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I haven’t been here in sometime, though I still scroll regularly, I don’t get online as often. I have been expanding into more hardwoods, though I will still cut an occasional portrait in Baltic Birch. This first one started from the Treehouse pattern by the incomparable Charles Hand, though I took a few liberties to make it unique. Instead of BB I used a 5/8” African Rosewood board and cut a large vertical oval with a recessed angle cut. I extended the tree, added the girl in the swing, added the foliage, carved the bark into whole tree, along with a couple of knotholes. Then I cut a piece of 1/4” BB to fit behind the recessed cut and I inlaid the boy with a kite, his dog, the two cats, butterfly, the hanging birdhouse, and the 4 birds over the treehouse. Hope you all like it! This one took a bit of time to do. I will add a couple of other recent projects on another post. Incidentally, other than the inlay work and the recessed cut, almost all of the rest of this was done with spiral blades and I used my Pegas saw. The carving was done mostly using a Foredom power carver, and some by hand.

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.

Just so you I have been doing something. I am finished with the Halloween candy boxes (Alex Fox Pattern). I am so done! I have three more cut out, but I do not intend to finish them. Maybe next year. I enjoy the cutting, the painting, not so much. I have got to fill them with candy and wait time the time to ship them. So done with the painting. Painting sucks!

I really don’t do too many Baltic Birch portraits anymore, as I have been working more with thicker hardwoods. That said, a friend asked if I had ever done any with Johnny Cash or Waylon Jennings, or if not, would I consider doing them. So I have some 1/4” BB, checked Charles Dearing’s site, found some cool patterns,and with some minor variations came up with these two. The Waylon Jennings has some very delicate bridges, which were a little nerve wracking.

Tiki I made for my son.

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

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

Actually warping can come from a few different reasons. All boards have internal stress built into them from how the tree grew. So many times that stress is released as the boards are sliced. Also boards cut from various sides of a tree due to how the board grew facing sun and things like this adds to it. Moisture in the boards when they were cut can lead to warping. Stacking and drying can lead to stress of the boards causing warping. Weather kiln dried or air dried can lead to boards warping so my point is too many factors to pinpoint why your board is warping. No way of knowing if buying off the internet what you are getting but sometimes your better vendors take the extra steps to choose better material and thus can reflect in pricing. So do not judge a book by its cover. When you get boards that were shipped it is always good to store and stack them so that are stickered to allow air drying before use. Those woods can come through so many different climate changes and need to settle down to yours. So do not be in a hurry to use and plan ahead. As far as BB plywood, that too falls in the same category and especially today because harvesting is being rushed more so these days as opposed to yesteryears. But plywood in itself is a more stable material just because the way it is manufactured and I do not need to go into that because we should all know how plywoods are made. Now with this all said one advantage we as scrollers have over cabinet makers and others that build dimensioned objects is that when we scroll fret work into a piece of wood no matter what it is it will release stress factors within that wood. This is not to say though it still can not warp because it will. Sealing with finishes does help. Framing pieces with more substantial pieces can help also. I am not familiar with the product you are all calling " Project Panels" I may have to look into this stuff some. If you can get in various species of woods is a great thing and if as stable as you say then need to see what it is made of because if all plywood then it has the same aspects of warping as all wood products do. Now the talk of laser use. remember one thing too when you apply heat to wood you change the characteristics of it too and can subject it to warping in ways it was not designed to. Remember wood is a natural product and any altering its characteristics can do things This goes for laser work, staining and finishing, cutting and thinning, and even painting. Now I too have a shop full of tools and always dimensioned my own lumber. I use very little BB I like the look of wood grain BB is dull but if painting and coloring then it could be what you need. Hate to paint natural woods. But one thing I always had the ability to do was to select my own boards from reliable lumber yards. Both domestics and exotics. Breaking down woods for projects is all part of the fun and being able to call yourself a woodworker. ornaments are so easy to break down especially with todays tools such as battery operated saws and straight edge devices. You break them down to squares to fit your pattern. Not much waste at all. It is the same when doing scrolled projects. Lay patterns on top of wood and cut out. Maximize all woods very easily. We each have different needs and use what makes sense for what we do. If you are going through tons of sheets of BB for 1000's of ornaments then buy in bulk. and prepare for it. Store it in a manner that will stay flat. Again if we are to be woodworkers it takes more than a scrollsaw to get the job done. Happy woodworking.

This is heresy and I'll probably be boiled in oil,drawn and quartered, and the remains burned at the stake. I recently had some of my air dryed elm warp a little too much for a project. I took the pieces, sized for the project, into the shower. I rinsed the boards down with hot water and allowed the steam of the shower to soften the wood. I stacked the boards by size on a cinder block and then stacked three blocks on top. I let them dry for a week and a half. So far so good. It's been several weeks, and no return of the warp. Your results may vary.

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.

Well if you seen my thread in introduction it has need a long time for me since I used my scroll saw. The wife and I started doing stained glass and having a lot of fun learning about it. Now I am wanting to incorporate stained glass with scroll saw project. So this will be interesting. I think it will just be a sheet of glass not an actual stained glass project. Using a sheet of glass behind a scrolled out project and mount it on a chain for a window. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone try that. So I am looking forward of trying that. You can make a box out of stained glass and you make boxes out of wood so I think I can get a dermal router bits and play around with that idea. Maybe that will help you with Ideas LOL.

Cut out of Rimu rescued from a building site

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.

Fresh off the saw. Still need to sand and decide if I am going to do her all Black or color. I love when I can get two for the price of one. Several more to cut.

Joe, that is beautiful piece, excellent cutting, RJ

Paul. you have done an excellent job, painting also, RJ

I have done dozens of projects combining stained glass and scrolling. This is an engagement present I scrolled backed in glass. I cut an angled recessed ring in the outer perimeter and inserted the glass in back of it.

Nice work Paul, I also do not care for painting with a brush anyway.. however whoever invented paint markers has made painting for me enjoyable..

That is a great piece. Took a lot of thought, patience, and talent. Job well done1

awesome job

I have heard of doing this... I think my brother once told me this. I'd love to use timber rather than ply but the amount of production with ornaments I do it's not very productive to spend weeks trying to get boards to do what you want / need them to do. I bought a bandsaw to resaw thicker boards down and plane them etc as I use them right away to prevent this but that is also a lot of time investment. I realize many of you are not selling etc. I'm just stating why plywood works best for my situation.

Some very fine cutting on an intricate pattern looks great.

Stunning.

WOW Joe, that is really nice. You should enter that in some kind of contest. That is a real winner. Jerry

Welcome to the Village! Do you happen to have any stores around that carry the Rikon brands.. I'm pretty certain that the Rikon is the same exact saw in blue instead of red,.. I was at my local lumber supply shop and they had the Rikon on display.. Looked like a decent starter / entry level saw. I don't think I would like the "locking mechanism" but if just starting back in the day I loved the DeWalt and my biggest complaint on it was having to hold the arm up so unless you get a arm lifter for the DW this is a nice feature with this saw.. just not sure I'd like having to reach back to unlock the arm each time.

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.

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

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.

Ordered Friday night, they were in my mail box today, fast service, Thx Denny, RJ

Congrats on the new saw, I hope you get many hours of trouble free sawing with it. Thank you for sharing the experience so far. Maybe update us again after you get several hours of time on it.

I picked one up yesterday. My Delta 21 inch is crashing out (again!) and I'm tired of messing with it. Figure if I'm going to get cheap Chinese tools I might as well pay cheap Chinese prices instead of Delta's inflated price. I've cut for about an hour with this and so far it's doing pretty well. It's quieter than the Delta for sure. The on /off switch being behind the speed control is unusual. It is also taking some getting to used to for the lift arm release. The delta I had to push the button when I lifted it, then just pop it and it would drop back down. The Bauer works in reverse. Just push the arm up and it catches then pull the ring and it drops down. With the longer front on the table it puts that ring a ways towards the back. I have long arms and it still can be an issue with a larger piece. I just tied a wire to the ring and mounted it to where it can be pulled from close by. Feels like a solid saw The body is pressed steel instead of mostly cast but the vibration seems to be minimal. I do have it screwed down to my base mount too. 82a4a72f-2f3b-4c44-8a7a-7c3f961022d1.jfif

I received a reply to my email. The Pegas 90.300 fits both the Harbor Freight and Grizzley scroll saws.

I think the Grizzly has a tilting table. (CORRECTION IT IS A TILTING ARM SAW) As much as I love my Hawk G4-26, now that I have been using a used EX-16 (my traveling saw) and now a Pegas 21" I really like the tilting arm over a tilting table for any bevel cuts.

Would really like to see this saw. Went to two different HF stores, both said they had them in stock, but neither store actually had any. Can’t find an unboxing or any reviews on the internet for it.