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I have two shows coming up in one month, so I have to keep busy and make some different items for sale. Golf season just about over so more times to spend in the shop.

I like them too. I have only tried the maple plywood panels. I have no local supplier, and Home Depot is a primary supplier. I get a discount and free shipping.

Tiki I made for my son.

Backlit Frankenstein's Monster. Near life-sized and made to fit in our front door window.

This is still a work in progress as it was the project I was working on today for my Live from Poppy's Workshop YT video. This is a stack cut with two, quarter-inch canary wood pieces. Total cutting time was a hair over two hours. I am thinking I will glue front and back pieces at the bottom of each piece. If I can laser the outline I might try to add some words as in the title of this post. This will give me a good strong connection point to the base which will be 1/2 or 3/4" canary wood, I will make it deeper in the back so I can add a Forstner 'cup' for a tea light.

You always need to run the numbers. I use a lot of poplar and would need to have it shipped to me or make a long road trip to get it. That would require me to buy a lot of wood per trip to make it worthwhile. I made a little spreadsheet and plugged in every source of poplar I could find. Surprise, the local big box stores were the lowest cost. Things that tipped the balance: Near zero waste and no additional shipping.

I wish the pricing was closer to the BBply I get because I actually like cutting it better than the BBply. Cuts like butter on my laser too. I bought 3 packs of the 5/32" stuff one Maple, Birch, and Walnut. I wanted to get some of the Cherry but it's been out of stock every time I look.. at least for the 5/32" Probably price wise for running it on the laser would equal out because the lase tube only last so many hours and those hours diminish the higher power level you run it at.. I have to crank up the power more and a bit slower speed for BBply and quite a lot less power and faster speed for those project panels.

sue mey always comes up with new christmas patterns each year. Wood is usual birch and cut with spiral blades

Cut out of Rimu rescued from a building site

Just purchased a used dust collector for my scrolling. It is one from the old house of tools. It is a canwood DC001A dust collecter. Looking for copy of owners manual. I have tried the online download sites and there are no digital copies avaliable. Please send to rcwoodcrafts@gmail.com PLEASE. Thanks---Rob

Another member, Scott M, recently posted here with an image of his version of "Skull" by Janevski. He did a great job and inspired me to give it a try. As a relatively new scroller I was intimidated by the large number of cuts required in this design and wasn't sure if I could pull it off. To up the risk factor even more I decided to try a spiral blade for the first time. What the heck, the videos make spirals look easy to use! What could go wrong? With a new #2 spiral and a piece of 1/4 inch BB I dove in headfirst and began cutting. To my surprise, like the videos show, cutting with spiral blades is easier in some ways. The piece doesn't need to be rotated, and I was able to work much faster at higher RPMs than I ever did with a straight blade. To be fair, the design doesn't require much accuracy except where cuts run close to each other. I did make a few mistakes and had one breakout but am happy with the result.

Right, The BBply I get locally and get 10 60 x 60" sheets at a time for about $200.. $200 in these project panels doesn't get me half of the amount of material. I have the lumber yard cut the sheets in half for easier handling but i still have to break them down to about sheet of paper size. Even have to break down the project panels for the laser as it's not big enough. Might be a different outcome as most hobby sized lasers like the glowforge etc. are the exact size of these project panels so in that case I just think I need a bigger laser, .. To get a laser in that size is upwards of $2000 now days.. I could see where if i had one of these lasers I'd buy the project panels for convenience and less wear on saw blades etc to cut this stuff down.. I think this is why these project panels are pricey because the demand in the laser community for it.. most all the laser groups talk about using this stuff. Many of the laser users don't even have a shop, they just use a spare room and pipe the exhaust out a window. If I'd just go big though, I could just get a laser to put a 5 x 5 sheet of BBply in too.. that would be a $20,000 laser probably.. LOL

I remember taking this photo and thinking it was a bit of a dud at the time. But not so long ago I took another look and this is what I ended up with.

I rarely encounter warped or cupped boards. Because most of what I make is small, using small pieces, these are easy to flatten by sanding. I stack mine flat on wire shelving with no stickers.

If you have ever seen something that you would like to cut on your scroll saw, but you could'nt because the lines were not thick enough, I came upon something that will help. I don't know how to inbed a link, so i'll just tell you to go to youtube and type in "how to thicken an image outline in inkscape." The girls name is Amber Renee. Just follow along and you will figure it out. Here are three pictures so you can see the difference. I'm going to cut this image out and fill with epoxy resin. I will follow up with pics of finished product. I hope this helps someone....forrest

Years ago I also struggled with this issue.. back then I didn't have my bandsaw, planer and many other helpful tools to work with so I switched from timber to cutting plywood.. Now before someone starts saying plywood warps too I'll say yes it can but it is way more stable than standard timber. Many will also say they don't like BBply as the grain is kind of just bland and also doesn't stain well.. I've been using all sorts of plywood from Cherry, Oak, and walnut etc. and I don't end up having to toss out too many because of voids etc.. and I've made 1000's of ornaments over the years.. I actually think I toss more bbply for the occasional football shaped interfering with the look of the ornament than I do with voids in the other plywood. I suppose it might be more issue with lots of fine details in a portrait type cutting but I've had very little issue with plywood. Especially plywood that is designed for use on lasers.. called project panels from Home Depot. That stuff has been good stuff for me but I haven't used a lot of it because some of them are not the same species on the back side.. so i just go to my local lumber supplier and buy full 4x8 sheets good on both sides.. There are good quality ply for laser use from other suppliers that is good on both sides.. bit pricey but better tossing out cupped boards.

I did that on our dining table. Wife not happy.

It’s important to understand what causes the warp or twist, and for the most part, its uneven moister absorption or drying. If you purchase thin boards, it is important to provide equal air movement around the board. If it is just a few boards, then just lean them against a wall or work bench to allow equal air movement. Do not lay them flat on any surface. This does not allow for equal air movement. The same applies if you resaw or plane your boards. You must provide for equal air circulation around the board. If it is a lot of boards, it is best to stack and sticker the boards. That is stacking the boards on top of each other with stickers or thin sticks in between each board to allow for equal air circulation around each board. Either way, you must allow for some time to allow the boards to equalize to the environment of your shop. As for trying to take the cup out of a warped board, you might spray a little water on the cupped side of the board, then apply a little heat with a heat gun or hair dryer to the wetted surface. This trick works sometimes. I make and sell a lot of ornaments each year, so I stack cut all of my ornaments. Beacuse I have a full woodworking shop, I can mill all of my thin stock. I either plane or resaw my blanks to 3/16” thickness. I will usually stack three layers. If any of the boards have a cup in them, I’ll stack the cups against each other, then clamp the stacks together along the length of the boards. This will flatten the stack. Then I apply hot glue along all edges of the stack. After the hot glue sets and removing the clamps, the stack will be reasonably flat enough to cut. These picture show a stack of boards I bought online before I got my band saw for resawing. I cut the stickers from 3/4” pine.

This is an H. Botas pattern. I believe this is a piece of Spalted Maple. Finished with varathane. The original pattern has an eyebrow but this piece wasn't wide enough to allow it. I didn't want to shrink the pattern to fit because it would be way to small. I love the way the colours of the wood popped with the finish.

This is a gift for a good friend of mine. 1/8" BB for both layers. Bottom layer is a picture of the hill behind his Airbnb in Bulh Id with two kingfisher's ( his favorite bird ) on the rocks. Top layer is a pattern available in the library, artist is Grandpa. FD Polar #1 blades throughout. 11 x 14

Really nice work! Beautiful

That came out great. I might have to try and do one for my granddaughter. Yhose letters look pretty small to cut.

3D Snowflakes - my new pattern and project, size is about 3x3x3 inches, 1/8 thickness. For this moment I cut the first one (left) and the set consists of 6 snowflakes. Video of making 3D Snowflake Snowflakes pattern

Great job. Jeff