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I found this stencil of a pair of tiger cubs that I thought would make a nice cutting. The scroll saw pattern I developed just seemed to look good in an 8x10 format, so I used a piece of 5/32 x 8 x 10 solid core Maple that I mounted on a painted Black 11 x14 x 1/4 thick BB ply Backer. The pattern is relatively simple but has a lot more holes than what I expected at first glance. For the cutting I used Pegas #2/0 Spiral blades. This piece gave me an opportunity to practice my skills using the Air Brush to add color. Since, in this case I was adding the color to the cut panel, I removed the pattern with the underlying liner, from only the image area so the remaining pattern paper and liner acted as a mask while I sprayed. Happily, there was no paint bleed under the mask. I’m quite pleased with the results but I’m only beginning to learn and would welcome any comments or suggestions about Air Brush work that would help me improve my skills. How to mix paints to obtain a specific color is top on my learning list. I happened to have this natural Red Oak Frame already made and used it for the picture. Not quite happy with it and thinking I will make a new one, but because I used black for the perimeter area, I’m unsure what color (stain or paint) the frame should be. Suggestions welcome. I'll share the pattern in Pattern Exchange.

Rainy day so spent some time in the shop, nothing fancy just something to keep busy.

I got an order to make 11 of Steve Goods Penny Drop Game, I really do not line to do the same thing over and over again but the money coming in to purchase more materials is good. Now I have to make 4 or 5 more for inventory, great seller here even though we do not have Pennie’s any more.LOL

So I’m about to complete the next part of many for this 3D project I’m doing. I had to reduce the size of the original image by quite a bit to make it fit into the overall project its positioning is very important. But I’ve hit a little snag the pattern is not free standing portrait of the Buffalo so I need to make a few changes to the outside cut of the pattern. I would appreciate it if any of the members experienced in pattern design can mark up in a colored pen how I should go about it, because there a few bridges that have to be considered. Due to the reduction in size this was a difficult cut, so I don’t want to mess it up know, I’ve kind of drawn it up as to how to do it but I don’t think it’s the perfect solution hence I’m asking for some help. The Buffalo was cut with a #1 Niqua straight blade.

Through the generosity of Les's wife Faye, I now have his Stewmac base that you are speaking about. I hold it in my hands and it thrills me to know that he held it also. I dearly miss him.

Dremel make a router table but Stewmac make a more solid one.

Gene, a long while back, I was trying to cut a 3-D table sitter for my wife. I was using some 1 3/4" fir that I had laying around. It was more of a practice thing so I was using junk wood. I was having a terrible time cutting it. When I posted my woes I was told to get some skip tooth or super skip tooth blades. So I ordered a gross of them from Denny. What a difference they made. They clear the kerf of the built-up dust so much better and as Larry said, you don't need or want the reverse teeth on these cuts. I did still use #5 blades but in the super skips instead.

https://scrollsawer.com "Scrollsaw Woodworking and Crafts"

The older I get the more I dislike people and the more I like dogs. I have known 20 or more dogs in my life. A few years back I realized each has it's own personality and each has a different way of communicating. If the water bowl is empty, the smallest dog grabs it and brings it to me where ever I am. They know the difference between front door and back door. They know which is the truck and which is the car. We had three small dogs and ended up taking in 3 from a deceased relative. So for a few years we had six bowls for food lined up. When the oldest dog passed away 2 years ago, the others would not touch his bowl. Now the remaining two from the relative are getting to be seniors. The oldest just turned 19, he has the best personality of any dog I have ever been around. He comes to me and turns tight little circles when he needs to go out. The German Shepherd watches out for him. like a big brother watching out for a little brother. The Shepherd knows by which set of keys I pick up in the morning whether he will be spending the day with me or whether I will be going to the office. If I pick up the truck keys he runs to the door and then the truck. In many ways they are smarter than some of the humans I have to deal with.

Saw this on Facebook. It isn't mine but I thought it was kinda cool and might inspire someone. Or crank up the old creative engine so to speak.

Cut is from 1/2" Red Oak. The original design calls for 14" x 8" but I had a nice 24" board I wanted to use and being cheap, decided to reduce the pattern to get two. Not the smartest move I have ever made. The fine print letters would be hard enough at full size. The smaller size made that worse. LOL

Last year I made a few small surf board ornaments. very simple flat surf boards out of lath. I sanded the edges round and painted them up. Sanding was a long process. I use a router table to round over edges on big stuff. Is there a little router table like for a dremel? My ornaments are only 3.5 inches long. A full size router would likely suck in the wood and take some finger tips when working something that small.

Very nice RJ

Great picture!

You mean you don't have a jar of them hanging around!! lol.

I have a Veritas plunge base for my Dremel that I mount upside down in my vise when I want to use my 1/8-inch round-over bit. It would be simple to mount this to a piece of acrylic that you could clamp to your bench. When using 1/4-shank bits, I also mount my small router upside down in my vice. I have a shaper and a Shopsmith if I want to do anything large that needs support.

Yes, that was a good seller for me last year as well. Grandparents liked them for birthday/Christmas presents. Easy to make and yes, it helps pay for the addic..., err, hobby

Amazon has several rotary drills with flexible hand pieces and tons of attachments including sanding drums. The wen is about $19.00 work very nicely for small items

You do not really need to buy Stewmac's real expensive plunge router base. You can purchase their cheaper stationary router base and convert it to a plunge base. Which I have, Couple springs and 4 nuts and you are good to go. Check out Rockytime's thread. He not only told me about this but insisted on sending me the few parts required to do it. That is the kind of guy Rockytime was, R.I.P. your are really missed by us that had the honor of knowing you on this forum. Now I am not the kind of guy that is going to send the parts but I am showing you how he did it!

Just finishing the cuts in 3/4+ red oak abstract nativity scene. Using a #7 niqua Ultra. Originally, started with a #9 Pegus. For some reason, none of my stock of 9s wanted to cooperate. They were even slower than the 7s and much harder to keep to the line for this novice.

Hey Tom, What a thoughtful present, and soooo well done. AND, talk about thinking "outside the box" Thanks for sharing. Rick

I'm with you, but I like cats. I have my twin American Bombays, but the one I call "Fat Man" the 19 pounder, is my companion. I hear him mewing as he brings me "gifts", usually a few of his toys. In one afternoon he once brought me 11 of his toys on at a time! His name is Atticus, and he will come up and sit on my lap and snuggle when I am at my desk, or crawl up on me when I lay down for my afternoon siesta... (I am up at 3 am, and on base by 3:30 am each day). Having 19lbs of solid cat on you is something to behold. The cat sitting on the laptop was my companion cat who died in 2018. I had her for 15 years. She was amazing, always bringing me gifts of socks or her toys... Her name was "Indy", if you rubbed her fur backwards you would see that her fur was white with black tips. Atticus' brother is Atlas. He is affectionate, but just does not want to crawl up on me. The 3rd photo was when they were a little younger and smaller. Last photo a little kitty p0rn with a flash!

Hey Everyone! In this fun scroll saw project video we make this amazing Shark Woodimal Puzzle for the upcoming Shark Week! The design is from the Woodimals Puzzle book by Fox Chapel Publishing and is cut from 3/4 inch oak. Hope you all like the video! #ArtisanPirate

I am thinking of making/cutting a Chess Set. The set I really like is the San Francisco Set so I cut the King for this from 1 and a half inch (1 1/2") square Oak yesterday. It turned out ok and I will now have a look for some suitable woods to make up the 32 pieces needed. This King is about 4 1/2" high.

I refuse to subscribe until they make the insert available online. So I check it out at Walmart and decide if I want to buy. I will check to see if they have that issue yet.

Saw set up on stand and ready to go. The helpers came on Wednesday afternoon and unboxed the saw then bolted it to the frame. It is an excellent height (adjustable) and I find it easy to load and change blades. It will be a real boost to the scrolling fretwork pieces and internal cuts. Haven't got Henry (the vacuum cleaner) set up yet but we are getting there (very slowly).

Yep.. and I know just the little girl I would love to make that for.. She is really a horse person. Doing the jumping. Scene now. A few Years ago I made this picture for her when she first started.. She was thrilled! Guess she is not a little girl now, she must be 12. Good friend of my Daughters.. I get video every once in a while of her jumping events.

Congrads on the new toy, RJ

Welcome to the the HEGNER world. Be patient, if you have any questions do not hesitate to call Advance Machinery and ask. I had problems when I first bought mine, Breaking blade, They did not give up on helping me. Truthfully, I was ready to give up on mine but one day it all fell into place. I have owned Craftsman saws, TheDewalt, Exvalibur, and Seyco. All but the craftsman were great saw, but the Hegner is "my saw". fits me right. I will not part with it as long as I can scroll.. I may buy a second saw, but I will not part with my Hegner. And Congratulations. Great choice.

I have just started cutting these little birdhouses and have a problem with the cut not being square. Been cutting a while but never over 3/4" material and never had a problem with cuts. Have cut lots of puzzles with no issues. So when cutting the thicker material I just started using my same blades I have used in the past. I have tried several different materials. Machine is square. I have an older model Excalibur. As I cut a few I was paying attention to not push sideways on the blade. Still ended up with a bad cut. Thanks to all that I have asked for suggestions. One comment was the blade selection. I had been using Pegas #5 MGT blades. It was suggested to use a Skip tooth blade to help get rid of the saw dust. I have noticed that when I take these apart there is a lot of trapped dust. Looking for ideas to apply to these and all 3D cuts.

I have cut about 60 birdhouse ornaments to date using the Pegas MGT blades. I have used both #3 and #5. Pattern placement is critical. I like to use a utility knife and a straight edge to lightly cut partially through the pattern on the dashed line. If the blade is sharp, you can do this with the only pressure being the knife's weight. The pattern will fold right on the cut. I fold the pattern to nearly 90 degrees, spray with 3m77, and apply the pattern dead on the corner first and then the sides. Close is not good enough. Everything must be square. Forcing the cut or using a dull blade will also cause problems.

Several factors come into play with compound cut patterns. You mentioned 3 of them; blade square to the table, proper blade and not pushing sideways. Those are very important. Another is to make sure the blank is absolutely square. If you buy your wood already to thickness or mill your own, it is critical that the sides be square to one another, especially the corner that the pattern is mounted to. Also, take great care in how you mount the pattern. Make absolutely sure that you fold the pattern exactly along the line indicated and when you attach it to the blank, make sure the fold is placed precisely on the corner of the blank. Any mis-alignment will result in an out of square cut, no matter how well everything else is set up. As for the blade, a skip tooth blade is preferable for compound cutting. Reverse teeth are not necessary for compound cuts and do not clear dust from the kerf nearly as well as skip tooth. The size will depend partially on the material and thickness being cut, but a #5 should be adequate for most applications.

I was looking for some good birch and couldn't find any. All I had found was not very good, to much grain or too many patches. I did find this at Menards. Half a sheet was $25. I got it on sale for $17. It has a better center filler and much better and cleaner surface. I don't know if Lowes or other stores have it. They didn't have it at the lumber yard I went to. The back side is much darker and not as clean but it may do something for some folks. I talked to an old friend and am going to do ten of these for his retired friends, I did him one quite some time ago. It has a perfect clean face to it. Hope this helps others trying to find some wood.

Steve Good has basket plans on his web site "Scroll Workshop"

So, I know I'm probably opening up a can of worms here. And I also know that this subject is highly relative to preference and opinion. But that being said, I'm wondering where everyone is ordering blades from and if there's really much difference between Pegas and Flying Dutchman. The reason I ask is that I was about to click purchase on some blades from Bearwoods (I've placed several orders before) and this time it struck me that the shipping was a little high so I thought I'd see what else was out there and compare. I went to Mike's Workshop and the blades are around the same price but shipping is free. The difference is Mike's is Flying Dutchman and Bear woods is Pegas. Come out of your corners swinging but let's have a fair fight. LOL

Just some clarification, Flying Dutchman are rebranded Niqua blades. So, if you use FD, you are using Niqua. A few years before Mike from Mike’s Workshop died, he sold his business to The Wooden Teddy Bear with the stipulation they followed his business model of low prices and free shipping. So, if you order from Mikesworkshop.com site, you get free shipping for blades. If you order from WTB, you pay for shipping. As for Pegas blades, Denny at Art Crafters has the best price and fastest service. I use both brands plus Olson blades with FD UR blades the most.

Thanks! This was a super helpful comment. Exactly what I was asking about and wanted to hear. I ended up going with Mike's this time around but I'll keep what you said in mind for the next order, makes a lot of sense.

I went with Flying Dutchman and free shipping. We shall see if there's a difference that I can notice.

I prefer the Flying Dutchman blades because Bill Nighy packs each set himself.

Under the resources tab at the top you'll see "suppliers" There is a long list..

There are literally hundreds of posts about blades. Some like Pegas and others FD. You will get lots of opinions. I do not look at the costs but buy what works for me. I use what works best for me and the type of scrolling I do.

I have cut shell - but not with a scroll saw - they make a small hand fret saw and yes you use very fine jewelers ( and yes with a scrollsaw -but as slow as you can get - expect the blades to break easily ), design tacked down with adhesive spray . Pearl can burn very easy with a powered saw . cutting them by hand is not a difficult task in fact it was allot of fun ( have inlayed a few guitars in my time ) BUT THE DUST CAN BE VERY HARMFUL TO YOUR LUNGS - WEAR A MASK A GOOD MASK LIKE A N95 ( I always wear a mask when I scroll saw )

Jewelers must be able to cut it, since mother of pearl is used in jewelry, also pen making and used to be made into buttons. I would try to research how those guys do it. I would think a jeweler's blade would cut it. Tom

I for one have never given that a thought before. Will be interested in hearing and seeing what you do with this. It could end up being a learning lesson for many here, who knows? Dick heppnerguy

Where can I find a "Cow Turd" pattern?