Leaderboard

This is the third chess set I have made using the scroll saw. Black Walnut and soft maple. Chess pieces were cut on my Hegner with Pegas #5 MGT. I went through 43 blades. It took me roughly 50-60 hours to make. Finish for board and box is shellac/alcohol, 50/50 split, applied using French polish method. Same finish was applied to chess pieces using a rag and tiny brush. A shout out to Dave Monk the master of chess sets for his input. IMG_6438.mov

Well the cutting is done, now to decide about the backboard (thinking green) and the framing P.S. cut 2 at once

"Vamp" 36,5cm x 45,5 cm, backer board 4mm, Vamp 4mm, 'cheap' DIY store ply, done with a hand held fretsaw with a #1 blade.

I’ve never done one of these as all I’d seen was a few celebrities and it didn’t seem worth the effort. I found a site called Spiral Betty where you can make your own patterns with lots of adjustments you can make like, orientation of lines, number of lines, contrast, etc. It didn’t turn out exactly as I’d envisioned but I’m thinking my granddaughter will like it.

Finished! "Vamp" 36,5cm x 45,5 cm, backer board 4mm, Vamp 4mm, 'cheap' DIY store ply, done with a hand held fretsaw with a #1 blade.

I finished cutting this scroll saw wood-art piece yesterday. From an original painting by artist Ken Zylla.

Wow, less than a year and I've got it done!

Currently working on inventory for the one "event" I do each year. Starting with puzzles, word art, and portraits before moving on to other things. Examples include …

An Alex Fox Basket C21 Modified. I used 1/4" solid Walnut 8" square. Cut on the Pegas Scroll Saw using Pegas #1 MGT Blades. After sanding each ring with a Mac Mop, glue one ring at a time. When complete, one coat spray Shellac, another light sanding, and one coat spray Lacquer Clear Gloss. Comments welcome.

Four more Miniature Birdhouse Ornaments designed by the late Diana Thompson. I used Walnut for the birdhouses and Spectraply for the little birds. Cut on the Pegas Scroll Saw using Pegas #3 Super Skip blades for the little birder and Pegas #6 Super Skip blades for the birdhouses. After a light sanding with a Mac Mop, dipped in diluted Shellac, another light sanding, and a final dip. Comments welcome.

Bragging rights-not. This was supposed to be a shower gift for my niece. I stupidly glued the base to the rings before sanding. While tring to correct, made some gouges in the bottom. I am now the owner of a new, small bowl! Made with Poplar. Locer the grain in it. Finish is beeswax/mineral oil. Maybe we need to start a new category.....Not Bragging Rights

My new pattern and project "Gone Fishing" - Key hanger with kinetic mechanism. When you hang keys - fish appears. Project size: 4x2,5x1 inches (box only); 7x2,5x1 inches (box with fish and hook). Watch the video, it shows how it works and full assembling of the project Pattern includes step by step assembly instruction - Key hanger pattern

So this is something I've been messing with on my laser cutter but I don't see any reason someone couldn't do this with a scroll saw.. though you'd probably need to be a pretty good with the scroll saw to make it work correctly. Look at how you can cut several lines into this 1/8" BBply and then you can bend it right around a corner. When I first run across this type of work I thought no way that really works so I had to purchase a laser file ( also comes in a printable PDF for those wondering ).. so the design could be printed and cut on a scroll saw. The designer has many different things like clutch purses etc.. I'm not sure how the designer quality of the particular person I purchased this design is as I'm having fitment issues so they are sort of working with me on a fitment flaw of their design. For clarification the design comes made for several different thickness of plywood and they designed this maybe they tested with 1/4" but the 1/8" version is off I don't know but the one I used is not correct to work right.. hopefully they'll fix the pattern and make it right with me.. But anyway back to my point of this bending right around the pretty sharp curve by just cutting several relief cuts.. I've not seen anyone doing this sort of thing with a scroll saw.. I may have to try it on on the scroll saw just to see if I could do it. Btw: This is a card box if you didn’t figure that out. Edit: Guess I should have uploaded the pictures.

I haven't been doing much-making things in the shop. There is much broken stuff. I made these fluffy kittens today for a custom order. Nothing fancy, just some cutouts for her to paint. I cut them from a piece of premium pine from Home Depot.

Check this out. The smallest pieces of this are about 3 mm x 1 mm.

AI is just new. I do not even have a cell phone yet. Nothing against "New". I just would rather talk to people. So @JTTHECLOCKMAN, I say state your opinion. It will not offend me. I do not know if I love or hate AI. I have not been involved with it. Probably never will. At 81, I do not think I could figure it out, just like a cell phone. I do think with Gimp, and Inkscape, other available software; Pattern making is way more difficult than it should be. But just because I can't do it does not mean I hate it or it is bad. Just means it is all way over my abilities. I have been around computers most of my life. My main job when I got out of the service was as a computer operator, way back when Computers took up rooms. They were in climate-controlled rooms, cooled by liquids and took crews to operate them. So look what has happened in my lifetime. Now, a cell phone has more computing power than those old computers. Pictures back in my day: Yes, you had to wear a coat and tie to operate a computer, even on graveshit!

Building a sign and lamp for my son's Tiki Bar.

Went to a Estate Sale and picked up 13 4x4 x 3/8th thick sheets of Luan plywood for $13.00. Hubby didn't waste any time putting them in the car. lol. 450

Good point! Pun intended. I am a top feeder.

I took my reply down because I do not want to start another tech war. Seems there are people that love that stuff. I am old school scrollsaw hobby. No lasers CNC or AI for me.

I was a computer programmer for 40 years and this stuff is way beyond me and have no desire to learn. Much rather sit at my scroll saw rather than the computer.

I spent the last few days working on computer projects, mostly trying to figure out which of my old computer collection are worth keeping or upgrading. I used the Grok AI extensively for this. It was extremely helpful. This is related to scroll saws because if it were not for my computers, I probably would not be scrolling. Now, if I could teach Grok to draw scroll saw patterns for me.

Cut using live edge walnut. I’ll probably sell it. I don’t hunt deer but I liked how it turned out. Finished with semi gloss poly.

I try to have nothing to do with AI.

On either one of your examples, you cut away the white. In the second one, the shading is the "wood". But not al patterns are the same. For example, the first one could be cut either was. You could cut away the the black and have a portrait style project. Or you could cut away the white and have a cut out or silhouette type project. I will always study a pattern before I cut it. Sometimes you will come across a pattern that does not have any shading or black at all. I will study it and decide which is the waste and which is the project. Sometimes I will even shade the project side just to keep track of the pattern.

Hello, I'm a former structural engineer living in Boulder, Colorado. More of a woodcarver, but I just purchased a used scroll saw to help cut out patterns. I'm glad I ran across this site as it has been very helpful in getting started. Looking forward to learning more.

A matter of preference. To me, light gray / red looks worse. I agree that I should have used a lighter grey in my earlier pic, but to me the contrast white paper / black line / light grey areas is way more visible that white paper / red line / light grey areas.

Barb, it still looks good to me, well done, RJ

Hey Everyone! In this fun scroll saw project video, we kick off Spring & Easter Projects for 2025 with a cut Easter Bunny, Easter Egg Holder! This Steve Good Design is made from various shop scraps and is the perfect design to display a specially painted Easter egg (Maybe even the Golden Egg!) Happy Spring my friends and I hope you all like the video! #ArtisanPirate

I have 4 or 5, maybe 6 of these. My wife has one that was her Mom's. My Dad refinished it around 25-30 years ago,, it still works. The others, I have torn apart and made table stands out of them. I say go for it!

This type of punch can generate up to 82,000 psi at the tip. This is because all of the force is concentrated in a tiny area. I looked it up.

Wow I learned a new word today "fretsaw". I had to look it up. If a saw doesn't have a motor attached I don't use it. LOL

Beautiful work. Unique idea too.

Steve Good has a “Living Hinge Box”. The box walls are cut so it bends to make it a round box. I guess that’s what the design is called.

I'm 73 years old, and I try to learn something new every day. I have been taking online courses for a few months and have completed these. Intro to Neuro Science Intorduction To Nutrition Intorduction to Nietzsche Brain Plasticity Why We Get Sick Evolutionary Inference (current) Intro To Psychology Basics Of Biology The Boy Crisis I read mostly nonfiction every day. I like books on history, medicine, and nutrition. It makes me sad to hear someone say they are too old to learn. Learning new things can make your brain grow.

Bob, with all you said my head hurts just thinking about it, too old to learn, RJ

X.com is where I use it. There is also a grok.com. This is Elon Musk's AI. I also use ChatGPT, Gemini, and the built-in Gramerly. Grok is by far the best. If you are on X, you can use it to analyze posts, and it also does trends. Grok is very good at writing code. I gave it a short program written in a very old version of Basic that they used in the time when computers used tape reels and everything was printed on paper because there were no monitors. I asked Grok to convert it to a bash shell script that I could run on Linux. Not only did it do the conversion, but the script worked right out of the box. I have tried this sort of thing with other AIs, but I never got code that worked. This morning, I wanted to teach it how to draw a scroll saw pattern that didn't work even after I uploaded samples.

AI absolutely frightens me but I’m old.

Okay, I admit it, NOBODY HAS MORE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE than me. I worked as a tech in a development lab for 28 years in BIG BLUE. There were days when I walked out of there with my head spinning from all the engineering talk, we would build the circuits that the engineers designed, and they would pull their hair out until the designs worked. Great work, but I'm so glad I'm out of it. Rick

Thank you Marie. This is the book that has the patterns. Dave Monk recommended it to me. It is out of print, so I bought used on line. Like I told Scrappile, I suggest 2” squares for chess board. 1 1/2” is too small. The reason I went 1 1/2” is my planer can only go up to 13” wide. However, on this board, I didn’t have to plane it, as I glued it up the correct way using cauls. Believe it or not, I had .010 flatness after sanding it only. It did end up cupping just a smidge though, but not enough to care.

Stylized Owls pattern by Sue Mey. I reduced the pattern to fit the wood. I used 1/2" Red Oak 4" x 12", so each is about 4" square. Cut on the Pegas Scroll Saw using Pegas #3 MGT Blades. After a light sanding with a Mac Mop, dipped in diluted Shellac, another light sanding, and one coat spray Lacquer Clear Satin. Comments welcome.

Lucky you Judy. I look, but never have found wood working tools or wood. Just have to keep looking. Jerry

All before my time and my brain, RJ

I showed it to my wife, she said it would be criminal to use it as a scroll saw table!

Grok is very good at answering technical questions about computers—it's much better than the typical search engine. However, you have to ask clear, specific questions, or you will get some strange answers. I think they are great tools, but they are far from being intelligent.

Thanks Paul! I too was worried about how much lumber I needed. I sat down and did the math and then doubled my numbers. The last thing I wanted was to not have enough and then buy more and have it not match. if you make a set, I’d suggest minimum of 2” squares on the board. 1 1/2” is too small in my opinion

I like old stuff. I like the thought of salvaging those remnants from our past that trigger nostalgia & sentiment. I also like the idea of not wasting something that still has useful life in it. That said, I don't think our parent's generation worried too much about saving things for posterity. They used stuff until it was worn out, then repurposed it and used it for something else, until there was nothing left. If you were rescuing it from a dumpster and it had enough damage to discourage restoration and it looked cool in your shop, then I say go for it. Otherwise I think you could probably build a better, more suitable stand yourself and let some collector enjoy the sewing machine.

Thank you, I set it at 28 degrees. I put the final finish on the bowl today. I’ll be posting a picture or two.

I won't lie, there have been many tense moments cutting this. But it's still just 'follow the line, one line at a time', at slightly higher stakes. Doing something like this comes with a huge benefit: I'm not intimidated by tight cuts any more.