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Made these to honor my grand nephew. One made with 1/2" oak and the other 1/2" poplar. On both, the outter ring and inner ring are stained with godlen oak, the middle ring is stained with cherry. I think the details show up better with lighter wood. I did the bevel cuts tilting scroll saw arm left 3 degrees. I really enjoyed doing this. Jerry

Here is the final Sam Elliot. I chose a framing method I had not used before. I glued the piece on a larger backer board and then framed it. The frame is heart pine that was revived from an old roof deck. My brother gave me some.

Another color filled eagle. Made from cherry. https://www.facebook.com/tjswoodshop

I would not use a router. They are much harder to control and if you aren't adept at using one can be very dangerous. Learn to use your scroll saw. Cutting circles is difficult but not impossible. Use up some scrap wood and practice. It's mostly just a bit of coordinating your cut speed and hand speed. That's why practice is important. Once you get the feel of it, you'll do fine. Regarding what is available to you where you are, is it possible for regular folks like us here in the U.S. to ship things to you without incurring a lot of import duty. Sort of like sending gifts at Christmas and birthdays might be. If we could be of help to get you the supplies that you need, I know we could get something set up here. Other than the actual cost of shipping and the cost of goods, maybe we could get you what you can't find where you are.

Sorry to hear that the second Wen was also a problem. Glad you were able to return and order a Dewalt.

I was wondering if we in the UK could possibly send you blades without the import duty etc. that would be involved, much like a birthday gift or something like that. I could try here and see if anything can be set up if you wish. Will need to find out how the system works so Ray may be able to help me. EDIT Is Amazon an option ??

Very nice, Frank... I amusing a lot of waste wood I have for intarsia...

Nice looking fire pit Frank. Yes the blocks are heavy. Dr released me after surgery two week ago since then I have unloaded 150 of the big ones 70 of the small ones and will be going back for another 100 big ones this week. Sawdust and Vaseline makes great fire starters. I always carried them in my survival kit.

What Rodney Said - I constantly cut 3/4" thick and thicker for my intarsia pieces. If I get in a hurry, I'll find my curves and corners don't fit just right. If I look at the piece from the side, I'll see where the blade warped in the corner and now the side isn't perfectly square - then I have to recut the piece. Ensure your blade is perfectly 90º and slow down in corners and curves.

Don graciously made this pattern for me, thanks Don. I used to work with a guy over 25 years ago that just turned 80 years old. I haven't seen him or his family for at least 10 years. I actually taught his oldest daughter how to drive. I was given an invite to his surprise birthday party that she was giving him. Don made this pattern and it's a good thing that I made it the next day,, I was off by a week on the date of the party. I didn't have time to do anything fancy with it. I was planning on using BB Ply but found a piece of Cedar. I had thought that it would be a little nicer than the ply, but it didn't have much grain. 1/4" Cedar, used a FD UR1 and a few coats of lacquer.

Finally finished this beautiful Russ Beard Pattern, the frame is home made and I used the Shou Sugi Ban or Yakisugi effect which is a hundred year old Japanese technique that brings out the pattern of the wood. Applied three coats of Danish Oil and two coats Matt Clear Varnish. Staying in South Africa I have had the pleasure of photographing and sitting watch these animals now I’m cutting them. I will be using this technique on all my my fire wildlife cuttings

I lost two fruit trees I had in my back yard due to the severe cold snap we had this past Winter and they needed to be removed. I filled in one tree area with sod, but the other was partially in my paver patio. After removing the tree and replacing some of the pavers I decided to build a fire pit to enjoy next fall when the weather cools off. After many trips to and from Lowes, this 30” square fire pit is the result of my efforts as shown in these pics. Those 3.5” x 7.5” x 11.5” blocks are heavy. I used 48 of them plus 32 of the small spacer blocks. My aching back! I have a trash can next to my saw that gets a lot of the waste pieces I cut out. This material, along with other trash and trimmed off strips have been going out on garbage pickup days, and presumably winding up in the landfill. Upon completing the fire pit build, I realized that I will be needing Firewood and, of course, kindling. The wood cut outs and other trim pieces I generate will make excellent kindling. So now I need two buckets next to the saw…one for wood the other for trash. I think this is a win-win for both the environment and me. And, BTW, sawdust is a great fire starter. I usually turn my sawdust, collected in my vacuum system, into my garden beds, but now I will save some to use in the fire pit. Just a litle bit of useless but important information for your reading pleasure.

Wow, thanks again everyone! Really great info here. I finished cutting out the one I started and just don't like it. I'll be trying all the same wood thickness on this next one and try for no more than 1/2 an inch thick total and see where that gets me. I'm just using scrap birch I have laying around and I can plane it to whatever thickness I need. I'll trial and error it based off all your comments. I'll get this..... Thank you so much!!

I predominantly use ply for cuttings and pine or poplar for frames, so most if the scrap is not reusable. I keep a lot of the larger pieces of ply that are large enough for small cutting panels. However, don't cut to many smaller pieces. The stockpile is getting quite large.

Great job, Jerry!

fantastic job

From the Hardwood Database, Black Cherry | The Wood Database (Hardwood) (wood-database.com) Rot Resistance: Heartwood is rated as being very durable and resistant to decay, though not typically used in exterior applications.

I typically cut my ornaments in stacks of 4 pieces of 1/8" BB ply or 3 pieces of 1/4" solid core ply, or solid wood. Usually on solid wood I plane it down to 3/16 and do stacks of 4 depending on wood type sometimes just 3 pieces. I used to do 5 and sometimes 6 pieces of BBply depending on the situation at hand but I much prefer doing 4 pieces. Years ago I started out doing 6 BBply in a stack to maximize production and I never did anything more or less than the 6 until I came up with a custom order for 8 ornaments. I normally cut all my blanks back then at 8 x 8 inch and could get 4 - 5 ornament sets out of the blank. That custom order for 8 pieces made me do a stack of 4 so I ended up cutting 2-3 more times on that blank of other ornaments and the cutting seemed to go way faster than cutting 5-6 stacked.. That was my comfort zone from then on so I've kind of stuck with stacks of 4 unless I have some odd number of ornaments I need to make where doing a stack of 5 or 6 makes more sense.

I cut up to 1-1/2 inches thick with no problems yet. I have cut 2 inches but I didn't like it. It is too easy to get my finger mashed cutting 2 inches. If it is above 1-1/2 inch its a bandsaw project.

??? Really ?

Awesome, Jerry. The grain really pops, especially on the oak... but then I'm a sucker for nice grain.

We are a red tractor family Very nice cut, looks great!

Jerry, that is really nicely done! I am sure your Grand Nephew will cherish these.

For cutting those holes, I would probably use a forstner bit. The best tool for a scroll saw project isn't always a scroll saw.

A lot of Steve's patterns are fitting wood into slots. I recently did a box from one of his patterns and whereas he typically uses 1/4-inch for his slots, the wood I was using was measured in millimeters. I had to modify my pattern to the thickness of the wood. I cut the slot a little tight and then sanded to fit. As far as the circles, if it were me, I would either cut them on the scroll saw just to the inside of the line and then sand to the line or use a forstner bit with a good, solid back to prevent tear out.

I remembered my husband has a ( I think) router I am going to try to use it as well. To cut inner circle. He he new skill as well. The wood is not a good one but I am leaning to cut and fit as well. Then get better wood. This I might just paint if it works. Just trying a new skill altogether

We heat our shop and our house in the winter with a wood burning stove so all scraps go towards helping keep us warm. In the summer we use it for bon fires and such.

I cut a lot of baltic birch and seldom go any thicker stack than 3/4 inch as problems increase.

Latest piece. Solid Cherry cut with #3 mg blade. Finished with a coat of shellac then beeswax/mineral oil. I do not remember where I got the pattern

I didn't know about walnut I have a fire place in our living room that takes care of wood scraps or oops projects

A lot depends on what wood you use and what blade you use. Some wood such as cherry and hickory usually need very little sanding. Pine on the other hand needs a lot of sanding as it gets little fuzzies. The sharper the blade the cleaner the cut. I use a FD Ultra reverse for most of my cutting.

I was finally able to finish the framing of these pieces. The tractor is the second stack cut of the one I painted and posted earlier. This one is 1/4-inch Birch stained Ipswich Pine as well as the Pine frame. The backer is sanded pine painted black. The two barn pieces are from Jim Blume's Americana series. This pattern is Americana 10, Long Forgotten. The 1/4-inch Oak piece is stained Minwax Natural and the frame is stained Ipswich Pine. The other piece is 1/4-inch Birch stained Ipswich Pine and the Pine frame is stained Natural. All three were sprayed with 4-coats of Polyacrylic lightly sanded with 600 grit sandpaper between coats. Thanks, Jim, for a great pattern!

Hi everyone, I made 16 of these trinket boxes for my grandkids. This is Sheila Landry designs. There about 5 inch round and about 2 1/2 deep. You can make them as deep as you want by adding more rings. They took a while to do all of them but I like the results. Now my other problem I have is what can I make with all the scrap circles. There walnut and curly maple 3/8 thick. Any ideas.

Here is the 2nd planter I have done. The first was the pug, which I delivered today to my neighbor and she loves it- Yay. Now the bulldog is complete and ready for his new home. I think I picked the perfect boards for the butt ends. LOL

We decided we are just too old to be making any moves so I guess that's the answer. I wish we were 10 years younger. We'd be gone.

I am currently cutting 3 (stacked), 5/16" thick pieces (15/16" total) for a double lidded basket. Top layer is oak, the bottom two layers are walnut. I am using mostly FD Polar #1 blades; the tension on my Hegner is 5/4 turns. The waste comes out smoothly either top or bottom ( the bottom piece looks as good as the top ). It sounds to me like you need to increase the blade tension. I use the Polar blades because they are " stiffer " than any other blade I've used and resist bending inside the cut. While cutting I will pause and let the piece float, this helps me not put side pressure on the blade.

Thank you so much. I probably am pushing the blade to much. I'm cutting like I would a single piece, just moving along pretty as I please. Yikes. I will finish this one with the 3 boards and try the "slow down and let catch up technique" and see how that goes. The next one I do I'll keep it to 1/2 in and see if I do better.

I am using Alaska birch which is considered a hard wood, as far as I know. The table is squared up (I actually remembered to check that. haha).

Paul (Scrappile) has pretty well nailed it. I typically stack cut everything I do except names. I've found that you have to be very careful about "pushing" too hard into the blade and definitely don't want to deviate left or right. The blade arcs from the pressure and while it is cutting along the line of your pattern perfectly on the top piece, the bottom of the blade is still bent and hasn't "caught up" to the top of the blade. One thing I do to help is make sure I cut slowly, especially on curves in the pattern, and I'll completely stop feeding into the blade when I reach a corner or sharp turn in the pattern. That allows the blade to catch up to the top where you are following the pattern. I also rarely stack cut over 1/2-inch. Good luck

7/8 thick maybe too thick... I have never stack any thing that totals 1/2" thick and maybe your wood is too soft for cutting that thick. That would be my thoughts. Other do cut thicker, they may chime in.

Darn I found one more, don't know why I forgot it, the most colorful project I hav done. It is an Alex Fox pattern that was to be a wall hanging but I turned it into a real bird house.

After lots of head scratching my DeWalt scroll saw has a new home. It was just parked on a metal welding table my son fabricated. Not the handiest situation. Not the right height. No place for my feet. Just not a satisfactory location at all. So, I built a stand with a 15° front tilt and locking wheels. I'll sit on an adjustable height office chair with a high back and generous arms. That chair served to determine the height of the front of the table. I can rest my arms on the chairs arms and it's just right to manipulate the work on the saw table. It's really quite comfy. Now, the sawdust can begin accumulating.

Shouldn't your small pieces be in that jar the is in your system? I have a 5gal bucket under my dust deputy and have been able to find treasured little pieces in it, if it isn't a piece I can easily re-cut.

I spent a bit of time yesterday and got the Seyco/Scrollnado system hooked up. I did leave the plastic backer in place. The lower hose is just friction fit on the lower blade guard. Works surprisingly well. @jerry waltersI have noise cancelling headphones that i use as well. Thanks to everyone for your replies.

Are you talking about the clear plastic piece? On my Seyco and Excalibur I remove that and pointed a piece of PVC pipe on my dust collection to the opening. very little dust got past it. I also since I have left over cigar boxes from my cigar box guitar days, affix a cigar box under the table to collect any dust that gets by the DC. It also collect broken/warn out blades small scraps I toss in there as I scroll.

Over the past year or so I've picked up quite a few people on here that buy the clock inserts from me. Wasn't sure I should post this in the general section but I felt this would get seen by most here. Over the past 3-4 weeks I've been working / playing on a new website and if you have bookmarked my site in the past it'll no longer take you to the site, it'll likely take you to the new site which isn't launched yet. The new site hasn't went live yet but I was at the point of pointing my domain address to the new site so now the address for the old site has changed. For the time being I have added a " Clock Inserts" link in my signature so to get to the clocks quickly you should be able to find any posting I make or have made and in the signature area click the text "clock inserts" and it'll take you to the page where my inserts are. The KevsKrafts.com in my signature will take you to the new site.. but you'll likely get a page that says "opening soon" with a area to enter your email for notification of when the store launches. At this point I'm not certain a new site will ever be launched, I'm just testing other options than the site hosting I have been using.. each hosting place has good and bad points so who knows.. I may just put the old site back up with the domain going there again, LOL Anyway to get to the clocks just find the link in my signature until I get done playing around with new sites, actually kinda handy to just have a direct link to the inserts in my signature anyway.

UPDATE 2ND WEN LL2156: 2 months in on new saw I encountered same issue as 1st saw. Returned to Home Depot and ordered a Dewalt. Hope I have better luck.

You. burn hundreds of acres every year down there! I watched the show "Burning Paradise" a while back. I watched it because my Aunt and Uncle use to live there, way back when it was a pretty small town. I loved to visit then there. Glad they alive to see that happen to the place they loved so much.

To Don and octoolguy Thanks for the help I will find out if it is safe. Business even find it hard to receive stock as it is stolen. I do not want to put you guys out off pocket (money)