myself the money and use up these blades..

Don't buy them by the gross as some of you, but noted on the last Pegas #3 and #5 that they just didn't seem to work as well. Actually went back to FD's for my last word art projects. Except for the increase drift that I had to relearn to compensate for (which is the reason that I went to Pegas), seemed to cut better overall. But that is just in my hands.

Nice one guys. Never thought of the cheating aspect of it. Actually I do not see it as cheating but as an extension of the craft. A couple of friends of mine use scroll saws and like the majority of people here cut amazing things. I am not against the scroll saw at all but I just love doing things with a fret saw. I have on occasion been 'accused' of using a laser and passing it off as hand cut because they used to say that my work was too good to be cut by hand, (their words not mine) I used to get really offended with this but more recently I take this as being a huge compliment. If people think that my work is laser cut then i must be doing something right. Cheers guys Tony

That is a real good thought Jim. We had our 53rd last September.

Faye and I celebrated our 51st this past new year's eve. Was a good deal I did not have to support her for the year but I could claim her as a dependent for the year on my taxes. My Mamma didn't raise no dumb kid!

I just bought a printer that was on sale at my local Office Depot that handles the large format paper and has a second paper tray for regular sized paper. I put my full sheet self adhesive labels in that tray. Kept the old printer for regular paper. Now I have a printer just for scrollsaw patterns!

Bear woods never answered my emails. I did order some 2/0 blades and they also kept breaking. I did like the Pegas blades. I gave all my Pegas blades away and ordered Flying Dutchman. Yes, I did like Flying Dutchman before. I will also use Olson in a pinch because I can get them at my local Klingspor’s.

Great work Jim! Did you make the pattern?

Wow! That's neat. Congrats on joining the 50th club. Barb and I just got there in December. I'm sure your wife will love this and the thought.

Impressive to say the least but it is time to come over to the dark side and get a scrollsaw. You can do more of that type work and enjoy it. No shame in this. It is when you start using the CNC and laser machines that to me are not scrollsawing and just are cheating. Never was impressed with those using CNC and lasers. Yea those people talk about knowledge to set up machine but what the heck is that when it comes to hand eye coordination. Won't go into that here because no one will ever change my mind on that. Hopefully we can change your mind on a scrollsaw. That still requires hand eye coordination and is scrolling as is what you do. Very well done.

Found this picture of a bird on a fence and it made me think of how we sometimes complain about our situation when our choices are to blame. Made for an easy scroll saw project. I added some birds in the sky to show we can change if we so choose. I suppose an alternate title could be "The Birds of Alcatraz".

Lawson56, you are using MC plastic. It has a lower melting point than GP Plexiglas. You don't need special blades for GP Plex. GP, or general purpose , will have red lettering on the masking paper. MC is blue lettering.

Rocky, the stand it is currently on is a homebuilt affair from leftover 3/4" BB plywood. I think my #1 problem is that the top where the saw is bolted is flexing followed by the whole thing is just too lite. I would love to be able to bolt it to the floor with a proper stand but that just isn't an option at the moment. I'm going to correct the top flex by lamination of 2x6s. The rounded edges will be cut off, so I figure I will lose about 3/8" of height so to the top would only be about 5 1/4" thick. If that flexes, there's nothing I can do to stop it! The weight will primarily come from the top, as Google searches tell me that much pine should weigh about 50lbs; plus I am going to frame the cabinet from 2x4s and cover it with 3/8" ply. Add in drawers and the stand alone should be awful close to 100lbs, plus the saw itself and any kit I put in the drawers. If it wasn't such a pain to do, I would remove my saw from the current stand and just run it loose on the floor and see what happens. I have also gotten 1/4oz sticky wheel weights from Harbor Freight and done some very limited trials at balancing the arms while its running at its shakiest. This didn't work very well. After another Google search this morning I have found that there are quite a few scrollsaws mounted to cabinets similar to what I am thinking so I will start building as soon as I get paid next. I would absolutely LOVE to run the saw a where it is shaking the most. The speeds it doesn't shake at seem to be too fast or too slow. Thanks all!!

You mentioned a few different types of wood you work with. How available are woodworking supplies where you live?

After some great advice on bigger cuts I finally worked out how to cut the 3 foot long walking dead sign once I stuck the 4 A4 sheets together when I went to cut, I had to balance it on 2 biscuit tins as it got flimsy but turned out ok Gordon

Thanks Les Pattern making for me is also a big chore because I do all my patterns by hand also. I convert a photo to greyscale and then ink in all the details I need by hand so sometimes the pattern making can take me almost as long as the cutting. I normally work on an A4 size sheet for the pattern and enlarge at a printing house accordingly. Regarding the saws I use I have three in all but use two of them on a regular basis. Let me introduce you to my ladies... The blue one was store bought and I do most of my work with this, while the yellow one is two store bought saws that were cut and welded together to give it a greater depth. At first this was a little difficult to use as was not as balanced as the store bought but managed to play around with my cutting technique and now I use it as well as the store bought one. Finally the grey one I had specially manufactured to allow me to do some really large pieces. The sizes are approx: BLUE 11 1/2 inches, YELLOW 18 inches and GREY 32 inches. I have only used the grey one a couple of times because of a couple of drawbacks. Firstly I did not take into consideration the weight of the saw that would put a lot of pressure on my wrist but managed to overcome this problem by resting the saw on a stand to take the majority of the weight. Secondly, being so long the blade end of the saw does jump about a little and is not as rigid as I would like so it can sometimes seem to take on a life of its own. Finally and this is something I have not been able to work around yet is the reach of my arm. Seeing that my arm is beneath the wood pulling the saw down for the cut, if the blade position to the edge of the wood is longer than my arm can reach then I wouldn't be able to cut it. Hope that this sheds some light on your questions and gives a little more insight of how I do things. Thanks again Tony

Thanks Charlie Don't know about being in a class of my own as I feel I am still on the learning curve. There are so many things I would like to try but haven't the skill for it yet. Tony

I also had some bad FD blades a couple years ago. They just were not sharp enough to cut anything. The Wooden Teddy bear sent me 2 new gross immediately then contacted their FD rep and he said they were having some issues at that time. FD has everything taken care of and the new blades I received were great I just like the Pegas better and will continue to use them. I will be getting my next blades from Denny as everybody is happy with his service. I spoke with him a few days ago on the phone and he was very helpful.

Everyone needs a toothpick holder unless one is toothless, that is. Very cool!

Absolutely fantastic work, Tony and I really was impressed with the pattern making skills also! Congratulations on the recent marriage also. Thanks for sharing and God Bless! Spirithorse

Hi Norm. Enjoy the new blades.

Did you like them before the issue? LOL When I had issues with the number 5's I contacted bearwood (where I got them) and they contacted Bob Duncan... about 3-4 days later I had 3 new replacement gross of them that replaced the bad ones I ordered.. I sorta felt bad because I was able to use about half of that 3 gross and actually never had issue with those bad ones in my EX-21.. only real issue was with the Hawk.. They've since changed the #5 back to the way they originally was.. Back around 2008-9 ish.. FD sent out a bad batch of blades and I was ticked off.. swore up and down I'd never use them again.. ( only person I was hurting was myself because I hated the Olsen blades too, LOL) Little did I know at that time was that Mike was replacing the bad blades if we contacted him.. I didn't find that out until after the fact I used them all as best I could.. as he wanted us to return the bad ones that we had left.. Pegas just told me to throw them out.. I probably should have.. but didn't because they do work in my back-up saw ( EX-21 ) without much issue..

Very nice work, I feel no purchased gift will ever outdo a homemade gift.. I know some think differently about that but.. not me.. well unless the gift is a new scroll saw or something.. However.. the scroll saw is something that'd wear out and one day be in a scrap pile somewhere.. a homemade gift will always be treasured for a lifetime and then some.. Again, very well done..

I have the Ryobi glue gun I got when I bought some new batteries for my system of tools. Like others above, i clamp the stack and glue corners and center. Works great for me, but others have their valid methods.

I stopped using them after the issue last year. I went back to Flying Dutchman and never looked back.

It's not for everyone but I do much the same as Rolf. I use an 18 gauge nailer and 1/4 in brads for 5 layers of 1/8 BB and nail the corners, then bend over the excess with a small hammer and good to go. I can do a lot of these in a short time frame.

Absolutely stunning Tony!!

Love your bird house and the detail you put into it.

Thank you all. jellis2

Awesome !!!!!

Awesome job !...Very nice work !

Yeah I used pegas #2 blades I prob should have changed to get straighter lines but you know when it's going well you don't want change anything until the jobs done lol Gordon

very nice work

If I had a lathe that would be true.