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Did this portrait from my grandson's 5 year picture. He and I are tight.

My demo stint at our county fair yielded a number of custom orders for military plaques. One was with a twist. It was a Navy plaque and he wanted it mounted in a shadow box with a picture of the ship he was on in the background. This was the result ...

Ochooch Hardwood has 12”x24”x1/8” for $3.35, pretty good price and I am 100% satisfied with all my purchases from them.

At my calculations a 400+/- increase in price for something in the hobby line is a bit much to swallow... I know I will not be buying BB any more. Do not know what I will scroll on but on a fixed income,, probably nothing.. I will be scrolling my imagination, I know you will not be able to figure it out.. To prove it,, here is my latest project:

At those prices it might be cheaper to buy the project panels from Home Depot.. I haven't calculated out the square footage but I did buy some of this stuff just to mess with on my laser.. it's really stable stuff and already cut in small enough pieces that I can easily use them in my laser or scroll saw without having to break down a whole sheet. When I got wind of prices going up I went out and bought around 20 sheets which I had already had around 10 sheets on hand so I've got plenty for a year or maybe more.. as that'll make an awful lot of ornaments.. I do an occasional portrait but not much of that anymore since they're hard to sell unlike ornaments, LOL Another place that I would buy from now and then was Cherokee woods.. they are a bit pricey but price includes shipping and last I had seen they are still selling at the same price I paid for 2 years ago during lock downs and I couldn't get out to my local supplier.. I haven't looked at their prices for a couple month now so maybe they did a price hike by now. I haven't upped my prices for ornaments yet.. but that might be coming soon. Going to try to get through this holiday season without upping price.. since I was already one of the higher priced on ornaments for the last several years.. and I paid the lower cost of my plywood and currently have enough for quite some time.

As for the pricing issue. I would base prices on the replacement price. It's what your going to spend to get new stock. We have done our best to keep our prices down but ultimately the increased cost of replacement materials made it impossible. Everyone seems to understand that all prices have gone up considerably .

I have a two-stage compressor with a 30-gallon tank that I use most of the time. I also have a Harbor Freight Compressor that was given to me. Much to my surprise, the Habor Freight compressor works fine. I can't attest to its durability because I don't use it much. The larger two-stage compressor is almost 40 years old and can be used for many things besides airbrushes.

Pretty cool. Marg

I understand that only too well. One night when Sharon was in Oregon and I stayed home, I was listening to music on my tablet before I went to bed and after I went to bed and there was no one in the house with me, I layed in bed for a few minutes and belted out some songs. About three songs into my little bout, my Amazon Lexa by my bed suddenly said, " Nice tune" That was certainly weird. Dick heppnerguy

Thanks for the comments, you all are very lax with you critics and I appreciate it. For some reason I really enjoy this kind of cutting.. I do not really know what to call it, but I have a book that says segmenting. I did this one because it relates to Jazz. I have another one on the saw, a little easier, I think. And more planned. I am and have been, most my life a Jazz fan. Not all jazz is the same, but I like things like the Ramsey Lewis trio, Gene Krupa. Guess I was always a little out of tune,, I liked rock and roll but I really liked jazz, big band music. But when custom cars, hot rods were the thing, I loved them but I also was a sports car fan, big time. When people are scrolling puzzles, fret work etc, intarsia, well here I am loving then but I really like segmented also. My family was never military,,, but here I was I joined the Marine corps. I guess maybe I am a black sheep. Right now I have 1960's jazz going on youtube, my foot is stomping, my head is bobbing up and down. Not sure it is in time with the music, but I am enjoying. Just in case you are out of wack like me,,, you might enjoy this while reading Scroll SawVillage still have the album, but nothing to play it on...

Haven't been on here for a while so this topic may have been already brought up. I use 1/8 in BB for all my ornaments. Two years ago it was $16.99 a sheet. This spring it was $ 42.00 a sheet. I contacted mu supplier this week and it is $ 64.00 a sheet plus tax. I know it is because of the upset in Russia but that's still quite expensive. Are you guy's paying the price or is there something else that is available that I don't know about. I have some stock left from before but it won't last long. Also I just do this as a hobby and am not a businessman. I go to a couple craft shows a year. Should I sell my product based on the price I paid for my wood when I bought it or at the current price of the wood now. Thank You for your input.

I have not posted for a while, but am still alive and cutting. Here are few of my latest. First two are Jim Blume patters and the Lord's Prayer is from Sue Mey on more of my reclaimed maple. Jeff

It has been quite a while since I got to do any kind of woodworking. The last thing that I can recall doing was a cradle for my Sons first born. He will be seven in December. After Dad passed and I moved Mom up next to us all that I have had time for was construction type work. Wife took of to see her friend in Florida last week and I stayed home to take care of the Dogs. Being that I am now semi retired I decided to take some time and uncover my Scroll Saw and move enough around in the garage that I would not kill myself while trying to move around. Not actually bragging (we should have a forum entitled stuff that I not ashamed of). I started out with some simple ornaments in Poplar wood ( I think all those patterns were from the Village Charity Book) to see if: 1 The saw still worked. 2 I could still follow a line. After that I decided to try my hand at compound cutting. Always wanted to but had never had the time. Those are made from Eastern Cedar. Steve Goods patterns. Below are the results. All are straight off the saw and blown off with the air hose, no sanding or finish hopefully that will come later and not be another 7 years. Thoughts good or bad welcome.

This one is a full 8 inches high and 14 inches wide. 3/4 Red Oak planed down to about 5/8" thick. Cut with #3 and #5 Pegas MGT bladed.

I started on a pretty detailed H.Botas pattern (eagle fighting a rattlesnake), and got about an hour into the cut when the plywood started delaminating. Badly. Thankfully I wasn't too far in or I would've had to start cursing in a language other than English, having exhausted all of my normal, everyday foul language. So I did the adult thing: chunked the bad section (whilst muttering under my breath...), reprinted the pattern (a little bit larger this time....this thing is INTRICATE), and fired up a couple of quick-n-easy patterns to get some finishes under my belt and reset my braincell. H.Botas rock-n-roll G-nome, and an arrowhead pattern by Sue Walker that I've had for a while, found it in the pattern library. Gnome is backed by a tie-dye printout on regular printer paper, found it on Google Images. Arrowhead is a piece of cedar fencing, stained Minwax "Honey".

A project cut some time ago but finished this weekend. The pattern is found on Scroller Online with no designer mentioned. the wood is 1/4" Baltic Birch plywood 4" x 16" and backed with 3/8" Baltic Birch plywood stained black with Saman stain. Cut on the Pegas Scroll Saw using Pegas #1R MGT blades. The finish is spray Minwax Lacquer Clear Satin. Comments welcome.

Another attempt at segmented picture. Not a success because I lost a couple pieces. Two of the very thin line pieces were so thin they crumbled when I handled them and for some reason the black paint did not cure beyond tacky. I suppose I could fill the missing lines with white card stock. Anyway this was a practice. I enjoyed doing it. Never has any problem with rust-oleum paint before, but it is still tacky and I painted it two days ago. I love these pictures, I have this one and a trumpet player.

Easiest way to antique it would be to leave it out there another 10 years.

Thanks everyone for all the reply's. I will check Home Depot Kevin and see what they have.

keep us informed on your experience with it. Did you buy plastic spoons to paint also? I am still thanking @jollyred for explaining to me why paint spoons. That one had me pre-plex-ed!

terrific job

To answer your pricing question, if you have no plans to replace your wood, sell at the old price. Otherwise, raise your prices to reflect replacement cost. You never see gas stations selling gas at yesterday's price. Always based on replacement cost.

Thanks to all. Info is gold. I appreciate all the input. I'm not artistic at all but I thought having the ability to add color might be nice. My luck with spray cans hasn't been favorable so having a more controllable method makes sense. I've always wanted an air brush. I should have bought one back when I was selling tools. I could have saved 40% and all the price increases since then. Lol.

It makes me wonder if passing on the increased cost will be accepted for craft products by customers as compared to manufactured goods. Time will tell. Regards craft shows/farmers markets, I noticed the first two times I went to the local farmers' market my sales were surprisingly good. Actually, I didn't know what to expect. The last two times, same place, sales were half that much. And I noticed there were not that many new faces.

Don't know what the prices are for 1/8" BB ply around here....because there isn't any around here.

Excellent craftsmanship, RJ

I have a California Air tools Compressor 1.6 gallon Super quiet! My wife bought it for me along with a Vortex F5 power carver. The compressor is really quiet and I use it with my air brush. The Harbor Freight https://www.harborfreight.com/air-tools-compressors/air-compressors-tanks/1-gallon-135-psi-ultra-quiet-hand-carry-jobsite-air-compressor-64592.html Fortress brand has gotten good reviews and is a clone of the California compressors. (Personally I would go with the 2 gallon) I would recommend a compressor with a tank as the tankless one will run continuously with constant noise. I find that to be annoying and a distraction. Air brush I recently bought a Badger 105 Patriot. it is good for what I want to do I also have an Aztec that I bought 20+ years ago. All of require cleaning which usually takes longer than the actual painting. As you see in Bad Bobs picture you will end up with lots of accessories besides paint, This is great https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0154HN2NA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It combines a holder and cleaning capture vessel.

Beautiful cutting. You certainly captured his eyes!

I'm thinking the same Kev. I also bought that cheapo set with 5 bottles so I should have all bases covered. I'm trying to decide on a compressor and I like the idea of having one with a tank to keep the cycling down. I know when it does run that it will run longer. The Zeny at $87 is pretty nice and was recommended. I'm also looking at a Wagner folding booth. All I will need is space and that is a constant battle.

Oh what a cutie. Yes I know he takes after you................ That is a fabulous pattern and cutting, well done. And no you are not the slowest pattern maker the last one I made took 2 weeks, I like to get so far and then put it away for a while because I may see it differently. Marg

That is so cool. Hope you make another with better paint. Was it a new can? Marg

I saw someone post this H Botas peice a while ago and I thought it was fun. I got the pattern and cut it out of scrap (you can see the repair buy his feet) today just for fun. I had fun trying to cut it, which makes a change as I'm usually cussing at my beginner skills. I will be revisiting this at a later date. I think I may be ready to waste some good wood, the weather's getting colder so a outside bonfire needs some fuel

that gnome tickles my funnybone.....good one

I don't have much experience with air brushes, my older brother had a nice set for doing custom work on cars back in the 70's that i used to play with on my bicycles, LOL Coming from a spray gun perspective from the old siphon feed days to going to the newer HVLP gravity feed spray guns I have to say I like the gravity feed stuff way better.. you can mix just enough paint and not have to worry about keeping enough in the cup to keep it from sucking some air and spitting etc.. plus there is very little to no paint waisted since you can spray it out until it's dry.. always had to keep a ounce or so in the bottom of a siphon feed to toss out.. I don't know if the air brush is the same way or not and I highly doubt you're going to be working with some of the auto paints that can be $200 on ounce too so your waist would be minimal compared to what I work with on car paints. LOL. But if you get the gravity feed you may save yourself from having it suck up some air and mess up your paint job is what I'm getting at.. again.. don't know much about the air brushes.. may not be like that just a thought I guess and if I were buying a set I think I'd go with a gravity feed set up.. unless research says otherwise..

Charlie, You sure are good at making portrait patterns.

Thank you very much Colin! A couple of years ago I'd have said the same thing. Keep plugging away!

I have 4 air brushes but almost never use them. I saw your post and watched the video. I bought one the next day. I know it is a cheap one but I was painting a fairly large item and there was no detail needed. It worked perfect and if it did not work for me,,, well $10 is not big thing. I did need to unscrew the metal part in order to raise it up a tad to get in aligned properly with the gun but after that, it worked perfectly and I did not need to clean the gun. Made me happy. Dick heppnerguy

Thank you! What excites me the most on this type of project is thinking how he may still have it when he's my age.

I have been scrolling for a number of years and i too the Ex 21 saw and an Ex 13 inch. I have run into problems occasionally while cutting 2 dimension patterns and thick wood but I just tried different blades and sometimes stumbled upon the answer to my problem and sometimes it was the blade and sometimes it was the character of the wood, then again sometimes it was me. Glad you have decided to join us. I too am 82 years young. Welcome from Southern Arizona. Hope you log on often Dick heppnerguy

That is awesome. You should do one of those every year. You are very fortunate if he lives close. We have never been able to live close to our grandchildren. When my kids left home,,, they left home.. never came back to the area other than to visit us. I have two now living the closest they have ever lived 230 miles away. Cherish ever moment. He is a fine looking young man.

The member map is one of those addons that breaks the website with PHP 8. So I disabled that until the developer can update their software. Good eye.

Look gOOd to me! I read a post awhile back that said something to the effect that cutting organic shapes is less critical perception-wise compared to geometric/letters/numbers. Even looking for the ooopsie, I couldn't spot it. Makes me want to try portraits.

My wife does has done a bit of cake making over the years, including some wedding cakes. She is pretty good at it. A few years ago I got her an airbrush for decorating her cakes and it has increased her decorating options, to include using some some stencils I made for her. She was hesitant at first, but quickly got the feel of it. So if your wife is like my wife, then buy two - one for her and one for you. The family that airbrushes together, stays together

This is a Steve Good pattern cut from 3/4-inch treated pine ply with a 1/4-inch pine backer. The paint is actually black but looks blue in the picture due to the poor lighting. The backer is stained Natural to contrast with the black. Wanted something easy to cut although the treated pine was a little tough on the blades.

I finally finished this. I found it in a scroll saw book but don’t remember which one. I used worm eaten walnut so there’s a few places hat ended up with a small hole. I used 321 for the finish. I guess it’s another one for the garage wall. There’s no place left in the house. It measures 17x6. Thanks for looking.

I converted this Zebra Image I found on-line into an 11” x 12” scrollable pattern. Cut panel is in 3/32” solid core Hand Painted Birch Ply affixed to a ¼” BB ply painted Black backer. Cutting was done using Pegas #1 MGT R blades. Assembled panel protected with multiple coats of Deft Clear Gloss Lacquer Frame is 1 ¾” wide primed and painted Poplar. Comments and Critiques always welcome.

Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson as Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute from The Office.

Welcome Charles. A wealth of knowledge on most every scroll saw subject here on the Village. I'm not understanding what your problem is. Maybe a bit more explanation and/or pics if possible. I have 2 Ex's and a Hegner. After re-reading your post I'm thinking of 2 possibilites. First being that with that thickness of wood and depending on the hardness, you may be forcing the cut. Pushing too hard and not letting the blade do its job. Which brings me to the second thing. Maybe the wrong blades. When I did a 3-D cut on some 1 1/2" douglas fir, I had problems until I switched to Pegas double skip blades that were able to clear the sawdust out of the kerf better. I bought them from Artcraftersonline.com. Denny Knappen is on the Village and owns the site. Check with him.

I totally agree with Dick! Fantastic Job!

Have you adjusted the blade tension with the knob in the back?. I know, you are saying "well doh!". but some times it is the simple things we over look. I know you leveled the arms, but the tension tension part can get worn and not hold tension. I had to replace mine on my Hegner once. Anyway, welcome to the forum. Glad you are joining us and I look forward to seeing your work. One more thing, if you do not get help here do not hesitate to call Ray at Seyco... Not his saw anymore but he knows all there is to know about the excalibur type of saw.