Warped Wood

On Monday (August 24, 2009) Steve Good at Scrollsaw Workshop posted a great flower pot pattern and wrote about buying wood at Home Depot. Still being new to the scroll sawing world, this is how I get most my project wood.

I have one big problem I run into from time to time. Warped wood… Primarily with the ¼ poplar boards I get. Well I have found a solution that has worked well for me and thought I would share.

The first things you need:
Bath Towel
Iron (I have to sneak it past my wife)
2 pieces of flat (non-warped) wood (these should be a bit bigger than the warped piece)
Clamps

Now I soak the towel in water. I will also dip the wood in water.
Wrap the wood in the wet bath towel
Iron the towel/wood (here I use the steam option)
Flip the wood and do the same
Put the freshly ironed (no starch) wood between the flat pieces and clamp
Once clamped I will let the wood dry for a few days (depending on weather)

After drying the piece should be good to use or finished.

July 2009

It has been a bit since my last post. There are multiple reasons for this. The main reasons are my DeWalt scroll saw was in the shop for 5 weeks (parts got back ordered) and we are moving. The move is exciting as we are going from an apartment to a house. And seeing as the house has a garage, I get to make it into my shop! Will be nice to have room to work in!

On another positive note, I ordered some scroll saw books, thanks to the Amazon gift card I got for Father’s Day! Thanks Andy! So I have a list of projects I want to get started on after we get settled. Keep checking back and I will get some more stuff posted soon.

Everyone have a Happy & Safe 4th of July!

Hearts & Keychains

Here are some pictures of some recent items I cut out. The pattern for the hearts with the initials was done by Arpop (http://fssp-arpop.blogspot.com/).

And the keychain patterns were created with a program by Steve Good at the Scrollsaw Workshop (http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/).

Andrew's 20th

There are times when someone’s birthday comes along and you can not think of a single thing to get them. It makes matters worst when the person won’t be of any help. So I put the search aside.

I found a web site that shows you a large number of words written in Chinese. Included are a large range of names. The site can be found at http://www.chinese-symbols.com/

After going to this site I got an idea! (Note the energy saving light bulb above my head) So I came up with the pattern for this name sign.
So I want to wish my oldest son, Andrew, a Happy 20th Birthday!

Cat Lady

I am sure most of know one or know of one. The cat lady. Well my family is blessed by being friends with our neighborhood cat lady. She is a good friend who happens to love cats. So I made her this candle box, pattern by Steve Good.

While on the subject of cats, one of ours had kittens recently. While my wife would like to take over the title of Cat Lady... we had to get rid of the babies. Lucky for us (and them) there is a place near by called The Cat House on the Kings. This place is incredible! It is a no-cage, no-kill cat sanctuary and adoption center. According to their web site they are currently caring for 700+ cats, kittens and do not forget the dogs too. Please take a moment and check out their site at http://www.cathouseonthekings.com/ also take a look at this video titled Cat House on the Kings

After writing this post, I decided to make the kitten sign for the folks at The Cat House on the Kings.

Elephants

As I have noted in the past, my wife loves elephants. With that said, I was surfing the internet one day and came across a picture of an elephant. It was drawn in a way that you could print in and the color it in. As I was looking at it my first thought was, I could cut that out on the scroll saw. So I printed it then I ran it through a copier at 75% & 50% reduction.

The hardest part of cutting this was the fact that I used ¾” oak and a #5 blade. But it was a gift for my wife and worth it.

What is it?

A friend and I were talking about various scroll saw patterns and such. The conversation led me to this idea. The original thought was to make this as a candle holder. The main problem I ran into is it does not put out much light. When my sister saw it she thought it would make a good planter.

One thing I did that can not be seen from the photos is I used a wood burner to write the meaning of each word. These are on the inside.

If I was to make this again as a candle holder I would want to cut the words larger. If I were to make this as a planter I would make the whole thing larger. I think it would be nice for a small bamboo plant.

Any other ideas?

Woodworking Weekend (part 2)

After coming home from my first San Joaquin Fine Woodworkers Association meeting I was talking with my youngest son (Josh) who had gone to the meeting with me. Josh had never really been interested in my woodworking. Now he was talking about it. In case you don’t know, I primarily work with a scroll saw. And now that I have two, I asked Josh if he would like to give it a try. And to my shock, he said yes. After picking my jaw up off the ground I had to think of a good starter pattern. Then I remembered a post on Steve Good’s site about this pattern http://www.stevedgood.com/feather.pdf so I showed it to Josh and he said he liked it.

After printing a couple of copies it was out to “my office” also known as the patio/workshop. I set up my old Ryobi saw and showed him all the different part and what they did. We glued the patterns to the wood and got started. We stopped a few hours later (9:00 PM) do to the noise we were making and the respect for our neighbors. The next afternoon we were back at it. After finishing the cuts on that one, Josh wanted to try this pattern http://www.stevedgood.com/supergeek.pdf
Please note: being the nice dad I try to be, I let him make some of his cuts on the DeWalt. And to my shock he preferred the Ryobi (kids…what can you do).

So I think I might have a partner in my little shop now. I can’t tell you how proud and excited I am at the possibility of spending time with one of my sons in the shop! I have been very blessed with wonderful children! I have added some pictures of Josh working and his first piece (still needs to be sanded and stained).

For more patterns by Steve Good, please go by his website http://www.scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/ and make a donation if you can, as Steve asks nothing for the use of his patterns. To see the complete catalog of patterns go to
http://www.stevedgood.com/web/catalog.html

Woodworking Weekend (part 1)

This past weekend was my first meeting as a member of San Joaquin Fine Woodworkers Association. The meeting was the officer elections and the annual project contest. All I can say is Wow! The items were great! I can tell there is a lot of talent is this group and I look forward to learning as much as I can! One of the nice things about this association is they encourage education. Besides the meetings, they are holding classes almost once a month. What made the meeting even more special was that my 12 year old son tagged along and seemed to enjoy himself.

So I suggest to anyone who lives in central California to look into this association. Watch their website as I am sure there will be pictures from this last meeting coming soon. You can also look at pictures from past meetings at http://sjfwa.com/

And there was an added benefit to this meeting I will tell you about in part 2.

Photo Album

If you take a look at the bottom of the page you will notice that we have removed the map and replaced it with a photo album. These are various pictures from past post. There is also a link to the photo album in the links on the left.

Enjoy!