don in brooklin on

The categories are scrollsaw, flat work, and wood turning. No one entered the wood turning. There was also a prize for best in show which went to a fellow who came up 6 different ideas. Each was a Home Depot gift card for unknown amount.

This my second entry to our clubs 2x4 challenge. It a standard SPF 8 foot. I cut to 8 - 12 inch lengths and then jointed and glued 2 pieces together. I then resawed one piece for the front and back. I then applied the pattern to front and the 3 - 1 1/4 layers. Cut out each layer accordingly and then glued the layers back together except the back. Then glued each drawer. Even though, I very carefully lined up the openings, i did a lot of sanding to get them to fit. Glued the back on and cut outline with the band saw. Finished with wipe on poly. Didn't win any awards but I had a hard time convincing everyone that firstly it was done mainly with the scroll saw any I did not use a 2 x 8 as the joint it the front and back you can hardly see.

Our club runs a 2 x 4 challenge each year. The objective is to use one 8 foot standard 2 x4. You don't have to use SPF but you are given special consideration if you do. This is my first entry. The pattern is by JGR. I resawed the 2 x 4 to 3/4 but by the time you joint and plane it end up at about 5/8. A number of pieces glued together to about 17 x 24 and the patterns is cut segmentation style and shaped. I then stained, dyed and painted. Some things like the straw are just burned. Because you are supposed to use as much wood as possible I also did the pumpkin (DIM) and the cat and dog (Janette Square design) as part of my entry. It came first in the scroll saw section

Looks great. Hope this sells too. Whose pattern? I have Bruce Worhington"s Charlies Angel pattern and is all cut with nice tight pieces but when I went to glue up it it didn't fit. Too many small piece for my hands. It has sat there for a year. I would like to do an easier angel that looks a good as yours.

When I was looking for a scroll saw a friend said "Buy the best and only cry once". Our club has Dewalt 788's and I was tempted but the best at the time was an Excalibur EX-21. I have used the EX-21 nearly every day for 13 years and the only thing I have done is replace the blade holders with the Pegas blade holders. The clubs DW788's scroll saw have been rebuilt a couple of times as the bearings wear out. I look back and I think having a better saw has made the scrolling more enjoyable and when you amortize the the extra cost it was a cheap investment. I have not seen the WEN or the Bauer is person but I would check and see how easy it is to change the blades for you. The nice thing about the Pegas and the EX-21 is the ability raise and lower the arm. Small point but makes life easier. The Bauer on sale is tempting.

I'm interested just need to get inspiration.

All looks great. Good luck. I am sure you will sell out of the Maple Leaf Gnomes. Lots of fans - too bad not many goals.

I use what ever scraps. For my class I got a piece of ash 1 3/4 square in the discount bin at my lumber yard. Cheap. 4 feet for $8 I had some basswood squares and as an experiment I cut one out to see what it looked like. Easy to cut but It looked way too white. I then just dipped in stain. (Oak) and it came out okay. I should have spend a little time sanding. The squares are cheap on amazon but 1.4 x 1.4 which I think would work.

Love the bird houses. I fill with moss I got a dollar store 10 years ago and still have lots. Just finished teaching 7 new scrollers in the last 2 days compound cutting. I was fun seeing the amazement when the house and the bird popped out. One student wrote me today to say the smile has not left her face.

They came out real nice. Must try some spruce. Did you just put food colour in the hole?

I have an older EX-21 with no dust collection. It is a simple box that catches the sawdust and small piece that catches it before it fall on my leg. It is real crude and if I was doing more scrolling I would add dust collection of some sort but this works. I have a ceiling fan that runs too.

I bought 16x150mm plastic test tubes from Amazon about 75 cents each. (CANADIAN). They fit in my EX-21. They have cork tops instead of of twist tops. A little higher but would work. I have enough of the tubes I got from Lee Valley a long time ago. I do group buys by the gross for our club and this easier for members. I added a dollar to the price and they still got a deal.

Denny. I have the pattens too that I bought from Dianna when she still had a web site. Scroller is difficult to deal with as a Canadian as pattens are not downloadable. I don't use any patterns in my classes that are not in the "Free" world so with the standing birdhouse I modified Steve's.

The image in the PDF is really large as compared to the drawing inside. To get the image only you can use Inkscape to CLIP the image. open inkscape Import the kitchen pdf select the rectangle tool and draw a box over the image. (you may have to lower the opacity so you can see it drawing) Once you get to the size you want. Select images and the box. (use shift key) go to Object - clip - set clip You now have image of just the kitchen. I then opened new document. and copied the image to the new document. With the new document you can center the image to the page. (if you want you can enlarge to the page) Save as PDF sss.pdf

I usually clear them. Sometimes it is difficult if you have corners not perfect. Sometimes you have to cut the again. I have even had to cut in to pieces as they would not drop out. I just did a standing bird house this way and I used the scroll saw and it was easier. I touched up on drum sander to make sure square. Look forward to the completed project as test piece looks great