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Just finished cutting my 9th project on my new Delta saw. I'm really happy with it. Just need to sand and put a finish on it. I used Pegas MG #3 and #5 blades on 1/4" Alaska birch.

Another color fill made from cherry. This is a lot more purple than it looks in the this photo.

My BIL passed away 2 years ago at 68 years old on this past 25th. My sister, her husband asked me last month if I would make a box to put some of his ashes in for their son. I have never really made a "nice" box so I told her that I would come up with something. He, his son, myself,, the whole family have always been "Truck Guys". So I showed her a picture of a truck I made last year and asked her if I was able to make another one and insert some ashes in it, if it would be alright. She said yes. The body is made from Hickory and the fenders are Walnut. Several coats of Lacquer for the finish. I drilled a 1/4" hole in the bottom for the ashes and sent her a picture. She asked me where I was going to put my stamp. I had forgotten that she wanted me to stamp it.. with the hole in the center of the bottom of the truck, I didn't have room anywhere to put my stamp. So I plugged the hole for the ashes and move it towards the front of the truck. This gave me room for my stamp. I drilled the hole about 3/4" deep and filled halfway with ashes. I used my plug cutter on the remaining piece of Hickory to make a plug. I had my wife make a red heart on her Cricut to put around the plug. I think it turned out pretty nice. Now I have to make a "tire knocker" for their 19 year old grandson with some of his ashes in it for him to place in his Jeep.. in case he ever gets into a tussle,, he will have his Grandpa there to help. LOL

This is the first time I've attempted a box. The pattern is from Steve Good and he called it a Cameo box. The box is 1/4-inch pine, the inter liners are Oak ply and the Cameo on top is Birch. The box was stained Minwax espresso and the emblem is birch and dipped in 50/50 Linseed oil and Mineral Spirits. I still have to spray the finish which will be Polyacrylic and I'm considering of adding Flocking to the interior. While it was fun to cut and build, it was rather time consuming. Hope you enjoy.

Remembering that different manufacturers have slightly different numbering for their blades in both teeth and thickness, we will dive into this. After a few thousand inches of following the lines, one develops a feel for their prowess cutting. Some like blades super tight (guilty) while others will be just a notch lighter. Some like the tiniest blades (2/0) out there for everything under a certain thickness. For me, anything under 1/8", I gravitate to a #1 blade. Usually pick #3 up to about 1/2" or so, but I just finished a 3/4" cherry piece with some Pegas #3MGT. I am comfortable with that blade and that is my preferred sawdust generator. But, I still switch from time to time not only size but brands, depending on what I THINK might work better. So, I really haven't given you an answer other than to develop your own knowledge base from experimentation. There is no database of blade/material/feed vs blade. Everyone has a general idea what they grab first, but put 10 of us around a table and you will get 15 opinions. Just make some dust and memories.

We've been asked if we make anything other than animal puzzles and wall hangers. Besides the lamps and clocks and now signs, we've decided to add some limited edition art work. We've so far done 5 different items which we made 3 of each except the Beach Lady - she's a single item. The frames and backing on these items feature a pine frame and a salvaged door backing both made from re-claimed wood from various Hurricane Michael pieces retrieved and donated after the storm. Some of the frames feature an Ogee edge, some are Chamfered and some are simple squared off. There are a few that have been stained but they're not done yet. Because there is only so much of this wood, we're offering it as a limited edition item and we're looking for a local charity to which we can donate some of the proceeds. Anyway, thanks as always in advance

I finished another horse piece today. I adapted the pattern from a stencil I found online.

I cut this pruning blade down so it would fit in my old Delta two speed. Never did find anything to cut with it though.

For me and the way I cut; criteria for the blade falls into the following categories: 1. Width of the kerf a. For the small box with a sliding dovetail I want a kerf that allows for the dovetail to move freely yet not be so large that the dovetail joint comes apart. I've been using FD Polar #1 blades in 1 1/2 inch oak (I've cut the box from purple heart) b. For the small Christmas ornaments I've been cutting ( the dragonfly is 1 3/4" wingtip to wingtip ) I am using FD Polar #2/0. 1/8" basswood, stacked 4 high (1/2") I limit the stack to 1/2" because of the drill bits, not the blade. I use the #2/0 because that the kerf that looks best on the small ornaments. For the larger ornaments I'll change to #1. 2. How tight a corner a. For fretwork I use FD Polar #1 for tight curves and sharp corners. For long straight cuts (generally the outside) I'll switch to a FD Polar #3. Th thickness of most of the fretwork is between 3/4 to just over 1" ( sometimes stacked sometimes not ) b. For compound cutting I use FD Polar blades generally #1 or #3 depending on what the pattern is. On the reindeer I'll use a #1 so I can cut the pattern in a single pass ( no breaks around the outside ) 3. Stiffness of the blades I use FD Polar because, for me, they are the stiffest blades I've used. They resist bending inside the cut, so when cutting thick or stacked pieces the top, middle and bottom pieces are the same. 4. Other considerations, since I like fretwork I prefer stamped blades with a burr on one side. In my opinion this allows more flexibility in cutting because the burr helps to cut a tighter radius when the burr is in the direction of the turn.

Looks like a dog. If you were intending for it to be a dog, then you succeeded! LoL Nice job, looks good.

I bought the Kleenex pattern from Sue Mey. I thought it might be fun to have a decorative box for her Kleenex and I let her choose the pattern for it. It was a bit challenging on the lid as I cut the little fairies hand and feet. They are very small and delicate. I choose a 2/0 Pegas to make that delicate cut and it came out perfect. I cut it from 1/4 inch Juniper and gave it one coat of spray finish. I thought it was not worthy of more coats, as it is just a fun piece anyway. Next on up is a cross pattern I started to cut about a year ago and got a little upset as the sawdust would not blow off my project as I cut and I could not see the lines very well, so I set it aside. I saw it laying on one of my storages in my garage and thought I would go ahead and finish cutting it, not remembering why I had given up on it before. As I started cutting it, it became quite apparent as to why I decided not to cut finish it. Cedar seems to have that problem for me a lot. No other wood does that to me. I decided to try a smaller blade and see if that might help solve my problem. It did help a little but it did not change things a lot. I also used a #2/0R Pegus blade and decided to finish anyway. So here is the results of my effort. The wood is red cedar 1/8th inch. I will try to stay away from it from now on as much as possible though. Dick heppnerguy

I posted this idea and it's progress in the Laser / CNC group here on the village but since there is only 15 members and also since I did use the scroll saw I figured it was okay to post here too.. This project started with rough cut walnut lumber and cutting / planing / jointing it down to do a glue up of a final size of 24W x 15H x 3/4.. Once glued and sanded I put 2-3 coats of Shellac and then sanded it down to 400 grit. I then covered the entire face with Oramask ( similar to shelf liner but way better ) I then used the CNC Router to carve out the text. After the carve I sealed the carved out portion with 3 coats of Lacquer and then hand painted the text with white acrylic paint and then peel off the oramask. Next I scroll saw the grill / utensils from 1/8" Maple and glued that onto the sign with weldbond glue. Next I laser engrave the Red Stag bottle on the laser from 1/8 BBply and straight off the laser top coated the engrave before anything smudges. Then I cut the bottle shape out on the scroll saw and also glue it to the sign. Once all was in place and dry I top coat with 3 coats of Lacquer.. I like these projects where I can incorporate each tool.. I hope to be doing many more projects like this. If you go the the "groups" section and find the CNC/Laser groups and join you can see the progress of this from the original carve design model through to the finished project.

Howdy folks! I'm Tj and I live in Fort Smith Arkansas. I've been scrolling for 38 years and doing intarsia for the last 16. I'm pretty much self-taught on the fretwork and I learned to do intarsia from Judy Gale Roberts.

Just a couple of pieces that I finally got wrapped up. Puzzles cut from reclaimed Elm. Name puzzle is plywood. The hummingbird originally had the border around it, but it fell and broke. Lost a small piece so I couldn't glue it together.

I think the commenters here have summed it up pretty well. You have to gain experience to find out what you, specifically, prefer. Me, I tend to lean toward the smaller blades when possible. The #2/0, #0 and #1 are usually what is affixed to my saw rather it be spiral or straight. My preferred brand is Pegas. If I'm cutting fretwork on a piece that is dimensional (straight lines, circles, etc) I prefer a straight blade. If it is a line that is critical and could make or break a piece, I'll use a skip or double skip blade which cuts a little slower, in my opinion, than a MGT blade which is what I normally use. For portraits that are erratic (various sizes cuts, random locations) I'll us a spiral. I can't give you any preferences towards puzzles, segmentations, etc, because I haven't cut those. The more professionals here at the Village will have to comment on those. I'm usually cutting 1/4-inch ply that is stacked, 2-layers. I have cut 3/4 and even 1 1/4 material. The only issue I had was with the 1 1/4 material where the blade deflection from pushing the material into the blade. The top of the material where the pattern was located was true to the pattern. However, the bottom of the material was cut off and broke through some of the thinner frets because of the bending of the blade. Good luck on your quest!

It's been around 10 years since I first bought the sample packs of Pegas brand blades. I bought samples of every style and size, the previous 8 or so years I used Flying Dutchman blades. I can tell you that I still to this day have most all those blades still in the sample packages.. I did try each and every blade so I did use at least 1 blade of each style and size. My sample packs have the Pegas MGT sizes 3,5,7 empty of blades so apparently I like these sizes, LOL. IF I had to choose one blade for all my projects I do I'd have to say #3 MGT.. second most used is the #5.. Not only does each person have a different preference but also every saw has a different set up. For a long time I used only Pegas blades on my Hawk and continued to use FD blades on my DeWalt / Excalibur. The DW you cannot adjust the saw for a more or less blade forward / back movement ( blade aggression ) and so the Pegas ( at first use ) was too aggressive for me on the DW saw.. I finally did get used to them.. but they are sharp and they cut much faster and took a bit more practice of controlling the cut. Now I use mostly only Pegas. I might use a #3 blade on the Excalibur where I normally would use a #5 on the Hawk cutting the same project. This is why I rarely will suggest a blade to anyone new or seasoned scroll sawer, because not every saw cuts the same. How the saw is tuned and set up makes a huge difference in cutting efficiency and blade life. Blade ( saw speed ) is another factor. in some cases a person can slow down or speed up a saw to make their comfort level with a certain blade. IF you find yourself pushing the wood harder than you should maybe you need to speed up the saw or choose a different blade. IF you find the cutting going too fast for you you can either slow the saw speed some or change a blade. Me personally, I run my saw on high speed for most all my cutting and adjust my sawing ability by swapping blades to get what I'm most comfortable with for sawing said project. I might have learned this technique from my first saw I had because it was a 2 speed saw and low speed was way too slow for me and high speed was kinda fast for me being a newbie at sawing so I learned to leave saw speed alone and look at various blades to find my comfort level.

I am not bragging here but rather want to show others maybe unfamiliar with rescuing or repurposing woods, just what a wealth sometimes can be found. I carefully disassembled the black walnut end table(?). It involved drilling out a dozen walnut dowel plugs to access slotted screws (so hatefully 1980's) and popping out some finishing nails. End result, remeasured with a tape measure which revealed over 23 board feet of 90%-95% usable walnut. And several square feet of nice 1/4 inch plywood. Large boards are 13/16 thick. WIsh I knew about the craftsperson who built this piece. Their work and design thoughts remind me of my own works in the 80's. No idea who they are or were but following my belief system I felt a desire to say a brief prayer for the craftsperson. If they are still with us a stranger's thoughts may be good. If they've moved on I want them to know I value their past skills and that they did well. Good things to everyone here and thank you for looking. Don.

I can relate as I got so excited when the idea light revealed a junk crank type elevating hospital bed table makes an excellent out feed tray for table saw, band saw yor whatever

I know the subjects been beat to death but ..... Not makes or types but size. How do you more experienced guys/gals go about choosing the size of blade to use on a project? Wood thickness How tight of turns on project Largest/smallest possible How familiar you are with one blade I know at least one person who will say I use a #5 for almost everything. I'm curious because most of you could cut most patterns with any blade you own. I'm sure if there was a chainsaw blade you could use that too! So your reasonings please ...

It's been shared here that some scrollers among us repurpose abused, discarded and unwanted furniture as raw material for scrolling projects. With that in mind, my beloved wife Penny and I visited a "junk shop" and happened on these two unwanted pieces. The end table appears to be someone's old project and is made from a measured 14+ board feet of solid black walnut, a little over 3/4 inch thick. We paid $25 for it. The solid oak table looks like an early-to-mid-80's inexpensive designer style table popular as I recall back then. Measures out to over 5 board feet of solid oak almost 1 inch thick, for which we paid $20. Happy with the good luck. This makes walnut, cherry, oak, poplar and pine in our small library. Don.

I say sorta intarsia as it was cut from the same piece of cheap pine. I did cut the light pieces from a different part of the same board as the dark to see how well I could match up. Used 2 different shades of danish oil for coloring. Learned a lot, especially that while I can cut to a line pretty well, I for sure can't draw one with a woodburning tool. Comments welcome.

I'm agreeing with Dick. You got the art of scrolling down pat. Awesome job.

I have a bunch of different sizes. I use 1 or 2 of those sizes for just about everything. The rest are pretty much just displays for me to look at and never use. Once you start getting in to it you will gravitate towards a certain style pretty much and then get blades that work best with that style.

Kevin, I pretty much agree to most of what you stated above. In my hawk I almost exclusively use pegas mgt blades as the saw is pretty gentle and the aggressive nature of the blades seems to be a perfect match. The Delta on the other hand is so aggressive that the MGT blades tend to run away with me regardless of saw speed, unless I'm sawing thick wood. I understand that this is down to my lack of skills, which I'm working on and on this saw I prefer FDUR blades but lately I'm gravitating towards the Fd polar instead. I've found working on my hand placement and trying to keep the wood moving while cutting has improved my cutting more than anything else, right now I'm working at trying to be consistent.

Great work. Keep making and posting your work. Looks like you have that new saw all figured out. Dick heppnerguy

Took me three tries to get a outfeed table I am real happy with. the first on was attached and I made an adjustable leg to hold it up. It was okay but cumbersome. The second was a table that I could roll to the back of the saw when needed, only problem with that, the table was always covered with stuff, because it was also my work table. So I am back to an attached one the I can raise and lower, this time I used collapsible shelf brackets to attach it with They work great, not expensive and rated for several hundred pounds so plenty strong enough. You will like yours. make a table saw a lot safer when cutting long stuff.

Thank for your reply Wichman, very enlightening. I like the polar blades too, I find them easy to control for a beginner like myself. They were recommended to me by an experienced scroller.

Some say spirals are hard to control. Looks like you've mastered it.

awesome job

great job

Very nice portrait! Is that your dog?

Very nice German Sheppard. I especially like how you did the eyes. Good Job!

Dick, thanks for the kind words.

Thanks Jim, I'm not looking for a answer just your insight, my goto is also a #3 mgt. My blade collection has grown but now I have choices and that's confusing

Very nice work. The rose is my favorite.

Oh, My, I am too old for this. I look at the poured epoxy ones and think,,, humm, there arm my military emblem,, how would that look with them? Great work Tj Brown. Got to get this out of my head. Not enough time.

I hope you continue to make some more boxes. It was one of Steve Goods patterns that peeked my interest in scrolling. Before I started scrolling I only did intarsia. I was getting tired of intarsia but always thought scrolling was things like an outline of a heart or maybe a cat with no details to them and I just found it boring to make and look at. The pattern that stuck my curiosity was a heart shaped box that looked like it was woven. When I found his page and looked at how it was done, I was hooked on scrolling and have been at it every since. Dick heppnerguy

Thanks for posting. You have some really nice projects posted. Glad you posted them for all of us to also enjoy. Hope to see more of your work as time goes along. Dick heppnerguy

that turned out to be a very splendid pattern. It is so well done. You never stop amazing me with your projects Dick heppnerguy

I have some of my blades in tubes but also some in their little mailing pouches. I need to remake my blade holders and mark them better than i have in the past. I don't use a lot of different blades and I do have some that never get touched. About time I got with it like you did. Nice reminder for me. Dick heppnerguy

A super nice cutting and pattern, as all of your work is. I remember going to Rebel without a cause as a younger person and my thinking was right in tune to that of James Dean in the movie. I thought his parents were too pushy and controlling of him. Then I watched the movie again about two years ago and this time I was astounded to realize that I was with the parents and found they were the ones in the right and James Dean was indeed a Rebel. Funny how we change through the years and don't even realize that we are. Thanks again for the great art work and bringing up my memories about the movie through out the years. Dick heppnerguy

I've been wanting to build a table/bench that could be used for working on out in my driveway. And it will also serve as an outfeed table. I've just been waiting for the price of lumber to come down a bit.

Come on, admit it. That's what you had planned all along. Nice idea for repurposing. I'm needing to do the same to my table saw.

Kris, very nice work! what size type of blade did you use for the grass and tree leaves/branches (small ones)?

amazing job

I just finished disassembling the oak table. All good and solid. Only things not usable to me were the short, rough corner braces with pocket hole screw holes up under the apron sides. I also salvaged about 1/4 pound plated, hardened steel Philips drive #12 wood screws, eight perfect 2 1/2 inch 1/4-20 slot head bolts and 8, 1/4-20 T-nuts. The walnut end table will be a little more ticklish. The maker hid screw heads under walnut dowel buttons glued and sanded flush. Some nails were also used to craft the piece and I'll need to take care disassembling as I study it for metal anything that would ruin planer blades. This is rewarding though for sure. Don.

Lovely work. Keep um comin' Roly

Just realized I posted this on the wrong topic of mine. Oops Here it is finally all cut out. I used multiple blades trying them out. For the itty bitty cuts, I tended to use MG#3s but with 3/4" piece of wood it was challenging. I tried the spiral blades but couldn't get the straight lines and sharp points of it so I nixed them on this project. I did bend a few blades and broke one. All in all it was a fun project to experiment on. Now to sand and clean up all those little slots. Some look real messy to me and want to see about limiting that. barb.j.enders: I think I will leave the live edge parts, clean them up a bit.

very nice work

I like them all! I like them all! Not a mis-type,, that's just how much I like them! LOL I really like that Eagle. Is the pattern still available?