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I'm guilty of being one of those people who over think things to death... That being said, I kept looking at the latest project of the stick surfer meeting up with the shark. I just didn't like the bite out of the surf board on the side so I had to cut it again without it. Should have thought about that before I glued the little guy to the board though... A razor blade got him removed with very little sanding. With the board re-cut I think it is more of a believable image... Holding off on the glue until I'm "really" sure!

This was a custom order. My daughter's friend was having a baby shower and my daughter is broke. I offered time and materials (cause that's what we do). I gave her a choice of fonts. Thanks @don in brooklin on for the Berlin font. This is what she chose. It is Wondrus from DaFont. I think it might become a fav. This is cut from 1/2" ply with a #7 blade. Acrylic paint with Walrus Oil as a top coat.

Cool project! I’m in the over thinking club.

I really like it! I wouldn't change a thing now.

This is a project I'm currently working on, a spice rack for the girlfriend. These are about 10" long, 1/4" Elm, the shelves were stacked 3 high, the ends 2 high, all cut with FD Polar #1 (just didn't want to change blades). They are not perfect, but will touch up pretty quick with the stationary belt sander. I will post pictures of the finished project as soon as I get it done.

Can’t answer your question, but I think The Moody Blues have got to have some of the coolest album covers.

Rechargeable batteries have a max number of cycles that should be charged. So keeping them equally cycled there is a technique. So a method of doing this is keep them in first in to first out stack. After recharging them put the battery in the top of the stack. Pull the out the bottom cell to be used next. No reason to count recharge cycles. The series of pictures show the stack in a different way. Heads is the round peg, tails is the square block. Take the next battery to be used next to the head, and move the head peg counter-clockwise to the next cell. When a freshly charge battery is ready, place it next to the tail and move the tail counter clockwise. My son wanted a first in first out stack. So I came up with this last night. I used scrap wood for a prototype. Shapes and sizes are up to the artist or customer. Me. Mark Eason

Haven't posted for a while. Here are a couple of my latest. Eagle Reflection pattern by Steve Collins and Young Love pattern by Charles Dearing. Jeff

I have spring fever ......so I made a Sunflower welcome sign 5-1/2ft Tall, made from 2X lumber, so it's heavy and won't blow over very easy, stained dark walnut, painted cut out white letters Comments always make me feel good God Bless Dan

I got the honor of being asked to cut out 3 Mississippi states for a friend to have engraved for our State Youth BB Gun tournament. I kept one of the outer cuts and made this little plaque of my favorite State. It was a fun little project and I am going to make more.

Very nice sign Dan! I like it!

I love your bear ....As you mentioned, I am not sure about the background either. Perhaps the grain of the frame and the grain of the background are distracting me...not sure. Maybe more of a lighter boring colored background. Here is a painting of a horse that I thought looked good with the background. If you had a bigger background, and since you airbrush very well, you could do a moon so that is what is lighting his fir like this picture I found on etsy but maybe you don't really want the silhouette look... Not sure if this helps. marie

Very nice! I love the colors as well!

Welcome from Washington State! Yes, if you have any questions about scrolling you can post them in the General scroll saw section of the forum or the Q&A section. Folks are very helpful. Great work on your Green Bay logo!

Thank's for all the info but being up in age I think I will stay with my piece of junk craftman will make some adjustments to see if it helps.

What's an album?

For the sake of simplicity, let's start with the basics. There are essentially 3 main brand names for scroll saw blades that are the most used, at least by the folks on this forum. Those would be Pegas, Flying Dutchman and Olson. Pegas blades, as mentioned, are available from Denny @ Art Crafters. The other 2 are available from Wooden Teddy Bear (among other places). For starters, that will get you going. As for which brand to choose, right now, as a beginner, I don't think it really matters all that much. There really isn't a wrong choice. They all will do the job. Until you get a feel for what blades you want to use, pick a brand and run with it for a while. Many of us have tried a lot of different ones and have a large variety on hand, most of which we don't really use. So take Denny up on his offer. He will point you in the right direction and help you choose what size & type of blade to get you started. And you can always come back here for more advice. Search the forum. Questions about what blade to use come up all the time and there are many threads on the topic. Good luck and let us know how you are doing.

I would be pleased to help with questions about blades. If you would like to call, we are open Monday through Friday 11 a. t 4 pm Eastern time. Or click on the link below my signature.

No. All the major blades (Pegas, Flying Dutchman, Olsen) will work on your wen.

I have been scrolling for over 20 years and yes I have tried spirals and I hate them, straight blade all the time for me. You did a terrific job on Clint, well done. Marg

If you go used, consider seeing if replacement parts available. I bought a yard sale ancient Craftsman some time back and discovered parts were no longer to be had. Managed to sell if at our yard sale later, taking only a small loss. Did a couple side hustle deck jobs and last summer got a 14" Jet bandsaw, primarily for resawing. No regrets and leaning towards getting another smaller one as I am not fond of changing the bandsaw blades back and forth. Good luck on your quest.

How fast you can make a project only really matters in two scenarios. 1. The customer is paying by the hour and you already told them it would take 2 hours. 2. The wife comes into the shop and tells you the Smith’s are coming over tonight and we need to give them a Christmas gift. BEEN THERE!

I definitely don't blame you one bit. At 65 degrees, if there is a whisper of wind, I find it difficult to go outdoors and set up my tablesaw. That's my next thing, to cut some plywood down to size to start on the peacock table lamp that Berndt Munzieb sent me the plans for.

I have turned tagua nuts on my lathe, but never carved them. They are about the size of a large walnut, with a thin brown skin over a white "meat" interior. This meat is hard and looks like ivory, hence the name "vegetable ivory". The interior is what is used. Most have an interior cavity, of no particular shape, which will affect the final result. They are about the hardness of rock maple and turn fairly easily. I think they would saw fairly easily but could only be used for small cuttings up to 1 1/2" in diameter. The ones I turned were for knobs on the lids of some bowls and boxes I made on my lathe. The void in the middle would make them hit or miss for most uses I could think of. YMMV Tom

Not neccessarsily the most correct wway, but you can also do the opposite. Use the thickest (largest blade) that fits the hole you dilled and cut the line with just one pass, shaving it slightly if necessary to elimnate the seeing the hole. A detail line as in your pattern, should, I believe, be wider than what we typically refer to as veining. It needs to be wide enough to see daylight (or the backer) through. Think of as Artistic License...and you are the artist...the pattern is just a guide not gospel.

You are over thinking it. just try to use the smallest bit you can to match the size of the blade. Drill at the very edge of the line. Either side is fine. If you are that anal about it you can do a couple things and that is increase the thickness of the line after first cut to eliminate the roundness and slightly enlarge the line past your initial entry hole. No one in the world except you is going to know. Remember you are making a hand made item. You are not a robot or a laser cutting the pattern. I bet when you are all done not one of your lines will be perfectly straight. But they will look fine because they will be close enough. It is something newbies must get over and the more you scroll the more little tricks you pick up. Good luck.

No idea what that is! Waiting for responses.

Hello everyone, I feel a little awkward posting this here as I have not been an active member, so I hope you will forgive my forwardness in posting this here. For some time I have been creating a website on Fretworking (scrollsawing) mainly because I have always been a fan of the old fretwork days and especially the old Fretwork companies Hobbies and Handicrafts of England. There is very little of their history on the web and I wanted to keep their history alive so to speak. Back in 1900 my late grandfather was an expert fretworker (he used to teach the hobby to youngsters in his home town. He also sold Hobbies fretwork items in his shop, My late father was also a good fretworker, I have followed the tradition and been keen on the hobby for over 60 years, My grandsons are also keen fretworkers. As well as documenting the history, the site also has lots of advice on the hobby inc saw buying, blades and general advice plus some free designs to download. I have done this purely out of interest, I am not a professional web designer so don't expect perfection, it is all my own words and work and I do not make any money whatsoever from the site. The existing Hobbies company have given my site their blessing and are happy that I have put their history online. (I have put a link to Scrollsaw village on the help and advice page of my site I hope this is OK?) Perhaps members here would be kind enough to have a look at the website and offer their opinions good or bad. Thank you so much for reading this. John The website is here https://sites.google.com/view/scrimpers-fretworking-site

That is a VERY good website. It's clear you put a ton of time into it. Lots of great info and laid out well. Nicely done!

I found the tutorial done by Travis in the how to section. .... Thanx for the replies.....forrest

Nothing wrong with that.. Everyone has a different pace that they like to scroll at. My very first saw was a old delta 2 speed saw and low was too slow.. so I learned to cut on the high setting which was like 1700 strokes per minute saw speed.. so I run my saws mostly at around 1500 SPM.. just how I learned to enjoy scrolling so that's how I continue to scroll. I feel like things would be a lot different had I learned on a different saw that had variable speed. When I did finally get a variable speed saw and ran it slow, I found that I was used to the saw going fast and that I would end up pushing the wood through too hard and flexing the blade etc.. now I'm just trained to go fast, LOL.. Not to mention I've also been at it for 20 years now and production style cutting for about 16 years.. so I have a bit of time at a saw... so running the saw fast and cutting fast is just what is natural for me.. Lots of people mistake it thinking I cut fast because I'm doing it as a business and feel the need to race the clock.. but I was sawing on high speed since the first or second day I learned to scroll saw.. 4-5 years before ever doing it as a business.. I do sort of think if everyone had to learn on a saw that only had a fast speed they'd learn to control the wood feeding into the blade better. Just because the saw is running fast doesn't necessarily mean you have to feed the wood fast. Most scroll saw videos I watch the people cutting are flexing the blade too much.. They need to speed the saw up and relax and let the blade do the cutting.. If the saw running fast make you "cut too fast then you're pushing the wood too hard" You don't have to speed up just because the saw is running faster you just have to learn to control how you feed the wood to the blade slower. In other words I think too many people rely on the variable speed of the saw to control their cut.. rather than learning how to control their feeding. I see lots of people turn up the saw speed on easy long straight cuts and then slow it down for fine detail cuts.. But everyone learns it different and no right or wrong way really.. just do what works for you and you are comfortable with.. Like Ray said.. It's not a race... Took me a long time to learn to be good at cutting because I had to learn how to control the wood based on a fast running saw..

That is our world now.. We need to quit expecting excellence, as we use to, in todays world.. To me very sad. Technology has gotten better, but expectations on what is expectable by us the people is declining.. Delete if necessary. I am getting old and cranky and do not like the way things are going.

The Wen 3920 is a great starter saw. My first Wen lasted 8 months till the lower arm bolt snapped causing motor to jam. Called Wen on phone about problem had me a new saw delivered with one week. I'm about 3 months into the 2nd Wen and so far so good. For the price and the amount of work i created with my Wen Scroll Saws i'm pretty happy!

I use Ultra Reverse almost exclusively for most cutting. I use Polar blades when doing some compound cutting. On Baltic Birch I get a few fuzzies on the bottom piece that can be used with a little sanding. (usually quick pass on sanding mop) What I really like is how smooth the interior is. I have done 3/4 inch cherry with UR-5 and get no burning and it is as smooth as glass on inside. Don